ROI of e-learning: closing in

T+D, Feb, 2003 by Paul Harris

More than ever, companies are looking to e-learning to help achieve their strategic goals, but they also expect proof of results before investing in this often expensive approach.

Consequently, the purveyors of e-learning solutions can no longer get away with citing cost-savings related to travel, instructors, and hours of lost productivity. Instead, they need to sell on such points as improved productivity and shorter learning curve.

The trouble is that those outcomes aren't so easily measured. The question is, How do you ensure that ROI calculations really determine the true value of e-learning to an enterprise?

Expert opinions and studies abound; vendors offer free courses to customers. Harris talked to e-learning directors, who said they're looking at e-learning as a strategic and major element of blended learning--and they expect to be able to determine whether e-learning made a difference, not just a cost-savings. "We expect multilevel measurement," including performance, says one.

Harris finds that learning professionals have to become partners with the business units.

For complete text, see page 30.

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Feature writers Shari Caudron, Paul Harris, and Patricia McLagan are frequent contributors to T D and have exhausted (at least temporarily) their replies to the CO.