Mission E-Possible: The Cisco E-Learning Story

Training & Development, Feb, 2001 by Patricia A. Galagan

"We're breaking down the notion that learning is an event-only model," says Bauer. The flip side is a whole new way of working for the trainer. "When you move from static, event-based learning to e-learning, you're never done. You have to keep your content fresh and continually improve your site. You're just like a dot.com."

E-learning startups tend to follow a learning curve, Bauer notes. The first phase is about Web-enabling your content: Just get some courses on the Web, organize them by communities, and offer them through a portal. Next, modularize the content into database objects. Then put content development tools in front of subject matter experts and have the system alert them when their content is aging.

The second phase is about performance. That's where e-learning begins to tie content to performance and measure results more explicitly. Some questions to ask: Are we mapping learning objects to competencies? Are we measuring learners' competency before, during, and after learning?

The next step for the site is a state called learner-centricity. "Instead of having to follow learning roadmaps, users will have customized learning pushed to them as needed," explains Bauer. In addition, the system will be smart enough to know a user's connectivity requirements (how much bandwidth is available), performance needs, and preferred learning style. Indeed, the system will grow smarter about a user with each subsequent log-on, enabling the site to dish up ever-more relevant learning snippets.

"We want to be there within three years," says Bauer.

For now, the ISLG is working on more dynamic roadmaps, better search capabilities, improved assessment, and stronger reporting capabilities. That last improvement will enable the site software to report to managers the skill and knowledge levels of the technical salesforce, relative to new strategies. Indirectly, it is a predictor of hiring and training needs.

"One of the most challenging things we face on the road to customization is mobilizing thousands of content contributors without creating chaos," says Bauer. "We're requiring content providers to tag their data by such categories as type, form, audience, origin, language, author's ID, start and end dates, and so forth."

Again, but faster

The Field E-Learning Connection had barely launched when the Internet Learning Solutions Group turned its attention to its second customer segment--the 40,000 companies that resell Cisco networking gear. Spread over 132 countries, this audience numbers more than 200,000 people who need to keep up with Cisco products and obtain certification in their use.

The Field E-Learning Connection was all built internally and took seven months from concept to launch. John Chambers didn't think that was fast enough, so for the Partner E-Learning Connection, the ISLG leaned heavily on vendors and got it running in three months--just in time for the worldwide Cisco partner summit in Las Vegas, at which Chambers made his now-famous prediction about e-learning.