The Quest For Quality

In the rush to become players in the e-learning industry, many content providers have been guilty of focusing on quantity rather than quality. A large library of e-learning content is not much of an asset if in practice it is found to be bug-ridden, inaccurate, unusable and impossible to learn from. Trainers and learners are telling us that e-learning content is not always living up to the exaggerated claims that are made for it. While you would not expect to see great products so early in the lifetime of a new medium, you do expect to see good ones that perform reliably and achieve their objectives. In this chapter, I explore the many dimensions of e-learning quality and assess what developers can do to ensure their products are fit for purpose.

Why quality matters

It is reasonable to assume that, in the rush to enter a promising new market and make a name for themselves, enterprising new suppliers will cut corners in order to get products on the shelf; everyone believes they can carve themselves a niche in the market by getting in quick, regardless of whether they have the necessary capital, resources or talent. Fine, unless you’re a consumer in a new market, in which case you have to suffer the fallout of working with badly-performing products and companies that are here today and gone tomorrow.

E-learning has suffered from these phenomena, just as other industries have before. However, there’s a price to pay in terms of market credibility and, sooner or later, steps must be taken to reassure the consumer that you can deliver on your promises with products and services that meet customer expectations in full. For e-learning, quality is now the most pressing issue.

According to a survey by the European Training Village, in July 2002, almost two thirds of the trainers who responded rated e-learning as either 'fair' or 'poor' – not many classroom trainers would survive with happy sheet ratings this low. Now, you could argue that trainers are not real end users and that many e-learners are reporting an excellent e-learning experience, but the perceptions of buyers are important and the e-learning industry must take note of these or die. The quest for quality is under way.