The Internet changes everything! This was the rally cry of dot-comers, venture capitalists, and back-of-the-napkin business plan peddlers during the late 1990s. And the learning industry was not immune!

It was during those days that e-learning took center stage. Peter Drucker, the original management guru, provided one of his many quotes for the ages in 1997. Interviewed on the pages of Forbes Magazine, he proclaimed: "Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won't survive. It's as large a change as when we first got the printed book.... The college won't survive as a residential institution. Today's buildings are hopelessly unsuited and totally unneeded."1 While his focus was on the cost of undergraduate college education and the limitations of traditional campuses, his words proved an accelerant for a fire that was already burning vigorously -- in and beyond traditional universities. After all, if undergraduate education was ready for a shakeout, imagine what would happen to programs for working professionals (i.e., executive education) and corporate training.

A series of high-profile deals followed. Most notable perhaps the joint venture of UNext (a private firm originally backed by Michael Milken and Larry Ellison) and some heavy hitters such as Columbia University, the London School of Economics, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Chicago. Not to be left out, Cornell University created eCornell with US $50 million in startup funding. eCornell currently offers some 76 online courses, selling for a bit over $1,000 each, and has recently reached the 50,000 courses sold mark.

While the results of the many ventures started during the late 1990s have been mixed, as with most other dot-com-era ventures, the message was and is clear: the learning space is ripe for a technology-enabled makeover that changes its economics as well as its mechanics.

To be sure, "learning outside the class" is not a new phenomenon. The notion of learning at a distance has been around since the advent of the written word and transportation. As a formalized notion, distance learning has existed since the end of the Second World War. With the advent of computers -- and later, CD-ROMs -- the notion of computer-mediated learning took hold and began to be studied and evaluated. In fact, in its many forms, technology-mediated distance learning (to choose the broadest possible label) has been the focus of rigorous study for over 50 years. There is even a book, updated cyclically, that tracks the results of all these studies; it is aptly called The No Significant Difference Phenomenon.2 Its main thesis is that the only consistent result of studies evaluating technology-mediated learning as compared to traditional classroom education -- from the early ones using TV to the most recent work using Web-based virtual learning environments -- is that there is no tangible difference in measures of learning outcomes.

Perhaps the underlying reason for such results is that we have been stubbornly trying to use newer and newer technologies to replicate the classroom experience. But as our contributors tell us in this issue of CBR, we may be on the verge of finally letting go of that holdover (or at least we should!). Instead, thanks to the Internet and the way the technologies it supports have changed how we work and play, we may now be ready to acknowledge that learning does not only happen in a classroom environment, and as a consequence, we may develop e-learning environments and opportunities for learning that are totally novel -- and ultimately, more successful.

The Web 2.0 phenomenon may have provided a nudge in this direction, demonstrating the power of loose collaboration and emergent structures. In fact, if you found yourself energized by last month's issue on Web 2.0 (Vol. 7, No. 2) only to be left with the problem of trying to figure out what to do with it, this issue may offer some insight.

In an effort to take stock of the state-of-the-art in e-learning, we recruited two expert contributors who could help us define this space, interpret our benchmarking survey, and provide some guidance. Our academic contributor is Katia Passerini, the Hurlburt Chair of Management Information Systems at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Katia has been researching e-learning models and effectiveness for a decade now. Providing our view from the trenches of business is Lance Dublin, the Chief Solution Architect and founder of Dublin Consulting. Lance brings to this issue more than 30 years of experience in adult education and training.

Katia begins her contribution by providing much-needed and fairly precise definitions of e-learning in an effort to set the stage for interpreting the survey results. She then presents an extremely valuable overview of what the research tells us about e-learning design and success factors -- discussing the classes of tools and technologies currently available as well. I think you will find Katia's rigor and wealth of real-life examples extremely useful in making sense of the state-of-the-art of the e-learning phenomenon. I think you will also find her concluding thoughts about successful e-learning practices both concise and enlightening.

Lance also begins his contribution spending a good deal of time on definitions -- as a testament to the multifacetedness of the e-learning landscape. I draw your attention particularly to one of Lance's key points: learning can, and often does, happen far beyond the classroom. I also enjoyed his discussion of the different generations at work -- I had never thought about it in those terms. More importantly, his article made me once again focus on the centrality of the learner, something so obvious and yet so often forgotten. Lance intersperses his analysis of survey results with thorough descriptions of the many emerging e-learning tools as well as a blueprint for designing e-learning experiences. If you are serious about e-learning, his piece is a must-read.

This is a very meaty issue on a very important topic --I hope you will find it stimulating and helpful.

-- Gabriele Piccoli, Editor, Cutter Benchmark Review

NOTES

¹ "An Interview with Peter Drucker." Forbes Magazine, March 1997.

² Thomas L. Russell. The No Significant Difference Phenomenon. Fifth edition. International Distance Education Certification Center (IDECC), 2001.