The latest issue of What Works Online from ASTD, a USA-based association concerned with workplace learning, has an interesting article on evaluating e-learning.
Given the potential costs involved in committing to e-learning, the articles' authors note that there are few significant findings on return on investment for e-learning at present, although most studies show a positive return based on cost reduction alone.
The authors also suggest that the same evaluation strategies and processes used in other types of evaluations can be applied to e-learning programmes.
They also find that evidence so far suggests that traditional classroom instruction shows more favorable responses than e-learning solutions - a potential problem for e-learning, maybe, but both e-learning and traditional face-to-face learning have been found to be as effective as eachother.
The most useful part of the article is likely to be the helpful list of frequently-asked questions about how to go about evaluating e-learning, which are answered using examples of current research available.
