UK e-learning report

The authors present a set of trends, both technologies and market drivers, which they believe will underpin this growth. One key factor is that the adeptness with which the UK e-learning industry is adopting and exploiting new mediums of delivering learning is crucial to the industry’s growth trajectory. This is illustrated in how the UK’s e-learning industry has adopted gaming,  immersive learning scenarios and rapid development tools and is perhaps more expert in its adoption of Web 2.0 and Social networking than the IT industry. Further,  it is on the cusp of delivering true “portable flexible learning” – or as the authors describe it with another cool term - m.learning 2.0!

The authors identify hosted services such as ASP and ‘Software as a Service’ as becoming an increasingly attractive alternative to capital investment in behind-the-firewall implementations. They expect LMS vendors to adapt their business models by offering SaaS deployments and deeper integration with the ERP and HR systems that exist in closed corporate worlds where open source solutions may not be viewed quite so favourably as in the academic marketplace.

IMC UK Learning Ltd. has its finger on the pulse as it offers the new release of its Learning Management System CLIX as an SaaS solution. With CLIX SaaS, IMC provides an “on-demand” solution via the Internet and charged according to actual usage. IMC takes care of the installation, configuration, maintenance and updating of the software. In principle, customers no longer pay for the technology, but for the service, whose quality becomes the focus.