It must be kept in mind that e-learning is not only a research subject, but also a marketing domain. Therefore any argument must be carefully examined not only according to its intrinsic truth, but also according to its conformance to the "truth, nothing but the truth and all of the truth" paradigm. Let us put side by side two quotations.
A recent article on Informationweek.com told how premium pet food maker Iams, based in Dayton, Ohio, used Centra Software Inc.'s Symposium module to present the results of new clinical trials to 220 sales representatives. According to the article, the software package - which includes multipoint videoconferencing, voice over IP, online chats and document sharing - costs about $130,000 and has saved Iams $160,000 in airline tickets in just five months [4].
The lecture system of instruction has existed for more than 700 years. In this period many reforms in educational techniques have come and gone, and yet the lecture has survived. Although as an instructional technique lectures are often denigrated, one must regard any idea with such longevity as having a proven success record. Because of this, it is important to ask what features found in the method are the key to this success. This is particularly important when one is seeking to replace the technique with another form of instruction [3].It is clear that these quotations are stating equally true and relevant facts, but are also stating strong conditional probabilities about their authors (both chosen for an active participation to e-learning). In any case, computer aided learning must be designed from an emitter-receiver scheme and not from only an emitter scheme.
Another point of view is the following (quoted from the index page of the Cisco web site devoted to e-learning):
At Cisco, we believe that e-learning is a revolutionary way to empower a workforce with the skills and knowledge it needs to turn change to an advantage. We believe it so strongly that we've implemented our solutions internally first so that we can gain those advantages and also act as a model for our customers.This criterion of an inner use appears to be an excellent one, and one of our immediate objectives is to build internal training material to check and re-enforce the prerequisites for the learning units of our initial formations.
It is well-known that teaching is relevant only as a part in a teaching/learning paradigm, i.e. in an emitter/receiver scheme. Our opinion is that well designed e-learning programs can provide a way to obtain consumer driven learning. Let us examplify this opinion by a short story.
The lectures of one coauthor are on the web, with an active statistic tool (webalizer). That tool provides many tables and charts, and in the May 2002 report, it was stated that the web site has got 15 hits on "721502-005", and only 6 hits on "pollaczek-khintchine". The first 15 hits were toward a simple remark concerning a network card, the last 6 toward a research paper dealing with network performance.
Many conclusions can be drawn from that indication, ranging from the need of a better indexation for the web site to the evidence that only a non broken network can be efficient, and that a greater demand exists toward low-level problems.
What is true for requests to search engines applies also to answers to any released quiz. They must be cross examined to extract information about what was obvious or difficult for the users, and not only in the emitter's point of view.