Doom and boom

In 2001 Elearnity published a paper entitled “Recession bites, e-learning marches forward”.  Seven years on we have oil prices at record highs, energy prices rising, food prices rising and a major credit crunch. How will e-learning fare this time around?  Steve Rayson takes the market temperature.

This month we have taken a look at e-learning trends in the US. The US is the single largest eLearning market worldwide with revenues exceeding $17.5 billion in 2007, as stated in a report published by Global Industry Analysts. In 2007 the US represented over 60%. Europe is the second largest e-learning market with a share of less than 15% but the Asian market is reported to be growing faster.

We had a look at Bersin’s latest research into the US market which is contained in their 2008 Corporate Learning Factbook. The good news is that, like in Europe, e-learning continues to grow each year as a proportion of all training expenditure.

E-learning surveys - Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Last month we reviewed Survey Money and as part of this review we set up a survey on future e-learning trends for our community to take part in. Whilst our ours was just a small sample of a few hundred people from our community of readers we thought we would compare it to the original E-learning Guild survey from which we took our questions to see how things compared. We then also compared the findings to the latest CIPD survey on learning developments which highlighted the difficulty of analysing and interpreting surveys.

 
This month the Financial Times published a special supplement on online learning and business education. The supplement was headed “Distance learning boosted by downturn.” It seems in all the doom and gloom of the credit crunch that the e-learning market could be a major beneficiary. We have highlighted some of the key messages from the Financial Times research and set out below why we have reason to be optimistic.

Time for e-learning?

As we reported in our review of the Learning Technologies Conference there is a lot less hype surrounding new technologies and a lot more positive adoption of e-learning and great case studies.  Are we seeing a growing maturity and integration of e-learning into the mainstream? This month we review some key industry reports.

It’s a tale of two markets this month, as Steve Rayson explains in his review of who’s fighting fit and who’s holding onto the ropes.

October has been a traditionally busy month for e-learning companies and this one has been no exception.

This month we take a look at publicly quoted e-learning companies. The last few months have been interesting times for publicly quoted e-learning companies.

Our round up of e-learning news this month includes:

• UK Company News
• E-learning industry trends
• Cool open source tools 

What is happening out there?

No, it’s not a posthumous release by Marvin Gaye – but rather one of the more interesting sessions from the E-learning Guild Annual Gathering. Steve Rayson was in the audience and files this report for this month’s market update.

We heard it on the blogline…

You’ll know from previous Kineo insights that you can find a lot about what’s really going on by reading the blogs of the well-informed, inside or outside your own organisation. So, this month we decided to look at the e-learning market from a different perspective, by firing up the blog scanner to see what, and who, is driving the debate. And there’s no shortage of debate:

The Learning Technologies event at London’s Kensington Olympia at the end of January was one of the best yet. There were a lot more people, or at least it certainly felt that way, maybe they had really just reduced the exhibition and floorspace to make it feel crowded. A good party trick…

Another year over and another one just begun. Looks like interesting times ahead for e-learning following the various mergers and developments last year. We reflect on the current e-learning market at the start of 2007.

July saw confirmation of two large mergers in the world of e-learning and IT training. We take a look.

This Month: Rapid E-Learning Round-up

Speed and cost continue to drive the e-learning market. Nearly every report shows that the demands on trainers continue to increase faster than budgets or resources. Businesses not only want more learning for less, they want it much, much faster.  If you're not looking at rapid e-learning, prepare to be left behind. This month we look at emerging trends in rapid e-learning.

E-learning summer holiday? Not this year...

Typically the dog days of summer are associated with a dog of a sales pipeline for e-learning companies, as decisions get pushed out until back-to-school times, and companies look again at those, um, internal projects while they wait for the bigger contracts to drop.

But this summer is starting out very differently, with a buzz of tender activity almost drowning out the football chanting. Well, not almost. If fact, not even nearly. But you get the idea... 

• Strong growth for Redtray and Atlantic Link, and the completion of the Futuremedia/ebc merger

• A new IDC report points to growing maturity in the e-learning market

• Open University is about to launch one of the world’s largest LMS implementations based on Moodle, the open source LMS.

By Steve Rayson

In November 2005 we published our first report on the UK e-learning market.

By Steve Rayson

On the eve of the UK Learning Technologies conference in January 2006 we believe that we are seeing two very different and contrasting trends taking place in the e-learning market. In the technology side of the market e.g. Learning Management/Content Management/Virtual Classrooms we are seeing clear consolidation in the market. By contrast in the bespoke e-learning space the market is becoming more fragmented than ever. We analyse the trends.

No time to read online? You can download a copy of this Briefing Paper here.

This month we have had a look at what other commentators are saying about the e-learning market. We found one of the most insightful papers to be by Sarah Boehle in Training Mag. You can read the full article here.  We have pulled out from the article what we see as some of the key trends and issues which are also present in the UK and European market.