Online lessons
For several years, local governments have been finding ways to put government services on the Internet. The online services are hailed for making it easier for residents to conduct business with their governments any time of the day or night.
Looking within their organizations, local governments also have begun offering online services to their employees. Like online services for residents, online training courses offer flexibility for employees to learn new skills whenever and wherever they prefer.
To determine if they should provide Web-based courses and which ones to offer, local governments research the effectiveness of online courses and who performs well in them. Although online courses are not yet replacing traditional training, local governments are using the courses to expand the options available for employee development.
E-learning on the rise
Cities and counties are not alone in offering online courses to train employees. The federal government and many private companies recently have added online courses to their employee training programs.
That trend is reflected in the most recent “State of the Industry” report by the Alexandria, Va.-based American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). According to the report, the percentage of training delivered via computer increased among all members from 8.8 percent of total training hours in 2000 to 10.5 percent in 2001. Among government members — which includes federal, state and local — 7.9 percent of training methods used learning technologies in 2001. “The dual shocks of the recession and September 11 appear to have prompted organizations to find faster, more cost-effective methods to train large numbers of people,” says Chris Thompson, director of research for ASTD. “E-learning can help organizations accomplish these goals and provide more customized and personalized learning experiences for employees.”
In the government sector, the U.S. Office of Personnel and Management has launched an extensive online training service for federal employees. Created by several federal departments including the Departments of Defense, Labor and Transportation, the Gov Online Learning Center (GOLC) opened in July. It provides a variety of online courses from content providers Nashua, N.H.-based SkillSoft and Naperville, Ill.-based NETg to employees in all federal departments.
The Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Counties (NACo) worked with the federal government to make those online courses available to county governments as well. NACo Internet University (NIU) features many of the courses offered by GOLC. Divided into two libraries — one for professional skill development, and one for information technology skill development — the NIU courses can be used by county governments and their employees that subscribe to the service. Professional development courses include “Honing your leadership skills,” “Building a high-performance team,” “Foundations of effective thinking,” and “Effective mentoring.” The information technology library includes courses on creating Web pages, computer programming and networking, and using database software.
Arlington County, Va., enrolled 65 employees in NIU in October. The county pays an annual fee for each user, who can take as many online courses in either library as he or she wants throughout the year. Although the county had offered online courses from other companies previously, it switched to NIU because of the range and number of courses that it provided. “What we found with NACo is, they offer such an extensive library, and the cost is really quite cost-effective,” says Rita Lazzarini, organizational effectiveness specialist in the county’s Office of Training and Organization Development. “Besides, [the courses] are geared to local governments, so [they’re] relevant for our staff.”
To generate interest in the online courses among employees, the county created an E-learning Scholarship Program and a Technology Enhancement Program, both with competitive application processes. The first program was open to any employee, and the second was reserved for employees in information technology-related jobs in the county. The Human Resources Department paid for program participants to take NIU courses. “We wanted to reward staff who were very motivated to learn and willing to commit some time to learning,” Lazzarini says. “We also marketed [NIU] to departments as a possibility for their staff who were interested.”
The online courses have helped Arlington County improve its training program, which previously was characterized by classroom-based training sessions with low enrollment. “In the past couple of years, we’ve been trying to get people interested in learning as an ongoing career process,” Lazzarini says. “This helped because we now have 65 more people than we had before learning for their job and improving their performance. We also have much higher enrollment in [the classroom sessions.]”
Arlington County turned to online training courses as a way to fit training into employees’ busy work schedules that often prevented them from attending classroom-based courses that can take several hours. “Employees can take the courses on their own time or during working hours when they can fit it in with their regular job responsibilities,” Lazzarini says. “They can do it even from home if they’re willing to.”
E-learning vs. traditional training
The flexibility of online training appeals to many organizations, but some question whether online courses train employees as well as traditional courses. Many researchers have studied the effectiveness of online courses at delivering material traditionally taught in a classroom, and they have reached conflicting results. Some studies show that online courses are just as effective as classroom-based courses at teaching subjects, and others show that they are either more successful or less successful at teaching certain subjects.
For example, Byron Brown and Carl Liedholm, professors of economics at Michigan State University in East Lansing, found that online courses were effective at delivering basic concepts, but classroom instruction was more effective at delivering complex concepts. “Can Web Courses Replace the Classroom in Principles of Microeconomics?,” published in the May 2002 American Economic Review, compared undergraduate students’ performance in an introductory economics class offered online, in a traditional classroom setting and in a course that used both classroom instruction and online materials.
The study found that students in the online course performed just as well as students in the classroom on basic concepts, but they did not perform as well on more complex concepts. “For delivering simple information, the two [delivery methods] seem to be as good,” Brown says. “But for teaching people how to solve difficult analytical problems, [online courses are] not as good.”
Although Arlington County employees can access a variety of courses on professional and technical skills online, Lazzarini agrees that some courses are taught more effectively in a classroom. “If you’re taking a class on interpersonal skills [online,] what you’re doing is reading about some definitions about interpersonal skills; you take quizzes throughout the training; you read a lot of information about it; but you don’t have [any] interaction,” she says. “With some of the soft skills, I think you need some interaction to practice the skills and to really get an understanding of what it is to be effective in your communications.”
In an effort to join the benefits of online training with classroom instruction, Charlotte, N.C., started using a “blended learning” approach for a new supervisory course for experienced supervisors. In September, the city launched EXCEL Charlotte, which is a training program that combines online courses and simulations from San Francisco-based Ninth House with classroom instruction from locally based HR-DNA. “[Employees] started out in the [computer] lab with the consultant,” says Edith Blydenburgh, director of training and development for the city. “He teaches them a little bit about online learning, what it is and how it’s done. He gets them started and is there as they work through it. After the employees had been through the program, there was another half-day facilitated session in which the consultant processed with them the applications of what they had learned. Everybody loved it.”
‘A different way to learn’
The blended learning approach to training also addresses differences in learning styles among employees. Typically, online courses feature a lot of reading material and tests to measure comprehension. However, some people prefer to learn by listening to an instructor or watching a demonstration. For those reasons, local governments are using online courses to supplement, rather than replace, traditional training sessions.
Palm Beach County, Fla., for example, has been offering online courses about computer skills to employees in addition to instructor-led classes in a computer lab. “We thought it would be helpful if people had time to sit at their desk and they didn’t have to leave work to go to training classes,” says Anna Burke, software training specialist for the county. “I don’t think it would ever replace the instructor-led courses. There are certain staff that need that, and certain people do better going through the online training.”
The county subscribes to online courses from Rochester, N.Y.-based Element K that include computer network administration, programming and software training for common desktop applications. Some of the courses have instructors online that answer questions posted by employees on electronic bulletin boards. That satisfies some employees’ need for interaction, but not all. “Some people use it to just get answers to their questions and to supplement knowledge they already have,” Burke says. “A couple of employees do not like the online courses because they need to have [face-to-face] feedback from the instructor.”
When Arlington County began offering courses from NIU, it held an orientation session that addressed learning styles and the types of employees that might be best suited for the online training. “People are so excited about this ability to train and learn online that, a lot of times, they say, ‘Oh, yeah. I can do all this,’” Lazzarini says. “The challenge is knowing whether or not you’re the type of person that can learn effectively in an online environment. It can be static. Although there may be pictures and people talking, you still have to be someone who’s self-motivated and can push yourself to get through the class. It’s just a very different way to learn.”
Local governments have found that employees that perform well in online courses are independent learners and are familiar with computers. “I think, in a lot of cases, particularly if you’re a self-starter, independent learner, if you’re familiar with technology, you can probably get on and learn what you need a little faster than you can sit through a classroom,” Blydenburgh says. “You have to be the right kind of learner.”
Even if employees are highly motivated, independent learners who are familiar with technology, online training will not be useful if it cannot hold their attention. “There are a lot of companies out there that [provide what we call] e-reading,” Blydenburgh says. “They’re just putting out text, or they’re putting out text with a picture, and it’s dull. It’s not interesting at all.”
Online courses should be just as well-designed from an instructional design perspective as a county’s traditional classroom training, Blydenburgh says. “When you’re introducing [e-learning] to an organization, you want your first experiences to be good ones,” she says. “Otherwise, all those people who are hesitant are going to be even more so after that first uninteresting experience. Choosing it as carefully as you choose all your other training is extremely important.”
While online courses do not yet meet every training need for local governments, they can be a valuable component of a comprehensive employee development program. “Some [employees] like the classroom; some like small mentoring groups; some like e-learning,” Lazzarini says. “We try to offer a wide variety of ways for people to learn, both traditional and nontraditional, so they will be encouraged to move forward and take on [a] learning journey approach.”
