Abstract:

There has been quite a number of publications so far where the intention to introduce e-learning is mainly explained by the economic reason, claiming that universities are either eager to diversify their range of educational services or to expand in to new markets. However, in terms of economy the effect can only be measured after a lengthy period of time, necessary for both launching and running these programs. Besides, to date there is not a single tool to make such economic evaluation which can account for the fact that most university authorities decide to invest in e-learning because of mainstream pressure rather than positive economic outlook.

Thus the paper seeks, firstly, to emphasize the importance of the economic criteria when measuring the efficiency of e-learning in higher education, and, secondly, consider examples of good practice in the field of e-learning implementation and assessment, as it is easy to predict that growing competition will force universities to pay more attention to the quality of their electronic courses. Besides, models that effectively evaluate the effect of electronic education are already widely used in the corporate learning.

Companies have been actively applying e-learning in their refreshment courses for years now, and their strategy of implementing electronic educational programs typically involves analyzing the economic benefits at the initial stage with the ultimate goal – to reduce the costs on education as much as possible. Thus they thoroughly research their demand for educational services as well as available options, and outline the e-learning targets to satisfy all the basic needs of the company. It ought to be noted that evaluation models, designed by the corporate specialists, apply quantitative methods, therefore providing precise and clear results.

Although higher education institutions are also well-equipped with a number of sophisticated models based on various criteria which can measure e-learning outcomes, all these methods are qualitative and never include the economy value. So it seems only wise to study the practice of corporate educators which can facilitate adoption of some evaluation methods in higher education.

Moreover, the strategy of universities differs greatly from the one of the corporate as the ultimate goal of implementing IT technologies in educational process is stated as “improving the quality of education” which means that electronic education is automatically assumed as efficient and beneficial. A typical strategy involves agreement, setting goals and launching, so assessment is totally excluded from all stages. Obviously, this strategy looks illogical, and it comes as no surprise that most institutions report having problems when they introduce e-learning which is illustrated by the cases presented in the article. The analysis of those obstacles clearly proves that higher educational institutions face almost identical problems due to the fact that e-learning is assumed to be inherently efficient while it would be more logical to suggest that as any other learning it is bound to have its advantages and disadvantages. What’s more, there are qualitative as well as quantitative ways to measure electronic education and, thus, make it more efficient.

Keywords:

e-learning, distance learning, corporate learning, Learning Management System (LMS), information communicative technologies, technical institution.