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Thomas Edgerton
Manager of Learning Technology Research and Development,
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems, Inc., designs and manufactures products and services for commercial and technical computing. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with more than 20,000 employees worldwide, Sun had fiscal year (FY) 1997 revenues of more than $8 billion. Sun is an industry leader in the design and manufacture of powerful desktop computers, known as workstations, used in scientific, technical, and graphic applications. Sun's concurrent development of an operating system based on the UNIX standard has also established a leadership role in providing enterprises with computer networks. Sun has used its own hardware and software to establish a "network-centric" business enterprise by integrating its computer network into every aspect of business operations. Sun's motto "The Network Is the Computer" summarizes its philosophy that open, robust, and secure systems are the only viable solution to the complexities of large computer networks. By developing large computer networks and a UNIX operating system, Sun has been instrumental in establishing the mechanisms for the explosive growth of the Internet.
Sun University (SunU) is Sun Microsystems's employee training division. A department of Sun's Human Resources (HR) Department, SunU has a staff of 49 and a budget for FY 98 of $27 million. Employee training is more than supplemental in a high-tech company; it is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Sun emphasizes progressive employee training methods. Two central traits in the corporate culture are the ability to rapidly adapt to technological change, and an emphasis on continual training. Sun promotes employee education by providing group and department training budgets. Normally, employees self-manage a personal training budget between $1,500 to $2,500 per year. Employees are not required to spend their training dollars at SunU; SunU must compete with external training companies for Sun employee training dollars. In addition to individual training allowances, Sun also provides tuition assistance for university degree and accredited programs.
In conjunction with a department reorganization in FY 95, SunU's financial model changed. The department began a chargeback or "pay as you go" system to supplement its corporate allocation. In effect, SunU began charging Sun employees or departments for educational services. SunU hoped to break even with the addition of the chargebacks. However, since the change, chargeback revenues have steadily increased and allowed a reduction in the corporate allocation. Between FY 95 and 98, while SunU's overall budget increased 125 percent its corporate allocation decreased 38 percent.
SunU's headquarters is located in Palo Alto with additional facilities located in Massachusetts, Colorado, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Tokyo, and China. These locations reflect Sun's diverse and widely distributed employee base. This characteristic, along with a corporate culture that adapts well to change, has resulted in a wide range of curricula and learning options for employees, ranging from traditional classroom instruction to innovative distance learning programs. SunU's curriculum reflects three general principles: start with a curriculum that emphasizes business issues; maintain a well-educated, competitive workforce; identify and emphasize the best strategic directions for Sun. The curriculum includes the following categories: field sales, management, individual productivity, new hire, technical, team, and quality training. As would be expected with a computer-related company, the largest amount of training involves technical curricula.
SunU curricula are generated by course managers and designers who typically are either instructional designers with advanced degrees, or experts from another field who have migrated to the training profession. Many of the SunU staff have master's degrees in education, instructional design, or instructional technology, while a few have Ph.D. degrees. The majority of course developers or managers come to SunU with 6 or more years of experience in training design, instructional technology, and education.The competency requirements for course managers and instructional designers include: needs analysis, curricula design, instructional design, vendor management, and program delivery management.Typical duties of a course manager and instructional designer include: training analysis, learning product and/or class design and development, evaluation theory and application, learning theory, training methodology, project and team management, and curricula management.
The majority of curricula is delivered via classroom training. During FY 96 1,400 classes were taught, resulting in 34,000 student days of instruction. Fifteen percent of the participants were internationally based employees. Classroom training is a time tested method of delivery. Some of its virtues include: a simple, low cost, and predictable development process; a highly interactive and responsive learning environment; easy testing; high adaptability to individuals; peer interaction and support; and familiar learning environment. However, limitations include: slower delivery of information, time and place dependencies, travel expenses, and a small collaborative group. One of the main themes of this paper will be to identify when the classroom model of instruction is not the best method of instructional delivery, and how to supplement or replace the classroom experience with computer-based distance learning.
Distance learning, that is, learning that takes place while teacher and student are not in physical proximity, is an alternative instructional method offered by SunU. SunU has implemented major initiatives in the distance learning arena for four primary reasons. The first is that Sun's employee base is dispersed throughout the world. With more than 20,000 employees, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries.The second reason is that technical knowledge changes rapidly, and classroom instruction often cannot keep pace with the need for information transfer. These two conditions create inefficiencies due to time and place dependencies. The third reason is that Sun's powerful and ubiquitous computer network, created with its own products, is a readily exploitable resource for distance learning delivery. Finally, large class sizes reduce the quality of the educational experience, and learners often benefit from an alternative or supplemental program.
In the past, SunU's distance learning followed the correspondence course model: workbooks used in conjunction with audio or video tapes. SunU has also used satellite broadcasts to supplement the distance learning curriculum. SunU has developed a partnership with Stanford University, through the Stanford Instructional Television Network (SITN). In this program, live and/or recorded SITN engineering courses and seminars are broadcast over a microwave system to Sun campuses in the San Francisco Bay Area; Chelmsford, Massachusetts; and Europe. SITN offers more than 250 courses and seminars from Stanford's School of Engineering. Programs include a master's degree program, graduate courses, certificate programs, and course audit options. In addition to the SITN program, SunU uses live video broadcasts to deliver immediate, consistent information to a geographically dispersed audience, such as a broadcast to field technical support offices to prepare for an imminent product release.
A third delivery method for distance learning used by SunU has been computer-based training (CBT). CBT is training that a student receives through a computer. As an example, let us start with a simple model for CBT. SunU could develop instruction to train employees about ergonomics. The training could have several instructional modules, for example, "How the Body Works," "Basic Ergonomic Principles," and "Healthy Work Habits and Exercises." Instruction for the first module would explain how the body's nerve, muscular, and skeletal systems interact to produce motion. Instruction would include text accompanied by anatomical graphic images, simple narrated animations, and level two testing to determine what learning objectives were successfully met.
For the student sitting at the computer, how the computer is receiving the information is sometimes irrelevant. However, for the enterprise that is delivering the training through the computer, how the computer is receiving the instructional content is of profound importance. Understanding how the computer is receiving information is central to understanding SunU's use of its own technology as an instructional tool. Using a delivery model familiar to most computer users, the ergonomics CBT training would be stored on a CD-ROM disk that is inserted in the computer's CD-ROM drive. The computer accesses the information on the CD-ROM, and presents it to the student on the computer screen. As long as the CD-ROM is inserted in the drive, the user has access to the instructional material. The CD-ROM stores a large amount of information, can be readily duplicated in large quantities, and can be carried by the user around the world and accessed at the user's convenience. But let us introduce some conditions inherent to a worldwide technologically based company such as Sun.
What if 1 week after 5,000 copies of the CD-ROM are duplicated a new form of ergonomic injury is discovered? What if the sales force in China needs the material to be translated and localized? What if 3 months after SunU releases the CD-ROM, Sun releases a new line of workstations that are not compatible with the computer program that created the CD-ROM instruction?
Until now the model has been CBT instruction delivered to a disconnected computer. A disconnected computer does not have a data connection to another computer. By contrast, a networked computer is connected to one or more computers, and is able to send information back and forth through that network. On networks, information is often stored on a centralized storage computer, called a server. So for example, the ergonomic instruction could be stored on a server. Through their network connection, 100 other workstations, known as clients, can retrieve the instruction from the server. Why use a server instead of individual CD-ROMs? A large part of the reason comes down to economy of scale, currency of information, and compatibility. In the above example, only one copy of the training is required to service 100 users rather than having to ship individual shrink-wrapped CD-ROMs. In addition, the server is controlling the information and preventing outdated information from being distributed. The network server can also mitigate software and hardware compatibility issues, because the instructional program can be modified to be compatible with the latest operating system and hardware.
Let us continue to expand the distribution model. In addition, the material on the hard disk can be modified instantly, whereas modifying and creating a new CD-ROM would take at least a few weeks: to create a master, outsource to a duplication facility, and ship the disks to SunU; then SunU would have to ship the disks to numerous locations. By contrast, as soon as the information is modified on the server's hard disk, all the clients on the network have immediate access to the new information in real time. At Sun, the range of that network is worldwide. A network in a building is networked to other buildings in a campus, and campuses are networked to each other, and the connections continue on a national and international level. By utilizing its ubiquitous network of workstations and servers, SunU can extend the distribution model for the computer-based instruction to a worldwide scale. This is the competitive advantage SunU seeks to utilize in developing CBT.
Enterprises considering CBT should not be disheartened by the hardware and software infrastructure necessary to achieve such a distribution model. For in fact, many enterprises already have computer networks, often called intranets. The emergence of the World Wide Web and its distribution technology has reduced the technical complexity of distributing instruction over an intranet. Employees accessing the World Wide Web via their networked office computer are using a distribution model similar to the one outlined above. However, the difference is that a client uses enterprise's intranet to access one of the corporation's web servers, perhaps many thousands of miles away, and exclusively available to only other members of the corporation.
CBT is often equated with distribution using an individual CD-ROM disk on a disconnected computer. By contrast, distribution models that use networked intranets are often referred to as Intranet-Based Instruction (IBT). We will now explore four SunU instructional projects utilizing IBT. All four projects were developed by SunU's Learning Technology Research and Development group. This groups specific charter is to research and develop new learning technologies for use on an enterprise level. Once developed, these new methodologies are standardized and leveraged among the other SunU course managers and developers. All projects serve a global audience and are distributed through Sun's corporate intranet.
The initial emphasis of SunUs IBT program was in developing a distribution and administrative infrastructure. SunU chose the central point of that infrastructure to be an "electronic store". The SunU electronic store was to be a Web site that would allow employees to view SunUs curricular information and register for courses. Consumers are familiar with electronic store Web sites where products are available for purchase. For the SunU Web site, the products would be the SunU curricula. The term "virtual university" is often used by learning institutions to describe their specific brand of an electronic store. The electronic store also encompasses the database and the repository of computer and network applications which support the system of electronic commerce.
In January of 1995, SunU's Learning Technology Research and Development group began the transfer of its existing online course catalog to the new SunU electronic store Web site.The existing online catalog used a document management system called Helios. Helios was a forerunner of the Portable Document Format (PDF) document management technologies, such as Adobe Acrobat, currently popular for electronic distribution of materials to different computer platforms. Helios allowed the managing of a vast number of documents covering all aspects of human resource and corporate enterprise information. The group's task was to transfer the old Helios online course catalog to the SunU Web site within 4 months.
The fact that Helios was already online should not be overlooked. If organizations are going to develop an IBT program, then that program will be most effective with an online process for fulfilling administrative procedures. Otherwise, time and place dependencies reappear and reduce one of IBT's premier advantages. Consider, if a Sun employee in China had to make a long distance phone call in the middle of the night to California to gather course information, and wait for international mail to deliver course catalogs and registration forms before an IBT class could finally be accessed via the employee's computer, then the advantages of using the product would begin to diminish.
This was one of the reasons Helios was being phased out. It only provided course descriptions; it did not provide a way to register for courses. Registration was handled by a completely separate system called Regis. Regis provided online class schedules, course descriptions, and most importantly, registration capability. This automation reduced the workload on the SunU registrar. If Regis also provided course information, why was the Helios system being used at all by SunU? The answer had to do with the enormous complexity and size of Sun's worldwide intranet. Technical distribution issues precluded Regis from being available to all Sun employees outside the United States. A single electronic store available to every Sun user would eliminate the need to use two different online systems to publish course offerings and provide automated class registration worldwide. Further, an integrated system would reduce maintenance requirements. Rather than maintaining two or more partially redundant systems, one integrated system would reduce the occurrences of contradictory information and the time required to support both systems.
To accomplish the goal of merging Helios and Regis into a Web site electronic store, the development team adopted a phased approach since only 4 months remained until Helios would be phased out. The content was too extensive to attempt ambitious design changes while simultaneously converting the information. The first phase in the process was to convert the Helios Post Script files into the web browser format Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). For registration, two approaches were used. For those users who had access to Regis on their network, Regis was launched from the Web browser via a link. For those who were not Regis enabled, the site provided several pages of alternative registration procedures. At the end of Phase One the most important accomplishment was that the deadline had been met at minimal expense. Useful information was available, and the product could be evaluated for upgrades.
Phase Two, which began in May 1996, made an effort to utilize more of the Web browser's capabilities, especially hypertext. After Phase Two was completed, SunU conducted usability studies which revealed that although a large amount of SunU educational and resource information was available on the site, much of the department information and propaganda was of little interest to most visitors to the site. Most employees accessed the site to research basic information about classes, curricula, schedules, and fees. These employees had little interest in the extensive information on special programs related to specific SunU business units and staff. In addition, in the post analysis, the team discovered that the VP- and Director-level personnel who made decisions and committed resources to custom-created programs, rarely used the site. In other words, too many resources were dedicated to creating web pages that were seldom read by the intended audience and that obscured the most sought after information.
Phase Three took from October 1996 to May 1997 to complete. Phase Three addressed the design issues identified during the usability studies by focusing on defining and serving the customers, who were predominantly employees interested in enrolling in SunU classes. Information was streamlined to focus on the essential class information. The duplication of course information between Regis and the Web site was also addressed. During Phases One and Two, course owners submitted updates of course information for the Regis database by informing the registrar, but they also had to inform the SunU Web publisher, who maintained and updated the new site's content. As a result, information disparities between the two systems began to accumulate, because course owners were not accustomed to the dual process. Even if the information had been correctly submitted to both systems, the process required double maintenance. To solve the problem, a computer program was written to automatically update the Web site from the registration database. The Registrar then had only to update the information in the database, and the Web site would be automatically updated as well.
Phase Four is presently ongoing. Its primary goal is to complete the integration of the registration system with the Web site. This task involves creating a seamless integration between the Web site's self-service front end and the registration database back end. Because of the large scale of the enterprise's intranet, this involves many challenges, especially with international chargebacks and global access. The SunU database system is aging and at full capacity. Sun's intranet applications typically pull information from a network of several databases. An human resources application can pull information from as many as 16 employee databases. The more databases that are accessed by an application, the more complex maintenance and security issues become. While building an enterprise-wide browser front end for a corporate function is attractive, the complexity and scale of the databases being accessed by a global audience requires a large technical effort. This phase is scheduled to pilot in June 1998. One of the major lessons from the SunU site is to approach development and implementation in phases. The phased approach allowed the team to build and release a product while concurrently designing and developing the next release. Each phase produced a functional product that served its users needs until the next phase was completed. Phase One averaged 20,000 Web page accesses per month (hits); Phase Two, 60,000; and Phase Three over 100,000.
So far, I have emphasized the importance of sending information to the client, but for an IBT program to be implemented, an infrastructure must be in place to receive information as well. This infrastructure must be in place for an electronic store to fulfill all the business functions inherent in the transaction. IBT involves not just delivering information to anyone who wants it, but creating the technical and administrative infrastructure that controls informational content and collects and monitors the necessary data for the training program's business processes. For security reasons, SunU must know the identity of the user. If the employee is being charged during registration, there is chargeback information that must be gathered and processed. If access is only available to certain employees, access privileges must be enforced, and finally, how is delivery of instruction validated? These are issues of accountability, that is, the ability of the IBT infrastructure to gather information from the user to enable the completion of business and instructional processes. This point can be made clearer in the second case study of a SunU IBT project.
The need to achieve accountability for delivered instruction can be clearly seen in SunU's development of an ergonomic Web site. Sun's Ergonomics Program is part of the Environment Health and Safety Department (EHS). The programs goals are to reduce the risk of illness and injury, help employees be more comfortable at their workstations, and increase efficiency and productivity. In 1997, EHS came to SunU with a proposal for an ergonomics instructional Web site. The site was to offer training on how to identify and avoid poor ergonomics in an office environment. SunU chose to build the project because the requirements converged with the Learning Technology Research and Development group's goals related to IBT.
Because of the important nature of the instruction, possible regulatory and liability issues, and registration and chargeback considerations, the EHS site needed a high degree of accountability and reporting detail. The EHS department was responsible for the health and safety of Sun workers; therefore, there was a compelling need to document not only that training had been delivered, but to identify the user who had received the instruction. Implementing chargebacks for IBT was an important issue that SunU needed to address. If course owners were to determine fees and chargeback models, specific and comprehensive tracking data had to be available. Tracking data is information that is captured by the computer that relates to what part of the instruction has been accessed, when it was accessed, how long it was accessed, and who accessed it. As a new form of training, IBT needed to provide enough tracking data to enable charge backs. This capability needed to allow flexibility, so that different chargeback models could be implemented. For example, one site might charge per use, another might use testing results, a third might use a one-time fee, and a fourth any combination of the three. To resolve these issues, the SunU Learning Technology Research & Development group developed tracking and reporting capabilities for the ergonomics project which could be reused in future products.
The ergonomics site also had specific internationalization and localization requirements that coincided with SunU's development of an efficient network distribution model. In the past, ergonomic instruction had primarily been taught by an employee who traveled around the world and used English to present the material. Besides being expensive, this system did not adapt to local language needs and local/cultural interpretations. In building the instructional site, the SunU group had to achieve a production model that would allow international distribution and efficient development of localized versions.
The development team for the EHS site consisted of experienced employees and contractors from earlier projects. Key team members were the project leader/instructional designer, programmer, webmaster, writer/content developer, graphic artist, and network technician. One of the key aspects of the design and implementation was the emphasis on creating reusable development objects. Objects can be considered the content and programming components that make up the instructional product. Text, graphics, and computer code can all be considered objects. This emphasis on building a project that consisted of reusable objects contributed to achieving a very fast and replicable localization process. Once the text content has been translated, a localized site can be completed in less than 2 weeks. The site is being translated into Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, and French. These localized versions of the ergonomics site are targeted to be released in 1998.
SunU utilized the ergonomics IBT to pursue its research and development goals, and therefore "gave away" the product to the EHS Department. Nonetheless, had the EHS department assumed the cost of development, the return on investment (ROI) would have been well worth the effort. The ergonomics site, with a contractor development cost of $60,000, will quickly pay for itself in preventing injuries, increasing productivity and lowering training costs. For its first year of release, it is expected to be accessed by more than 3,000 users. Users have averaged 1.5 hours of instructional time at the site, even though there is as yet no requirement to do so. This instructional model is particularly apt for an enterprise that is geographically dispersed with a diverse employee base. The larger and more dispersed the target employee base, the more cost-effective the distance learning technology becomes.
The EHS ergonomics Web site is an easily understood application of IBT. It is hard skills training accessed at a Web site by a geographically dispersed employee base. IBT can also be used for specific procedural training and delivered in a format other than a Web page. Every year during a 6 week period, Sun's HR department conducts its salary administration focal review process. To streamline and standardize the process, the HR department undertook the conversion of the paper process to an online process. After conversion, approximately 1,600 managers were to begin using the two HR computer applications, $alTool (pronounced "sal" as in salary tool) and BonusTool, which replaced the paper forms, memos, and other correspondence encompassing the salary and focal review process. Because of the process changes, short time frame, and critical nature of the process, HR decided to accompany the tool with online performance support training. "Teach Me $alTool "was to provide computer-based training on the use of the tools, the new process, and HR policies.
SunU accepted the HR project because it provided an opportunity to develop its IBT program. Because the $alTool and BonusTool applications were based on spreadsheets, which were familiar to the end users, SunU recommended that online training be limited to short, narrated tutorials. The intent of the tutorials was to provide overviews of key functions managers fulfilled in the process. However, HR was concerned that this important business process avoid any delays or inaccuracies, so they opted to accompany the applications with a full-fledged interactive multimedia online training program.
When Sun states "The Network Is the Computer" it is trying to emphasize that a computer network should be a sophisticated, integrated, and open computing environment that a client harnesses to its benefit. The challenge in moving from CD-ROM delivery to a client-server model is in ensuring that each client is receiving the full benefit of being connected to a network. Each network has limitations on how much information it can process and transport. When a network is being asked to deal with more information than it can handle, the performance of the network degrades. What this means in practical terms is that a user accessing training for a client, via a network, may suddenly have very slow performance on their computer, making the training product unusable. For this reason, it is essential that enterprise networks be closely monitored and controlled to ensure that network performance maintains an acceptable standard. One way of achieving this is to mandate maximum file sizes for specific uses of the network, to make sure that networks do not experience bottlenecks and slowdowns in the same way that an overburdened freeway does.
Due to these types of network limitations, the design of the HR project began with the assumption that the total training product be no larger than 50 megabytes. This can be compared to the CD-ROM capacity of 600 megabytes. The inclusion of 12 MB of software needed to run the training reduced the deliverable size to 38 MB. Left with 38 MB for content development, the design had to find an effective balance between the data-intensive multimedia movies, the time and cost-intensive custom interactive features, and the more comprehensive page-turning CBT modules. All development team members had CBT development experience and applied that experience towards a successful product that was streamlined for distribution, yet engaging in content. The Sun employees included the project manager/instructional designer and a network technician. Contractors included the programmer/author, graphic artist, and writer.
Yet despite the highly competent team, development was not without its problems. In delivering training over a huge intranet, many technical issues had to be solved. SunU used an off-the-shelf program to create the training, but the product had been originally designed for non-UNIX operating systems and CD-ROM CBT delivery. The product had been modified to facilitate network distribution, but several problems with the software resulted in unstable performance. After improvising technical solutions under tight deadlines, SunU concluded that the technology used by web browsers such as Netscape were superior when trying to distribute training over an extensive network. Browsers provide a more robust, stable platform for enterprise-level training delivery and lessen the technical expertise requirements.
Because of the high-quality development team, the project was delivered on time and within budget. Total development cost for the contractors was $62,000. Development was spread over more than a 2 ½ month period, and the final deliverable provided an hour's worth of training. SunU's initial recommendation that the CBT be limited to the online movies was supported by the metrics analysis after the product's release. A summary of the final usage data for $alTool and BonusTool is as follows:
Out of a total projected audience of 1,600 Sun managers, 642 accessed some part of the online training. Metrics results showed that there were 1,020 requests to access the online movies, while only 286 requests were logged for the CBT. Because of the limited target audience, and the short 6 week period when $alTool and BonusTool were accessed, the ROI of the CBT was debatable. However, HR's decision to err on the side of caution may have been justified. In business training, ROI analysis is often problematic.
SunSoft is the operating company for Sun Microsystems software development. For SunSoft's Quality and Tools Training Department, a new educational approach was needed for its brain trust of 1,200 software engineers and programmers. SunSoft's business objectives were simple: produce better products, and get them to market more quickly. SunSoft's highly technical environment, characterized by complex and quickly changing information, required maximizing the efficiency and productivity of its engineers by creating mechanisms for sharing the wealth of technical knowledge.
Classroom instruction did not meet the needs of these knowledge workers, because traditional classroom instruction could not keep pace with the expanding body of software engineering knowledge. Engineers, who needed very specific, practical information, did not want to devote hours of classroom time to acquire the information. Frequently, by the time classes were organized and held, the information was too little, too late. As a result, the gold nuggets of knowledge and work-arounds that engineers carried in their heads and collected in their personal libraries had no timely, efficient venue for sharing. Furthermore, software engineers often keep irregular hours and login from home, making remote availability a fundamental requirement. SunSoft assessed the engineers' needs: better access to experts and tools, better organization of Sun technical information, a mechanism for sharing information, on-demand reuse of packaged information, and ubiquitous distribution for easy worldwide access.
In the past, SunSoft's Quality and Tools Training Department had utilized CD-ROM for training. While demanding less time from engineers, this delivery method still did not address all the assessed training needs. SunSoft came to SunU for a distance learning alternative to classroom instruction or traditional CBT. Based on the lessons from $alTool and the SunU Web site, SunU determined that a Web site could meet all the assessed training needs and also function within the parameters of enterprisewide network distribution. After conducting additional meetings and focus groups with SunSoft management, SunU developed SS LEARN, SunSoft's web-based Learning Environment and Resource Network. The SS LEARN internal web site was designed to be an up-to-date resource center for the software development community. Because SunSoft's Quality and Tools Training Department was the internal customer, a strong emphasis was placed on better utilization of software development tools.
Based on the usability studies from the SunU Web site, it was clear that the instructional design for SS Learn would be as important as the technical implementation. For the site to be successful, leading software engineers had to provide useful content and that content had to be presented in a clear format. In order to successfully marshal content from busy engineers, requests for content were specific and clear. The instructional designer and architect from the SunU site applied a rigorous 4-month instructional design methodology to establish the site's architecture. The result was a robust product that met user and network requirements and allowed for future development without excessive maintenance requirements.
SS LEARN needed to contain both practical information and theoretical content. As a result, the site was divided into two main sections: software tools and a journal. The journal provided theoretical information from the SunSoft development community. The journal was a bimonthly electronic magazine, or "e-zine," of engineering topics where leading Sun engineers published the latest technical and strategic information related to the state of the art and trends and directions. The format of the journal was based on usability principles combining how engineers read paper journals with the advantages of hypertext document layout and content design. For this reason, each article in the Journal began with an abstract followed by a summary and a link to the complete article which could be easily printed as one file. At the end of each article, frequently asked questions, references, and additional resources were provided, including a link to the author's e-mail address. Articles from past versions of the journal were archived and made readily available. An important part of SS LEARN's design was the inclusion of two-way communication channels. The journal always featured a letter from the editor and allowed readers to send electronic letters back to the editor. Letters from the software community could then be posted in the journal. In this way, readers could also submit proposals or suggest topics for future articles.
In contrast to the theoretical emphasis of the journal, the Software Tools section provided a practical, centralized resource for tool training, practice, and the integration of new tools into one's work routine. Tools were listed as an index of links, which enabled users to quickly survey all the available tools. Each tool section began with an overview and an online movie of narrated instruction. Following the overview were lessons on the implementation of a tool. Also available for each tool was a "how to" section which provided step-by-step learning for executing standard tasks and procedures. At SunSoft, developers, programmers and engineers are continually creating custom features for writing, debugging, compiling, and testing software code. A "hacks" section provided tips, work-arounds, and other time-saving information specific to the tool. The hacks section included examples and case studies demonstrating how programmers addressed needs that extended beyond the application's standard capabilities. All engineers were encouraged to contribute to this section. Lastly, a resources section provided a clearing house for the various forms of information pertaining to a tool, including online tutorials, documentation information, links to related Web pages, course catalogs, additional instructional materials, and user group aliases.
As part of SS LEARN's two-way communication design, both the how to and hacks sections had a survey feature for measuring a learners' impression of the quality of the instruction. Each lesson could be rated so instructional designers could evaluate their effectiveness. A "comments" option allowed users to give more in-depth feedback. On a 1_5 Liekert Scale, survey responses on average scored the site's content at very good to exceptional, that is a score of 4.0 or higher.
With its extensive resources and two-way communication features, SS LEARN served as an invaluable instructional resource for the software development community. The journal proved a popular venue for software developers to share their best work. Engineers have expressed great enthusiasm for the substantive journal articles which have generated fruitful collaboration, discussions, and controversies. The software tools section's popularity is based on its ability to help users to be quickly up and running with a tool. Very specific, technical information can be efficiently distributed to those who need it. New information about a tool can be posted and accessed immediately from any part of the world. Users no longer have to devote hours of classroom time just to gather the specific information they need. Within 20 minutes of its release, the site registered over 20,000 worldwide hits, and continued to average over 300 unique users per day during the first 6 months of its release. ROI for this type of IBT site can be more difficult to assess. In part, the site replaced classroom training; in part it supplemented it. It also partially enhanced some of the informal communication channels that software engineers share by providing a means for collaborative learning.
The SS LEARN IBT model did not limit itself to the straightforward courseware model of the EHS ergonomics site. In contrast to both these sites, the $alTool and Bonus Tool IBT presented procedural training for a critical HR business process. The lesson is that IBT should always start with a thorough assessment of instructional needs. In the corporate world, those instructional needs will be serving a business need, and in some respect should be subject to a ROI analysis. The assumption should not be that IBT is the best solution, but that IBT should be considered with all other viable options. Many enterprises lose sight of the fact that IBT can be a very successful supplement to other forms of training. And as with any other form of training, IBT should be subject to very rigorous instructional and informational design processes. When considering IBT, it is tempting to start with a technical analysis. Start rather with an infrastructure, develop compelling, well-organized and developed content, and then turn to the technical implementation.
In any case, IBT requires a substantial commitment. It requires a very skilled project leader and development team. The larger the enterprise, the greater the complexities of developing the administrative and technical infrastructure necessary for an IBT program. With the advent of World Wide Web browsers, distributing training over a network has become easier and more feasible from a technical aspect. In effect, almost anyone with moderate technical knowledge can "put up a Web page" that can be accessed by local and remote users. Creating a seamless interface between an enterprise's other administrative computer systems, such as the Regis registration system, is a far greater technical challenge. And it bears mentioning that security issues must be evaluated by a competent network administrator. The last consideration is that IBT products require on-going maintenance. Indeed, a site like SS LEARN would lose much of its value if it was not subject to constant updates. Just like the library that needs new books, new wings, and new staff, an IBT product and program requires ongoing maintenance of content and infrastructure. When all these challenges have been met, the result can be very rewarding.
Generally, the work done by SunU's Learning Technology R&D group for network client-server technology is 2 to 4 years ahead of industry trends. In discussing computer-based distance learning, this paper has emphasized network delivery (IBT) over CD-ROM (CBT) because IBT is the best way to enable a user to send back information to the delivery system. This information can be registration information, tracking information, testing information, e-mail messages, instructor facilitation, group discussions, and other means for collaborative learning. With SS LEARN, the information sent back can even become part of the instructional content. CD-ROM can be combined with IBT to achieve two-way communication, but whenever possible, SunU has pursued a pure IBT model. In implementing technologies which can capture, record, charge back and report, a development team can assess the efficacy of learning products and achieve accountability. This is in contrast to conventional CD-ROM CBT, where once a product is shipped, the development team loses the ability to assess use and track performance in a seamless manner. Reporting and accounting for an individual's experience will be an important enhancement to the Web browser technologies. The area of greatest interest and potential resides in technologies and instructional design that integrate the human element into the learning experience. One major shortcoming of CD-ROM CBT is that the learning experience is void of interaction with an instructor and other students. With IBT, the most profound interaction and enabling aspect of Internet and intranet learning applications will be the opportunities to learn from others. The fullest potential of intranet-based instruction lies in the ability to reintroduce human interaction into the learning experience, rather than isolating the learner from a collective learning experience.
[Summary of the Workshop]