ABSTRACT
In the lab, scientists can manipulate variables, open lines of comparison, or establish controls. But in life, such experiments are quite rare. As it happens, computer-mediated learning is an unusual instance that allows us to compare parallel tracks in vivo. Both corporate and university online learning were launched at about the same time and continued separately, more or less independently for more than a decade. Both have turned out to be surprisingly successful. Uncannily, both corporate e-learning and academic online learning2 have penetrated about a quarter of their markets3,4. Why did they diverge? What accounts for corporate e-learning going off in one direction, while higher education went in another?
