ABSTRACT
‘Support and challenge’ and its component elements have been a feature of training and learning for as long as learners have existed. The next proposition, however, is one which would not have appeared in a list prepared a decade ago. Since then we have seen the emergence and the absorption of e-learning. Proposition
Technology is becoming an important enabler in people development, but there are many conceptual and practical issues to be resolved surrounding its implementation.
The term ‘e-learning’ first emerged in late 1999. Suppliers of computer-based training were full of optimism and were considering the implications of delivery through the web. The US-based supplier, CBT systems, rebranded themselves as ‘Smartforce – the e-learning company’ and held a satellite broadcast to announce the change a month later. However, if distributed technology products (CBT discs and CD ROMs which do not depend on the connectivity of computers) are included, it could be argued that e-learning stretches back several decades. The current CIPD definition of e-learning is ‘learning that is delivered, enabled or mediated by electronic technology, for the explicit purpose of training in organizations’ [1].