Get instruction in e-learning

Do you have a keen interest in reading, a flair for writing, strong research skills and a good team spirit? If yes, you have the makings of a fine instructional designer, writes Ali Asger Y. Shaiwalla

Companies are going the e-learning way to meet their geographically dispersed training and communication needs—all to seize business opportunities before and better than their competitors.

E-learning in India has come of age and it has become a favorite e-learning outsourcing destination for various global giants, the factors being professional competence in the English language, competitively priced human resources and business benefits offered by the government.

E-learning is fast becoming the preferred mode of content delivery. According to IDC forecasts, the e-learning market, which was about $7 billion in 2004, is likely to witness an exponential growth and touch the $28 billion mark by 2008. The global market for corporate e-learning will grow nearly 30 per cent compounded yearly over the next four years.

Advantage India

Rapid globalisation trends enabled by rich information technology present new lucrative careers—career options beyond engineering, medicine, civil services and law have emerged. Jobs like Instructional Designers, Course Developers, Content Creators, Course Writers, Course Reviewers, Graphic Designers, Authoring Tool Experts and Visualisers are catching the limelight, offering excellent professional career paths.

With potential expertise in this field, India has become a favorite hotspot for the establishment of centers of e-learning design and production. Although these careers are very recent and upcoming in nature, the demand far outstrips the supply of trained people in the business. The demand abroad is phenomenal, and reminiscent of the pre-Y2K stage when mega corps were hiring Indian expertise as if there was to be no tomorrow.

"We are setting up facilities with state-of-the-art infrastructure and are planning to recruit more than 100 professionals over the next one year with competencies in Instructional Design and Multimedia technologies for SCORM and AICC-compliant content development," says Nilesh S. Vani, executive vice-president, Aptech Learning Services.

Learning BPOs are on the rise; their services are now officially the most robust segment of the corporate training field. Learning Business Process Outsourcing (LBPO) primarily takes up the responsibility and manages the learning and training processes in organisations. Through their delivery methods and high-end tools they create a strong learning value chain in the organisation.

A lot to learn

The major players in this field are Tata Interactive Services, Aptech Learning Services, and SIFY, to name a few.

Each category of career option mentioned above requires a specific skill set, background and qualifications:

Instructional designer (ID): A person, who creates a model of an educational programme as per the needs of his clients, creates a successful educational product with the subject material and the vision supplied by a content expert and devises a strategy to achieve specific learning goals. A few years back, an ID would design curricula for instructional books or manuals. But advancing technology has widened the scope of ID services; today instructional designers consult on everything from educational television, computer-based lessons and instructional video to printed media and classroom design.

Content creators and course writers: They have to ensure that the content is accurate. Fulfilling this responsibility includes careful proofreading, especially in the initial draft stages. Any graduate or postgraduate with flair for writing, who can read and assimilate written material, who can quickly create outlines of the content, is a good candidate for this position.

Reviewers (quality): Review work is divided into the following categories: language reviewers; instructional design reviewers and human interface design reviewers. These would need a sound background in the English language and an easy familiarity with different writing and learning styles. Design reviewers would need a good understanding of ID principles, while human interface reviewers would need a good understanding of human-computer interaction and navigational functionality.

Graphic designers: Graphic designers constitute two broad categories: Designers and authoring tool experts. Graphic designers are the ones who have had formal training in multimedia, and can create beautiful images using graphic tools. They need to be artists with a creative bent of mind.

Authoring tool experts: An authoring tool expert should have a good knowledge of authoring tools, including features like embedded technology where the need to embed audio, video and graphic features would be addressed.

Visualisers: Visualisers must have a good understanding of design principles, and colour theory. A background in fine arts would ideally benefit a person in this role.

Career path

The career path is well-defined and structured in LBPOs. You start off as a trainee and then gradually move to higher leadership positions, depending on the skills, attitude and opportunity:

The start salary would range anywhere between Rs 1.5-2 lakh per annum for a trainee ID and can go up to Rs 10 lakh with advancement in roles.

Future scenario

As we are moving towards convergence and integration in digital economy, the field of e-learning is seeing a perceivable move towards blending digital learning with various learning formats, ranging from classroom-based learning to use of real-time technologies. Knowledge management is another area where learning initiatives will find scope for integration, enhancing the agility of workplace learning. Also, several enterprise software applications such as ERPs, CRM, HRM, are building learning components into the workflow to integrate performance support while working with the applications.

With the providers of e-learning witnessing phenomenal business growth, experts have predicted that the e-learning market and the job opportunities are going to get better in the time to come.