WR Hambrecht Report Findings
A financial industry consultant and services firm, the WR Hambrecht report lists some general e-Learning benefits as seen from the
corporate side of e-Learning.
WR Hambrecht + Co is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New
York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The firm has financial backing from
industry leaders including American Century, Crimson Ventures,
epartners, Fidelity Ventures, Novell, and Park Avenue Equity Capital
Partners, LP.
Founded in 1998 by William R. Hambrecht, WR Hambrecht + Co is a
financial services firm committed to using technology and auction
processes to provide open and fair access to financial markets for all
its clients. The firm’s impartial auctions, which allow the market to
determine pricing and allocation, are dramatically changing the
financial services landscape.
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Benefits of e-Learning
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Benefits
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Description
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Technology has revolutionized business; now it must revolutionize learning.
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The need to transform how organizations learn points to a more modern,
efficient, and flexible alternative: e-learning. The mission of corporate
e-learning is to supply the workforce with an up-to-date and cost-effective
program that yields motivated, skilled, and loyal knowledge workers.
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Anywhere, anytime, anyone.
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We estimate that approximately 80% of the professional workforce already uses
computers on the job. Technical obstacles, such as access, standards,
infrastructure, and bandwidth, will not be an issue two years from now. The
growth of the World Wide Web, high-capacity corporate networks, and high-speed
desktop computers will make learning available to people 24 hours a day, seven
days a week around the globe. This will enable businesses to distribute
training and critical information to multiple locations easily and
conveniently. Employees can then access training when it is convenient for
them, at home or in the office.
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Substantial cost savings due to elimination of travel expenses.
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The biggest benefit of e-learning, however, is that it eliminates the expense
and inconvenience of getting the instructor and students in the same place.
According to Training Magazine, corporations save between 50–70% when
replacing instructor-led training with electronic content delivery. Opting for
e-training also means that courses can be pared into shorter sessions and
spread out over several days or weeks so that the business would not lose an
employee for entire days at a time.
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Just-in-time access to timely information.
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Web-based products allow instructors to update lessons and materials across the
entire network instantly. This keeps content fresh and consistent and gives
students immediate access to the most current data. Information can be
retrieved just before it is required, rather than being learned once in a
classroom and subsequently forgotten. Training Magazine reported that
technology-based training has proven to have a 50–60% better consistency
of learning than traditional classroom learning (c-learning).
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Higher retention of content through personalized learning.
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Since they can customize the learning material to their own needs, students
have more control over their learning process and can better understand the
material, leading to a 60% faster learning curve, compared to instructor-led
training. The delivery of content in smaller units, called "chunks,"
contributes further to a more lasting learning effect. Whereas the average
content retention rate for an instructor-led class is only 58%, the more
intensive e-learning experience enhances the retention rate by 25 – 60%.
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Improved collaboration and interactivity among students.
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Teaching and communication techniques which create an interactive online
environment include case studies, story-telling, demonstrations, role-playing,
simulations, streamed videos, online references, personalized coaching and
mentoring, discussion groups, project teams, chat rooms, e-mail, bulletin
boards, tips, tutorials, FAQs, and wizards. Distance education can be more
stimulating and encourage more critical reasoning than a traditional large
instructor-led class because it allows the kind of interaction that takes place
most fully in small group settings. Another study found that online students
had more peer contact with others in the class, enjoyed it more, spent more
time on class work, understood the material better, and performed, on average,
20% better than students who were taught in the traditional classroom.
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Online training is less intimidating than instructor-led courses.
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Students taking an online course enter a risk-free environment in which they
can try new things and make mistakes without exposing themselves. This
characteristic is particularly valuable when trying to learn soft skills, such
as leadership and decision-making. A good learning program shows the
consequences of students’ actions and where/why they went wrong. After a
failure, students can go back and try again. This type of learning experience
eliminates the embarrassment of failure in front of a group.
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The SunTrust Equitable report also specifies benefits that are more specific to
the learner and the content provider.
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Additional Benefits of e-Learning
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Benefits
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Description
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Learner Controlled
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Technology has given the individual greater authority over the learning
environment. Learning does not have to occur in a classroom. It may occur at
one's own desk or the home.
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Self-Paced
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An individual may proceed through a course or program as the information is
fully comprehended. Students can convert information to knowledge on their own
timetable.
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Uniformity of Content
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The information delivered can be consistent to all users, therefore reducing
the possibility for misinterpretations.
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Customizable Content
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Information can be developed with individual users in mind. Courses and
programs can be created to deal with each individual's strengths and
weaknesses.
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Content Updated Quickly
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Product and procedural changes can be updated and delivered in real-time. This
increases the rate at which knowledge is acquired, which is especially
important in the corporate market.
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Howard Block, PhD, and Brandon Dobell, in a Banc of America report titled The
e-Bang Theory, add a few more e-Learning benefits that are more technical or
managerial in nature.
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Learning Management Benefits of e-Learning
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Benefits
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Description
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Modularity of presentation
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The content’s architecture is modular, which facilitates different
construction of learning events, both in design and length.
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Manageable structure
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The electronic infrastructure supports managed (and measurable) interaction
between advisors and learners.
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Ability to measure the effectiveness of program
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E-learning software empowers administrators to track performance and measure
ROI. In addition, monitoring usage by learners is simpler; i.e., the number of
downloads per user can be measured. This helps training managers evaluate
cost-effectiveness and provides assistance with license negotiations based on
estimated usage.
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Simpler data management
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The rapid rate with which new learning products are introduced and older
products become obsolete create a challenge for individuals charged with
updating libraries. However, if a single version of each product is kept on a
host, users get instantaneous access to updated components.
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Greater storage capacity
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The Internet host has much greater capacity than most physical locations or a
user’s hard drive. This allows learners access to more products and lets
the advisor mix and match courseware activities to fit specific needs. Learners
can preview presentations of different courses prior to selecting one, or they
can access a specific slide from thousands.
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Individual education programs (IEPs) can be generated from a combination of the
historical record of the students’ prior learning (from monitored usage)
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As students progress, information is delivered based on what they’ve
learned and how they’ve performed. For example, a student would log onto
the learning server and a customized course would be generated from the content
database that knows which courses the learner took, how well she did, what her
job description is, what problem is most pressing. This dimension serves to
focus the curriculum only on skill gaps, saving organizations both time and
money. A byproduct of IEPs, in our view, is increased motivation from the
self-centered nature of the experience.
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