The wide variety of eLearning programmes that are available on the market often makes it difficult to evaluate individual offers. How do you find out whether a specific application really suits your objectives?
There are various options for checking a programme before deciding whether to (or not to) implement it in your company.
- Seal of approval and certificates
- Auditing by external consultants
- In-house auditing on the basis of quality standards
- Pilot tests in your own enterprise
Seal of approval and certificates
The situation in Germany: Here we find a lot of seals for many
products and services, but there are only a few certificates
for eLearning. Two of these shall be briefly described below:: |
ZFU Seal of approval |
- ZFU-Certification: Every commercial distance learning programme
in Germany has to be approved by the ZFU (Central Office for Distance
Learning). It does not matter if the course material is available
on paper or as eLearning. In this case, the course concept and
its implementation are evaluated.
- Distribution of eLearning solutions via platforms subject to
quality assurance: eLearning programmes for continuing education
and training can be purchased directly from suppliers and via
Web sites from resellers who also provide these contents. In some
cases, only programmes that satisfy the given quality criteria
are offered. A case in point would be the German “Webkolleg
NRW” platform, which has established its own quality criteria.
Only offerings that meet these criteria may be made available
via the platform. Currently, there are four partners from the
LERNET project (Pro Management GmbH, Handwerkskammer Bildungszentrum
Münster, Bundestechnologiezentrum für Elektro- und Informationstechnik
e.V.and TÜV-Akademie Rheinland) that are listed in the German
Webkolleg NRW database for eLearning offers.
- Other seals of approval are currently being developed. They
are expected to be introduced in 2005 and 2006.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
