Abstract
M.Ed.
Several authors have noted that the 21st century economy requires companies to adopt new ways of organising work. This puts organisations under pressure to acquire new skills and new ways to manage knowledge and information. (Coleman & Laplace, 2002:1; Khoshrow-Pour, 2002:111). They further maintain that technology helps organisations keep pace with changes in the workplace and can also drive many revolutionary changes. E-learning is one of the technological interventions that companies worldwide are using to keep up to the speed of changing business trends.
E-learning attracts companies, organisations because it makes learning accessible anywhere, anytime (Rossette, 2002:13). Accessibility to learning material is a very important aspect in business worldwide (Aggarval, 2003:1&2). Employees are able to learn while at their workstations thereby saving travelling costs and in turn increase the company’s productivity. Being able to learn anytime provides employees with the opportunity to be in control of their learning.
The traditional method of learning has been criticised for being expensive, time-consuming and unresponsive to immediate learner needs. As a result the number of companies using e-learning over traditional workplace learning is increasing worldwide (Simmons, 2002:13). Many companies have realised the value of e-learning and exploring this new method to try and save costs associated with the traditional method of learning.
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Prof. D. van der Westhuizen