Panel Discussion: How eLearning Businesses can Optimize Learner Journeys

see on the screen. Since this is going to be an interactive panel discussion, thanks again, everyone, for joining in. Before we actually start with the discussion part, I think it would be a good idea to know the business functions to which each of you belong. So I’ll be launching a poll right now, which you’ll see on the screen. Just select the appropriate option. You’ll have 40 seconds to make your selection. Perfect.

So, it seems like a lot of people who belong to the UI and UX design business function have joined in. No, it seems like a really good number. A lot of people from the digital transformation business function have also joined in. The marketing function is not far behind.

Based on the data, 38% are from the UI and UX design function, followed by marketing, digital analytics, and digital transformation business functions at 17%, and then product management at 10%. It’s really great to see all the numbers there.

Perfect. So I think we can progress with the discussion. Deepak, if you can just switch on your camera.

 

Deepak Lamba:

Sure. Thanks, Vipul. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this specially tailored session directed towards the e-learning industry.

Let me start by introducing our panelists for today. First up, we have Jan Marks, who is the SVP of Customer Success at MultiClicker. Our next panelist is Brian De Kemper, the Head of University Partnerships at Springboard, a company pioneering online education. Lastly, I’d like to introduce Giuseppe, the Executive Director for Learning and Innovation at IESE Business School in Spain.

Welcome, everyone. Thanks a lot for taking the time to join us. Absolutely, it’s a pleasure. So, let’s kickstart this interesting discussion that we’ve lined up.

I’ll begin by asking a straightforward question. In light of the current situation, where COVID-19 has significantly impacted every industry and individual lifestyle, including experts and professors, it’s evident that it has changed the way we do and learn things. So, my first question to the panel would be: Why are e-learning and online courses experiencing an upward trend? What are your thoughts on that, Brian, considering you’re deeply involved in this area and likely receiving numerous requests?

 

Brian DeKemper:

Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest reason, from my perspective, is probably not as related to COVID as it is to access and convenience, as well as the rapid progression of how people are absorbing education and demanding it. There’s been an evolution in traditional higher education models, with people now opting for what used to be full-time programs online.

Different segments of education are transitioning online, and in many cases, it’s being driven by consumers. They’re seeking something that fits their working lifestyle. The profile of incoming students is very broad, ranging from working professionals to individuals caring for families, nineteen-year-olds taking their first steps into their careers, and mid-career professionals seeking executive education. It’s a diverse group, and to serve them effectively, you need flexibility and an adaptive model. Online education has been evolving over the last 10 to 15 years to accommodate this diversity in many different ways.

 

Deepak:

Alright. So that’s pretty enlightening. So I’ll take your views now, Giuseppe.

 

Giuseppe Auricchio:

Yeah, no, I would add to that. You know, with the crisis, there’s been a sort of forced experimentation with everything online. And, you know, it’s not to be underestimated. I think the fact that many of us have been, again, forced to either conduct business online, meet family online, and why not also learn online?

So, you know, this adoption curve that was, you know, due to be spread over many years of technology like this, you know, it hasn’t actually been compressed to just a few weeks and few months. And that’s both on the supply and on the demand side. So on the supply side, schools like my own have been forced to convert. I call it a kind of lift and shift.

I would not quite say design, but convert face-to-face to online. And, likewise, learners have been forced to change from what was a face-to-face experience and transfer to online. I would say this: I think, you know, that’s good in the sense of awareness. That’s good in the sense of exposure.

I think we’re still quite a ways off from actually being good from the point of view of learning. In the sense that, you know, we need to now move from this forced experimentation to actually a kind of digital-first intentional use of online and the learning experience overall. As opposed to, again, this lift and shift, which has happened in many contexts.

 

Deepak:

Great points there. Again, I like the word and terminology that you used about forced experimentation. Again, I think it’s driven from necessity. Coming to you, Jan, what are your thoughts on the question?

 

Jan Marks:

Well, I’m speaking from Spain, and there’s another reason that hasn’t been mentioned so far, a very unfortunate one. We are at the beginning of a deep economic crisis. Many people have lost their jobs, and many more will lose their jobs, including young individuals who are forced to replan their lives, requalify, and find new careers in different areas. The most effective space for this transition is the digital arena.

So, I see a lot of experimentation going on. I’ve actually had people I know, who are aware that I’m deeply involved in the online learning area, ask me for recommendations and advice on what they can do and what steps they should take in their position. Many qualified individuals are now turning to e-learning for a fresh start.

 

Deepak:

Alright, that’s again, great points. I think forced experimentation, economic crisis, and something that people want new ways to learn, and they want to learn from anywhere and everywhere possible. I think these combined top 3 to 4 reasons give us a good indication as to why the world is changing and where it is headed.

Another question that comes to mind after that is, you know, now when people have decided to sign up for a course to do things online, what expectations do people come with when they sign up for an e-learning course? This time, let’s go with Giuseppe. I think you’d have some experience there. A lot, I guess.

 

Giuseppe:

Well, there are many ways to answer that. I think the first way is to consider the market. And, you know, in any industry, in any offer, there are different markets, right? And, you know, there’s the, in the greatest simplification, there’s the sort of market for face-to-face experiences, and there’s the market for online experiences. So I think the expectations of one or the other are very different.

Meaning, if I am intentional in the sense that I would like to have a residential program or residential experience, you know, my expectation of online is one thing. As opposed to if I am a buyer of online, first and foremost, my expectation of online is radically different than the former clients.

So, to say that everybody has the same expectations of online is very different if you consider the point of view from which you’re making the decision of engaging in a learning experience. That’s number one.

The other thing I would say, number two, is that, in general, the market is still very ignorant. I want to say the supply side is quite ignorant too, but let’s not talk badly about them. I think the market is still very ignorant in the sense that we’ve applied online as a label to everything that is virtual.

And I think there’s a great degree of variation, from, say, on one end, which is a mass unfacilitated learning experience all the way to, you know, maybe what Brian’s organization is doing or what Yes is doing, which is a highly facilitated, you know, small cohort-like experience. And so, you know, both are online. They’re happening both online. But the context of learning, I mean, the way of learning is radically different. And then there’s everything in between.

Unfortunately, what I think we’re doing as suppliers of online is not doing a good job of educating the market, you know, either through wacky marketing campaigns or pricing policies or whatever else. We’re trying to, you know, first, downplay or, let’s say, maybe position online as a second best to face-to-face and secondly confuse the market in terms of what’s in this black box of what we’re offering.

So I think there’s quite a bit of road to travel still before the market becomes educated in terms of what is the type of online experience that I’m looking for? What are the interactions that it includes? And, therefore, what is my willingness to pay versus my expected impact and so on and so forth.

 

Deepak:

Varied reasons, and I think, you correctly pointed out about, you know, providing clear expectations. What are your thoughts on this, Brian?

 

Brian:

My thoughts would be taking a page from the educating the market comment that Giuseppe made. And I think it really is the Wild West in a lot of ways. Students coming in, their expectations are really gonna be aligned whether for Springboard, the expectations are all about how to help someone navigate their way through career change. So whether it’s an accountant that now wants to become a data scientist, or someone that has software engineering experience that now wants to get into and learn about machine learning engineering, it’s gonna be about the outcome.

So not only how do you find the best kind of model and delivery system that works best for you, whether it’s your style, your personal situation, your economic situation, whatever it is, it’s how do you figure out the ways to keep the eye on the prize? What is the time to complete? What am I gonna be able to do when I get through this? Those are all the things really, regardless of any kind of program, face-to-face or something online, people have expectations of what they wanna get from the credential, the degree, the experience.

And those are the things that I think of right out of the gate. They wanna be laser-focused, in a lot of cases, on career alignment, how much time is gonna be expected for them to be successful in the program. One of the reasons that the unfacilitated MOOCs and this just big broad ocean of opportunity don’t have a high degree of outcomes is because people aren’t always there to make sure they know exactly what it takes to be successful.

Do I need to spend 5 hours a week on this? Do I need to spend 10 hours a week? Do I need to meet with my mentor or my advisor? To make sure that I can meet the goals of getting the right outcomes for me to drive that value and that return on investment. So those are the things that I think of, and especially tacking it on to what Giuseppe mentioned as well.

 

Deepak:

Okay, those are great points, to be honest. Jan, what do you think?

 

Jan:

Well, I’d like to advocate for the ones which are not present, the different e-learning companies that are not that much into deep career planning. There’s a lot of other stuff going on. People want to learn a language, and want to learn an instrument. So my answer to what other expectations will be there is very, very different.

There’s a lifelong learner who might use an offer from and buys into one of their courses. Then there is a younger career planner who’s actually planning for a very important early stage decision in his life. And there is somebody who’s just trying to correct his work-life balance, learning Chinese. So these are very different. What they all have in common, though, is that the stuff that you said, Brian, is that the expectation there’s a certain expectation regarding the requirements.

So will I be able to follow what’s being taught in this course? Very often, we see that sometimes people sign up for something which they can’t deal with. Or vice versa, which they already knew. So they have a certain expectation with regards to the prerequisites of the course. But altogether, I think they want to have a clear understanding of what the parameters that you said. So trying to complete, what are the formats, what will be my experience. And yeah, and they will be very different.

 

Deepak:

I think what you’re saying is that your expectations of an e-learner would depend upon where exactly he’s coming from and what way he wants to go. For example, a young kid on the block wanting to start a new career, maybe someone who’s been midterm experienced once to switch careers, someone who has been truly experienced, like, you know, wants to know about the new technology and stuff like that. So the varied expectations, and I think that now would completely depend upon how we understand and gather insights, how do we monitor user behavior and gather insights for different people? And then probably turn that into, you know, how do we come up with different kinds of experiments.

So let’s start with Jan first with you. Like, you know, how do you suggest, you know, as an owner of an e-learning website, how do we start capturing insights? Where should we start from?

 

Jan:

Well, actually, obviously, read your data. Well, first of all, we have to, again, make a big difference between what are the different stages of the user journey. So we can monitor different things at different moments. So during the sign-up phase or the, let’s say, the purchase phase when I’m dreaming about a course or I’m starting to tap into it and comparing it and checking things and so on, I have some expectations, and they’re actually the good old conversion rate, whether it’s lead gen or whether it’s booking an enrollment. So that’s a more known challenge.

When it comes to the learning, teaching, learning experience in the middle of the user journey, the variable, which is the Holy Grail, which is actually where the whole value is, I think we have to face the extraordinary drop rates and we have to find ways to reduce them. So there’s a lot of e-learning happening. I mean, not if I have spent 3000 or 30,000 Euro on my education, I would certainly not drop off. But if I just purchased a course for photography or for getting better at Photoshop, then I have to actually find ways to reduce my drop-off rate.

I don’t know, Giuseppe, in a master’s program or an online bachelor or an online course, we would probably not drop off, and the only way to measure the success of my course would probably be some indicators for engagement, right? So interaction, participation, responses, proactiveness. I don’t know. Actually, it would be interesting to know.

 

Giuseppe:

Yeah. I mean, I think that, How can I say? I mean, yeah, dropping off can happen in the face-to-face world as well. Right? I mean, 40% of students in Spanish universities never complete their degrees.

And I think it’s pretty consistent, you know, in other parts of Europe as well. So I mean, dropping off is not something that happens online. All of a sudden, it’s, you know, there’s many reasons for prison, people dropping off. 1st and foremost, the lack of relevance of what they’re doing. So the motivation.

Right? But, I do think though that, relative what changes, you know, face to face online or or blended for that matter. If we wanna talk about the 3 types of modalities, you know, the opportunity opportunities or let’s say the ways needs are solved. Right? So, you know, the idea of engagement in a face to face world, or the need for engagement in a face to face world is solved in a certain way.

Right? We have, I don’t know, campuses, versus, you know, conversations at the bar with faculty versus study groups outside of class. Right? We have all of these things, all of these behavioral scripts that we’ve designed for a face to face experience. The question is, you know, what are the behavioral scripts that we need for an online experience in order for that engagement to remain high.

If the program is irrelevant, they’re gonna drop off face to face or online. But if we don’t have the right VA rule scripts, online, you know, we will, obviously, face a lowering of engagement due to the poor leveraging of those opportunities. And I will say this online, just like anything, you know, opens up opportunities to solve old needs in new ways or sometimes to solve even unmet needs. So the simplest, uh-uh, example is, you know, the use of analytics in, let’s say, a conversation with a student, on and on performance. Right?

You know, by virtue of using an online platform that is able to track, let’s say create, you know, a digital footprint of the interactions an individual has, whether it’s, you know, saying something during a class versus completing, you know, a series of tests versus, you know, a reflection in a in a journal. Right? This is a digital footprint. I can bring that very easily to bear in the conversation that I have with that student. With respect to his or her progression through my course.

So this is an opportunity to do something in a new way, to address a need in a new way, or maybe even an unmet need. Because in the face to face world doing so is very cumbersome. So, again, I think it’s about thinking through, like you said, the different steps of the journey, and saying, how can we, you know, solve old needs in new ways or even solve unmet needs given the opportunities offered online?

 

Deepak:

Great. Great points again, Jessica. I think, Ryan, what we’d love to know from you is your perspective because Bingo does a lot of commercial courses. Which are very different from the university. So I think it’d be great to know your opinion on that. Yeah.

 

Brian:

Yeah. Something just that you just said about motivations and engagement and retention. There are a lot of those things that I think follow suit with our own market as well. And, Jan, you mentioned the very beginning data and understanding these the user behavior, the student behavior, something that I’ve seen that we really like are different types of tools to help students understand, in this case, the market for what we’re talking about, being students, the consumers, They often don’t know what they want. They don’t they may not even know what motivates them.

They may not know how to get a baseline of where they are today or where they wanna go. And there are different tools we’ve created 1 SpringBoard to help people understand and assess exactly what their skill levels are today, what’s the right course or program for them, there’s a company in the western part of the U of S called MZ, EMSI that’s created a really, really interesting tool called, Skills match that does something very similar. Essentially a survey type of tool. It helps people walk through what are their motivations, what is their current baseline of educational attainment, where are they looking to go, and what are they willing to sacrifice to get there, maybe in terms of time, financial resources, etcetera. So all those things play in the background and you start to figure out exactly what their motivations are, and you can find out, well, how can they be successful?

What is it that would help them to be retained in a course? What is it that’s gonna keep them engaged throughout the life of what they’re doing? And we do that at SpringBoard through a mix of both technologies to understand where students are, where they’re struggling in the platform, and then also with our mentors and student success coaches to find out Where have they hit a speed bump? Learning is about crashing and burning sometimes. You know, it’s not all sunshine and roses.

You have to be able to hit something, hit that brick wall, and figure out how to pick yourself back up to motivate your way through the course and be successful and that is a big part of learning. And I think, whether it’s face to face or online self paced instructor led, whatever the modality or methodology is, you’re gonna find that, but all that goes back to understanding the students and their motivations, and just consumer behavior in general. And tailoring your approach to be able to maximize those. I would laugh earlier when you said, conversion rates, you know, every step along the way, whether it’s enrollment funnel, or success. And, of course, there is some element of a conversion rate to keep them moving and progressing forward, and I think those are the things that we’re always thinking about.

 

Deepak:

Probably. I’ve got the great points again. So the thing is to, you know, I think, to the user journey part here. We have seen that within the e-learning courses, there are 3 specific parts : orientation and enrollment. I think we spoke a lot about this particular phase. During this particular, recent question discussion. The next one is teaching and learning experience, and the third one is the alumni experience in lifelong learning. I think along with these steps, what would you say? You know, which phase of the journey carries more weight or offers more opportunities for optimization and experience out of the 3. We can start with, Brian this time. Yeah.

 

Brian:

I think each one of those has a ton of opportunity. For me, it’s probably the, what I would call, the input part of the journey if we’re talking about the experience, and I’ll probably steal a little bit of what I just teased out in my last, what I was just talking about. Understanding that audience profile, helping them understand themselves about what they can do, what they can, leverage to be successful, then drawing a clear picture of how to get there. I always try to give the example of what is the pathway, where is the finish line, what’s the map to get there, and help them leverage whatever they can to figure that out. So that’s just to get them in the door.

Just to help them identify where it is that they wanna go and program selection then becomes the next phase of that, choosing exactly what they’re gonna pick as a consumer, what’s right for them, And that’s where I think there’s probably a lot more optimization, but that is the the biggest part of it is just the audience segmentation and understanding and helping them understand where they’re headed

 

Deepak:

Great. Personally, I’d say, you know, for me, if I have to pick any one out of the 3, I’d probably pick teaching and learning experience. You know, my thoughts on those are that, you know, once you’re logged in, once I’ve paid my money, you know, if I have to be a lifelong, not only a lifelong customer, I would be your vehicle to tell this to the other ten people. You know, I could play a very big, important role in word-of-mouth because he understands if I’m , if I’m signing up for a course for 10 months and that’s gonna change my life, I’m gonna go to everybody, and I will be your case study.

You’re living and breathing case study to talk about, the success that I have to SpringBoard or through ISA. So, you know, my personal take on this is that now, we should be focusing a lot more on the teaching and the learning experience to rest it. First one is a promise. And the third one is the result of that experience. But I’ll just pay for that. Yep. Out of the 3, just to pay. What do you think? Which one is the most crucial one?

 

Giuseppe:

I mean, yeah, I think, you know, Brian said it. I mean, they’re all three right with opportunities. Anytime you have a need. Right? The biggest impact of digitalization, if we really reduce it to its essence, is this idea of meeting needs in new ways.

Right? I mean, that’s what it’s about or, again, meeting up unmet needs. So, you know, there’s needs and orientation in their needs and teaching their needs and and and lifelong. Let me take a lifelong interest in something that I’m kinda interested in, lately. I think we’re moving, or maybe, I would say.

I would say maybe we’re moving from a kind of, product view of education to more of a service 1. And I’m not. I’m not sure who’s going to take the responsibility for providing that service, whether, you know, it’s the individuals themselves that have the onus, whether it’s the organizations that work, they work for, or whether it’s institutions like schools, or or or such. Right? But fundamentally, what is it? What I mean is that you know, as an individual, you have increasingly a need for learning that goes beyond specific moments in your life.

Which used to be, you know, the degree, the master’s, the corporate education, etcetera. These are specific transformational moments. Right? Step change, if you will, after which you’re sort of on a plateau, and you kind of, you know, expand your learning. We’re moving away from that towards a kind of ongoing continuous, right, lifelong.

We wanna call it, today. Development in which, you know, I learn something every day, every week, every month, every year. Yes. There’s still those transformational moments, programs, formal, But there’s also, you know, what I read today versus the conversation with my coach this week versus my meeting with my group of peers this month and so on and so forth. And so I need a way to, set goals over, you know, specific periods of times and and and, kind of capture these learning moments and integrate them into a journey that’s gonna get me to that goal.

And continuously on an ongoing basis. Now this is why I’ve been, you know, if there’s a huge opportunity for digital to allow, you know, this capturing of these learning moments, this integration of these learning moments, the generation of analytics that personalize, the journey and so on and so forth. You know, to provide a service something like health care, is a service, right, where, you know, I’ve subscribed to something that allows me to both, you know, have an annual checkup as well as, you know, do the, you know, operation that I need as well as get advice on certain matters and so on and so forth. So I think, Lifelong is an opportunity. Right?

Whether the market is ready to buy that membership, I don’t know. I think one day they might, I am not so sure who’s providing that. I think no one is at the moment. Companies are starting to think maybe in those terms when they think of lifelong in play experience. But I think we’re still a ways off from it.

 

Deepak:

Sure. Thanks a lot to those guys. And, yeah, Brian, do you wanna say something?

 

Brian:

I was just gonna add, and I think lifelong learning, at least, from a US centric point of view in higher education, it’s been a term used. It’s been a buzz word for a long time. And historically, what the traditional academic institutions have done right or wrong, they’ve taken what they do really well from a content and a degree and a delivery perspective, and they slice off pieces of that. And whether it’s the example of someone that’s mid-career, and they’d love to go back to their alma mater or school that they have an affinity to or that they’re familiar with and say, hey. I’d love to get expertise here.

And so what schools have historically done is slice off a certificate of this or content from that, and it’s repackaged really an unpackaged version and repackaged way of what they’ve done for a long time, and it may not meet the need in in some cases for today’s millennial who would have an, for example, 11 to 13 different jobs throughout their career. So every 3 to 5 years, there’s gonna be a need for very significant not just professional education, but career change support and that sort of adaptation model that goes with that and that may not always align with what lifelong learning has been defined as in traditional higher education. So I think all of that is where the real opportunity is. How do we take industry practitioners and let them drive this? How do we create better networks?

How do we let universities, in this case, create better engagement with their alumni and then create sort of a flywheel effect to make sure that they can participate in these programs. They could be consumers or mentors, and you’re driving a lot more of a sticky experience for all those people involved. So I think that’s a model that I think is very exciting and we’re starting to hear a lot about.

 

Deepak:

Sure. Thanks a lot for that input point, John.

 

Jan:

Yeah, I totally agree with what both of you said. It’s probably where we’re gonna see most changes happening, there and in the middle phase, teaching, learning experience as such. And as a matter of fact, I’m now listening to what you just said.

I’m not sure if these are two phases or in the future, it’s just one because the teaching, learning never ends, actually. So we still tend to think about a course and a degree, and that’s it. And then we all relax, we go to work.

And at some point, we get back to learn more stuff. Eventually, it’s more about your episode. It’s gonna be an ongoing membership. And eventually, we have to migrate into some kind of subscription model because, I mean, seriously, the courses that you take now, how long does it take to be outdated? There’s new things going on.

The acceleration is so incredible that actually, in continuous update, not to use the lifelong learning thing, but this efficient updating of knowledge, this is probably something that we’re gonna see very soon. However, I see two facts when we speak with companies in the e-learning field. Number one is it is so tempting to focus on the first phase because that’s where the business is. You’ve got salespeople, you’ve got commercial people, you want to see enrollments and sign-ups, and you want to sell your product in a certain way. So that is why very often all the UX optimization effort is pretty much intuitively targeted to the first phase, even though it is not the most important one.

But, of course, you want to make people sign up with you in a certain way. The biggest and the second thing that we see is, in the middle phase of teaching and learning, if we’re not talking about an e-learning company like yours, Brian, about universities, all universities around the globe, there are a lot of holy cows there. So I think I haven’t worked with, to be honest, I haven’t worked with Moodle or with Google Classroom myself, but from what I hear there are a whole bunch of flaws and things that actually they need to improve, that my kids both are twenty-something years old. They said the main reason why I don’t ever want to study online is actually because I can’t speak to my friends. I don’t have the social effect of learning, so the most enjoyable thing is group work.

So to say and work together on a subject, go to a seminar, and then this is all not happening to a wide extent or only rarely happening. So I think that the tools, education technology that focuses on the teaching-learning experience, there’s a whole bunch of things that need to be optimized, needs to be measured. And as you said, these micro-conversions, they need to be measured. And I don’t know. We never, I mean, we talk to Deepak.

You are running a company that is in AB testing, that isn’t testing and optimization. Doesn’t that actually happen? In Moodle or in Google Classroom, are they actually monitoring this and doing AB tests on different materials or on different things that they could do in a course or in the training program. I love to see that. I think my feeling tells me there’s a lot of stuff happening in the first phase where it’s more commercially focused, but there’s not enough happening in the teaching-learning experience to actually make the education in this very phase more enjoyable and more effective.

 

Deepak:

Absolutely agree. And in fact, you know, since I’ve been in the AB testing industry for almost 5 years, the best quotation I’ve ever liked is “AB test your life.” But I think we should be AB testing everything, not just online courses or anything, but we should be open to the idea of AB testing for everything. I think this brings me to a question, John, which is particularly suited for you. So how would you suggest devising an optimization strategy and defining priorities for e-learning businesses? And could you also give us examples as to what kind of experiments or tests one should run?

 

Jan:

Well, that depends very much. I don’t know if we have the slide available that we looked at yesterday.

If you could see it, that would be a big help, but Oh, here it is. Yeah. Actually, I think the first thing to start with, and it must do, is to understand the journey. So really look into the journey of your, I mean, if you’re dealing with optimizing the entire customer journey at your school or at your university, understand the entire journey before the course, during the course, and after the course. So unless you understand the pain points at every touchpoint and every moment in micro-steps, you can hardly start optimizing there.

And I think once that you do it, whenever we do this, it’s so interesting implicitly, then suddenly we see the possibilities and the priorities for an optimization strategy. And then it’s always very different, depending on the one or the other thing. The problem really is in the middle and during the course, we mentioned it. You depend on 3rd parties, but a lot of universities and other schools depend on 3rd party learning technology and learning experience management platforms, which they can hardly tackle or optimize.

And so their opportunities are limited, whereas improving things in their alumni side or on their website where enrollment is happening, they have access to. They can manage it. But very often, the platform, which is used to deliver the content, they are facing, they’re depending on 3rd party technology. But nevertheless, I think it’s the most important part.

And I think talking to these technology providers always helps, and I’m almost sure, and we’ve seen that they are open to optimizing things and customizing things in this area. But again, the main message here is start understanding this journey, understand the pain points, talk to your students, talk to your teachers because we have to look into this from both angles. And then find out what needs to come first. From what we’ve done, I’ve been participating in 3 projects so far, and it was always the same that it was always focused on the center, piece of education, so teaching learning, and very much on interaction, interactivity, and searching for ways to create a more effective delivery of skills and knowledge.

 

Deepak:

What would you say? And I have a quick question for you. You know, in my experience, looking at various university websites and e-learning sites, I find that a lot of them are content-heavy. There’s a lot of content a person needs to read before they can decide. So what would you suggest? You know, having too much content, average content? Because too much content could make the visitor or the learner lose. And how would you say that? I don’t know.

 

Jan:

I mean, it’s not about how much it’s more or less, but how it is served, how it is structured, how it is illustrated, And so on. So of course, the university or many schools don’t have the conversion attitude, and they don’t have a marketing department that is huge, like many other industries. But, so that is the content issue. There’s a lot of really valuable content. That could be reformatted and better served in a more effective way with better searchability and navigation, that’s one thing. And the other thing is there is a lot of content that is trying to serve everybody. So when I visit a website of a university, and then I start browsing different sites, the site could quickly learn from my behavior what I am actually interested in.

So I’m not into medicine. I’m not into law. I’m looking into IT. Right. Thanks.

So all the other stuff that keeps being there and distracting me is completely irrelevant.

The content is okay, but you need to serve it intelligently, proactively, and in a more personalized way. And the tools are, I mean, I don’t have to tell you to do this perfectly with VWO and some other tools, of course. But it’s possible.

It’s just that people who are managing the digital channels of universities and business schools might be slightly different. They’re not really used to that. I mean, they’re happy if the site is up and running.

 

Deepak:

So that’s great. I get your point. Brian, very quickly, your thoughts on what kind of changes, and what kind of optimization programs SpringBoard has?

 

Brian:

Yeah, I think in terms of optimization, I would agree with a lot of what Jane said as well. The commercial attitude is probably the first part of this. Meaning, is it a success just to have something out there? Is it a success to be data-heavy, or is it a success to make sure that someone within fifteen seconds can figure out exactly what they’re doing and where they’re going if they’re investigating your site?

And, again, that’s sort of the method of what we’re talking about here in the webinar. But then the flip side of that, the image that you had on the screen a little bit ago, once a student is inside and in the learning environment, in this case, something that we have developed at SpringBoard is there isn’t a lot of orientation required. You know where you’re going. You know what you’ve accomplished. You know what you’ve achieved, and you know where you need to start getting down to work once you’re in the environment. So there’s a level of design focused on the intuitive nature of the environment, the educational pathway as well so that you know exactly what it takes to be successful, and you know where you stand. And I think a lot of that, once you’re inside the learning environment, is the most important part because if you’re lost, then you immediately drop out, stop out, and retention and engagement completely go out the window. So there are different phases of that, but I think a bit more from the learner behavior standpoint, of the students that we serve.

 

Deepak:

Brian, could you talk to me about an example, an anecdotal example of something that you changed and it worked for you?

 

Brian:

Yeah, I wouldn’t steal the thunder of the talented learning designers that we have on staff, of course, from my perspective on the commercial end. But I would say that there are very small improvements that we make all the time, whether it’s something that takes a long time to load inside the environment or something that I learned about last week where there was something that the student was trying to get through that was just simply taking a long time. Then knowing that they are 60% of the way through the course or 70% of the way through a content item, knowing what they have to do to complete the item, that’s all it takes to get them a little more motivated to keep working and keep going inside the learning environment.

So those are the sort of things that I think are incremental changes that keep someone engaged from a student’s perspective, keep them going and motivated, and they proceed through the course to find success.

 

Deepak:

Thanks a lot there, Brian. Giuseppe, I have a similar question, but in a different vein. When I looked up your LinkedIn profile, I saw that you have been in this industry for a good decade. So let me ask you this. How have you seen people’s behavior changing online? How was it back in 2010 versus 2020?

 

Giuseppe:

Well, I think, you know, in all walks of life, this is not unique to education, the availability of technology has fundamentally transformed our opportunities to use it. Again, to address needs, and perhaps the most important element of that technology being mobile, also the most recent. But, you know, clearly, we have at our fingertips now things such as web conferencing tools enabled by networks that, only a decade ago, were of quality that was objectively inferior to the face-to-face equivalent. And this is the name of the game. And I want to obviously acknowledge that not everybody has access to such devices and such connectivity, which is something that, ironically, this crisis is pointing out how online can open up a social divide that is actually worrying. But setting that aside for a minute, you know, clearly, our ability to do what we’re doing today has nothing to do with what it was a decade ago and non-existent two decades ago. So, you know, the first online universities over here in Spain, the UK, and the US.

I’m sure Brian will have some examples, but, you know, their product was inferior because it was, I mean, it was first and foremost because of the quality, actually, of the access. And now that’s no longer the case. So we’ve removed this kind of better than or worse than, and now it’s really a sort of mindset, which is digital first, and then tell me why we should do face-to-face. And I think that is a fundamental shift in all walks of life, even if in a business meeting or travel, you’re gonna ask yourself the question. Can I do it online? Or do I actually have to get on a plane? And this is a fundamental radical, massive change. And you’re gonna ask yourself that question because you recognize that it’s good enough. For certain objectives for certain needs. Clearly, blended will always be preferred to either online. But to fully online, of course, if you have the ability to engage in a blended education or a blended learning experience. But what’s more important than that is that blended is actually better than face-to-face.

And so that, I think, is fundamentally different from any previous decade, any year, any experience. I mean, it’s like a before and after.

 

Deepak:

Yeah. So that brings me to the final question of the webinar. You know, how do you see the future of e-learning and online higher education? What do you see as the future?

 

Giuseppe:

I mean, I think if I knew the future, I’d probably not be doing this webinar, but, you know, it’s, I mean, you know, it’s cliche, right? It’s going to grow, and it’s going to multiply, and it’s going to, I think, we need to be, first of all, rigorous practitioners or scholarly practitioners, right?

I think what we need to avoid is this sort of jumping on the bandwagon of what’s cool or what sells. And I know that’s difficult in a Wild West opportunity space, but actually, you know, to think more about what’s effective and what’s the best way to solve the needs of learning, right? So that’s one. So, you know, not because it sells, or because it looks good.

Does it actually affect the number one? And so, you know, if we can all be a little bit more rigorous in what we design and what we promote, I think that will be beneficial for the second thing, which is the ability to fundamentally put in place the theories of learning that we know work. And we have been and have been confirmed through brain science that works, but that perhaps we couldn’t put in place in the past in a face-to-face world, right?

 

I’ll give you an example. I mean, we know that whatever we learn is lost in terms of knowledge, just simple knowledge. There’s a forgetting curve, right, over a period of a very brief period of time from the moment we pick up that knowledge. You know, we have the ability to solve that through technology through reminders that are sort of at scale spread to learning populate to the individual via mobile and so on. So, right? We actually have the ability to solve a lot of the needs that learning requires to essentially practice what, you know, the let’s say our idols in learning theory have told us works. Personalization is another. Right? We can do personalization at scale through Adaptive Learning and to the tomorrow even more.

Used to be you have to put everybody with a tutor in a kind of, you know, the one-room schoolhouse kind of thing. Yeah. That doesn’t scale. That’s a nice theory, but doesn’t scale.

So, you know, that’s why we have schools and universities and these cookie-cutter things. Right? Now we can do personalization on scale. So, I think, you know, we have to be rigorous in what we promote. And number two, really try to address the needs of learning through technology.

 

Deepak:

Great. Brian, what would you say about the future of e-learning?

 

Brian:

We at SpringBoard have a mantra that follows a little bit of what Giuseppe was saying, which is one size fits one. We have to use the tools that we have at our disposal, whether it’s something that allows the content and the environment to adapt to the student’s needs so that they can be successful. And I think that is something that requires less intervention. It allows them to learn quickly and also leverage other parts of the environment more efficiently. So, if we consider the comment earlier about blended learning having a superior opportunity for students, I think being modality agnostic really depends on access. 

So, the future of learning or e-learning, in this case, from my perspective, there’s a lot of blurred lines. Schools are going to be creating new pathways and serving new audiences with some of the things that we’ve been talking about. You’re going to start to see a lot more, and this is more from a US-focused, higher ed perspective. You’re going to see a lot more interest in integrating these things in terms of how do I validate someone’s experience or credential and maybe give them an opportunity to jump into a degree program or something else at university that they didn’t have access to or an opportunity to participate in before. So, there’s going to be these new types of accessibility pathways, articulation agreements, future of skills types of opportunities that students of all ages, regardless of their academic attainment and educational background, are going to have access to.

 

Deepak:

Sure. Jan, your point of view on the commercial aspect of the future of e-learning.

 

Jan:

Well, the chances are great. When we do it, we always say it’s going to be a breakthrough for education, it’s going to change the world. We’ve seen massive open online courses. The expectations were huge. It didn’t live up to its expectations, these initiatives, to a wide extent. 

I think it depends pretty much on what we make out of the tools that are existing, but the tools as such are not enough. We need to use them creatively. We have to create a great user experience with them, which means that as long as it’s just, we take the technology and then we deliver our online education in a certain way, I think we will not use the full potential and the opportunity that we are actually facing. The more we think about making education fun, making it really an enjoyable exercise, making it social, making it really the opening connections with people during the course, during the class. So, all this is probably a huge factor of success together with what we’ve mentioned a couple of times, personalization at scale. I think that’s also very true. I don’t know if it’s going to happen in any learning platforms, I could imagine. 

But if I think about all the public universities and higher education institutes, the programs have been written in stone for 200 years. And, when you talk to Edtech representatives, they are almost losing their hope, so to say, to achieve a breakthrough. This could now change because, this year, and I think also to a wide extent next year, traditional schools will have to face digitalization, and they have to make it better because students complain. They have survived summer 2020. They will survive the winter. But when it comes to springtime, then that’s when students are walking away if you are not acting and if you are not presenting something and then you have cancer. That’s the only way that you can stay in business somehow. 

So, the future depends on that creativity, kind of gamification, creating a great experience, and making use of good technology.

 

Deepak:

Thanks. Thanks a lot there, Jan. I think, you know, my only comments on the future of e-learning is, as you mentioned correctly, taking a leaf out of the last point that you made. Yes, this is going to be the new normal. People would want to sharpen their skills, and want to learn new strategies. There will be students who want to access the courses online from anywhere, while someone who’s a vlogger and a travel enthusiast may not have the time to go to college and get a degree. They might be interested in opting for this. And, you know, if universities would be open to it, they would be able to take in a lot more learners. A lot more learners would mean a lot more job opportunities for professors. And by creating an online community of teachers, I think we are just increasing the job opportunities for everybody. 

I think anybody who gets trained from SpringBoard can be employed back at SpringBoard as a professor, as a teacher, as a mentor. So, again, it’s a life cycle of the things that we can do. Similarly, you know, I think people coming from traditional teams can pick a leaf out of companies like SpringBoard and enhance their skill set and be better at classroom teaching. So there is always synergy between the two, which I think, and I think we can now open the floor for questions. 

Guys, please let us know if you have any questions, so you can raise your hands, or you can put up the questions in the chat or the question window, and we’d like to take it up. Sure.

 

Jan:

 

Yeah. Just to add what Deepak said. Now, in this very second, we are facing the same challenge that every teacher is facing in their classes. Any questions? And now, we are looking at the wide, blank question box, hoping that some of our attendees feel encouraged enough and motivated enough to participate and join us in this conversation.

It’s actually a good example, isn’t it? I mean, how can we achieve that people really do this? And participate in a conversation or in a course.

 

Vipul:

Yes, absolutely. So any attendee who actually wants to be a part of this panel right now, if they have any thoughts to contribute on the topic being discussed or any point that stood out to you, please send us a request using the questions panel, and we’ll allow you to switch on your cameras and come on stage. I actually had a few points that I wanted to highlight from the discussion, and if I were to squeeze some insights from the discussion itself, I would say the biggest challenge that lies ahead for any learning business, I think for any business at, for that sake, is conquering the motivation to keep going forward. And I’m talking from the perspective of the learner, right? I’ve been in those situations. I’ve contemplated, in terms of hey, whether I should go ahead and take up a certain degree or not. Then I would contemplate, hey, should I get myself enrolled in a university, or should I take up an online course?

So my consideration has always been regarding the time investment. Am I really ready to invest my two years in that particular degree? Then I look at any online solutions, and I see that there are a few online services that offer the same education within a period of, let’s say, eight months, nine months. Again, my question is will I be able to contribute that much time alongside, you know, sorry for the background noise, but will I be able to contribute my part in terms of learning after my office hours? But that has been a real friction point for me.

So do you guys have any thoughts on that, or have you encountered that same problem anywhere before and how do you suggest one should tackle those propagates? How should one tackle this problem?

 

Brian:

My take on that is that online education is attempting to add this elasticity, if you will, of consumption. Is it, do I have the ability to spend two hours a week, ten hours a week, twenty hours a week? Can I continue at that pace? Can I still be successful? Can I still have a finish line in mind? And then what’s the commitment level, going back to what you were talking about in terms of motivations? Is it something where I’m being forced out by my career and my industry is effectively being ended, and I have to go through some sort of change or career move or educational milestones to do this, or is it a nice-to-have? Is it something else that really is just a pet project, something that motivates me intrinsically, whatever it could be. So I think those are the things that people think of that tie back from either the pedagogy or technology side, and try to create some sort of adaptive solution to adapt to whatever those kinds of needs are.

 

Vipul:

Right. Jan, do you have any guidance for me on that point?

 

Jan:

Well, I mean, your question already indicates that the user experience in the part where you were looking up information and where you should be motivated to take a course and where you should be convinced to enroll, that someone didn’t do his job properly. So the experience is obviously possible to improve. The questions that you have in mind aren’t being, or they aren’t sufficiently addressed. So I think that is something. And while you are taking your first steps, I think it’s an ongoing challenge to keep listening to your audience and to your students. And to find out whether it’s all in line or whether you have to make adjustments or eventually recommend another course. I think it’s, Again, it is something to find these pain points that you are just pointing out, not having it clear whether you want to commit for 2 years. And the other thing is which we discussed earlier. Eventually, it’s gonna be more modular, and it’s gonna be an ongoing thing, rather than this static decision of taking a 2-year course now, hoping that the degree at the end will open a door for a career. Probably career opportunities will look different. And the way we get there also will be very different.

 

Vipul:

Right. That does make sense because then, since I’ve been in this, I have to invest my time towards, you know, doing the office work as well. So my thought process is to quickly learn something. Right? So if there are a variety of short-term courses nowadays.

And by short-term, I mean, like, 30 minute courses, 1-hour courses, right, on LinkedIn Learning. There are courses by HubSpot. Right? So these are very, very small courses which, for me, do not seem like a real big time investment. And, at the same time, when my motivation to actually invest 1 hour in that course is that whatever I learn in this 1-hour time period, this will definitely create my skills, and I will actually be able to implement this tomorrow itself. Right? So this, this speed of learning and implementing it in your current work and how it matches to my aspirations has been a real motivator for me in terms of picking up short courses rather than picking up a longer period course.

 

Jan:

I would have a question for Giuseppe there, which relates to that to a certain point. If I may choose a bit when this is a general trend that what people pointed out, we tend to go for micro steps rather than taking full courses. And we are living in a society where consumers don’t have the patience for taking a 2-year or 3-year education. So is that gonna change tremendously? Will we see shorter periods or smaller pieces of education coming up?

 

Giuseppe:

Again, I don’t know. But I’d like to hope that’s not the case in the sense of, we don’t substitute one thing for the other. I don’t see the world as binary or either/or. I’d like to hope that in our lives as humans, there’s time, such as the time university provides, for the foundational development of certain competencies and for the exploration of certain fields. And then there’s time at other moments in our lives for a much more practical acquisition of skills related to a particular job or pursuit.

So, you know, if we juxtapose one versus the other, as we tend to do in these conversations, I think we’re really diminishing the richness of our lives and our experiences as learners. I get that it’s easy, it sells, and it makes for nice headlines today, this story that, “Hey, we’re gonna have micro-credentials and stack these,” or “We’re just gonna learn in 10-minute segments on our mobile.”

But I’m not so sure that you, I, or Brian would sign up for that, given where we are today in our lives. Thinking back when we were seventeen years old, I wouldn’t. I think my university and certain other educational experiences have actually provided me the opportunity to build some foundational thinking that I rely on now for doing other things. So I think it’s much richer, and talking about one versus the other is a little bit simplistic, and hopefully, it doesn’t go that way.

 

Vipul:

Midpoint certificate. So, yes, I think, Deepak, we can invest maybe another 3-4 minutes. Again, I request people to send in their questions. I have one question from Scandal. Deepak, would you like to take it on?

 

Deepak:

Sure. So we have a question from Skanda. Hi Skanda, great session, interesting perspectives. My question is to Brian about the relevance of traditional universities in the near future. With on-demand and more relevant courses, many degrees, do you think there will be demand for traditional universities? India has about a thousand universities, approximately, of which probably 85% are not even relevant.

So I think the question is about the relevance of traditional universities versus the many degrees available online.

 

Jan:

Yeah, I think it goes a little bit to what Giuseppe was saying just now as well. I think it’s an “and,” not an “or.” And it also depends on economic factors and the financial climate as well. Not all schools in the way that they’ve lived in the past will survive moving forward. Some will adapt, some will change, some will merge, whatever may be. But in a lot of cases, what we do at SpringBoard to help facilitate experiential learning, career readiness, those sorts of things in very advanced fields, isn’t meant to be, in every case, a replacement for higher education in its traditional form from a degree perspective.

So I think the way I would respond to that is there will be a lot of winners and losers. There will obviously be schools that have enrollment struggles because they may not be able to fulfill a value promise or the right kind of outcomes, but there are a lot of schools that do. And there are a lot of schools that will embrace different kinds of learning methodologies. And the good news is there’s a ton of people through a continuum of their life and their career of what they are asking for, what they’re ready for, and what they need to serve each one of those kinds of opportunities on the supply side. So it’s definitely not the end of higher education, for sure. It’s one of those things where the model is gonna continue to evolve, for sure.

 

Deepak: 

Alright, it’s kinda not a problem. So if you have a follow-up to that, or which we will check, we’ll wait for like a couple more minutes or a minute to see if you have any final questions before we wrap it up.

 

Jan:

Yeah, one last request to everyone once again. If you have any questions, you can put them in right now, or I think we’re good to close the webinar.

 

Vipul:

Perfect. So I don’t see any questions coming up, right? But guys, if you have any questions that do turn up after this webinar is closed, feel free to reach out to all our panelists who were on today. You can actually take a screenshot of this particular slide, and you can individually reach out to all of them and ask your questions or just connect with them to say hi. I think that would be a great thing.

 

Deepak:

Sure, Vipul. I think it’s okay to close the webinar now. Thank you so much.

 

Vipul:

Sure. Brian, Giuseppe, and Jan, thank you for your time and for your efforts. I really loved each and every bit of it. I’m sure the audience would have, too. And Deepak, thanks again for being such a good moderator for the discussion.

 

Deepak:

Thanks. Thanks a lot, Vipul. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

 

Vipul:

Thank you.

 

Brian:

Thanks, everybody.

 

Giuseppe:

Take care.

 

Vipul:

Bye-bye. See you, everyone. Bye. And have a great one. Bye.