e-Learning for Development

		Course Introduction

		How do you classify benefits?
		Classify training benefits as being either hard or soft and discuss their relevance for determining ROI in training.

Converting benefits to $$$: the corporate view		Benefits are normally categorized as either hard or soft. Hard benefits are benefits that are objective and easily measured, such as increased productivity. In a corporate training environment, these are fairly easy to convert into monetary values. How to do so in a training environment such as IRRI's is much less clear. The situation becomes even more challenging when you start to consider the soft benefits of training—the more intangible benefits such as improved communication within or between organizations. Corporate sector strategies include conducting surveys of as many experts in the field as possible to determine the monetary value to attach to a particular benefit and then averaging the figures to arrive at some estimate that can be represented as a dollar figure.
Give it a try...		Think you understand the difference between hard and soft benefits? In the following exercise, distinguish between some hard and soft benefits of training by clicking, holding, and dragging the phrases to the appropriate box labeled Hard or Soft. If you are correct, the phrase will stay where it was placed. If incorrect, the phrase will snap back to its original position.

Private vs. public sector: can benefits be measured in $$$?		Many of us, though, are not working in the private sector. Coming up with a true monetary ROI in certain training contexts can be very difficult, if not impossible. For example, in training environments such as IRRI's, return is measured using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative means. At the very least, if your context makes it difficult to calculate ROI in monetary terms, you should be able to demonstrate the extent to which training achieved its instructional goals, if not your organizational performance goals. This is the ultimate test of effectiveness, even if it does not consider cost factors. As all sectors of the development community are facing increased accountability, we must be able to demonstrate training impact and ROI in terms of cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
		To share your thoughts regarding this lesson, click the discussion button on the left side of the screen and locate the link "Discussion: Module 1, Lesson 5". To include a message in the discussion, click the link and follow the instructions.
Optional reading		For further reading on this topic you can access the following on-line resources: http://www.learningcircuits.org/2002/feb2002/moran.html
Next lesson		Having considered the important factors in determining the economics of e-Learning, the next lesson discusses another aspect of the answer to the question "Why e-Learning?"; the current gap that exists between Internet connectivity and e-Learning content.