the subject of this month's column is e-learning what it is and how it applies to the world of design engineering. you may be saying to yourself "i'm a cooling system designer - why does this matter to me?". education - and ongoing education - is critical both to the value you provide to your employer, and also to your own personal value should you need to move onwards or upwards. furthermore, by learning something about the topic, you put yourself in a better position to discuss your training needs with vendors, and with your own hr department. so read on!

at the end of 1999, i decided to take a break from engineering and took a position with a training consultancy company specializing in e-learning. and it opened my eyes to the parlous state of engineering training. whilst the rest of the world is moving into the 21st century, the engineering industry seems happy to continue with teaching methods that would still be familiar to schoolteachers of the 19th century. far too often the training provided by software vendors involves a menu-by-menu dissection of the software application gui, and an "educational" seminar simply dishes up facts with little attempt at developing a conceptual framework or referencing the real needs of the students.

before i go any further, i want to emphasize that this should not be construed as any form of an attack on the excellent work done by universities and colleges around the world. i can point to a number of colleges which are leading the way with advanced teaching methods. and all are coping heroically with the vast increase in the common body of knowledge. as i'll discuss below, my main concern is with vocational training needs as found in the engineering business today.

e-learning - a short history lesson

in the beginning

in the beginning was ilt (instructor led training) or, as you or i know it, classroom teaching. an instructor stands at the front of the class and, through a mixture of slides, discussions, demonstrations, handouts . transfers knowledge to the students present in the classroom. the staple of the education system for centuries, it is still undeniably the best knowledge transfer system for some purposes. for instance, teaching a "soft skill" like interviewing techniques or speaking skills. however, its cost effectiveness as a means of teaching "hard skills" (such as software application training) is debatable.

computers take over

as computers became more widespread in the 1980s, and as media costs plummeted, educators started to take advantage of this to develop simple courses on cd-rom. this form of training is sometimes termed "asynchronous" as opposed to classroom training which is "synchronous" - the students and teacher are both present simultaneously. this became a popular teaching medium, especially for geographically dispersed groups such as field sales forces, and is particularly effective for teaching computer skills (including applications). training delivered on cdrom is often known (generically) as cbt (computer-based training).

the simplest form of cbt might be a powerpoint presentation on a cd-rom. a student can then read through as much or as little as needed, and whenever it is convenient and/or appropriate. but static content such as powerpoint slides barely scratches the surface. a well designed cbt includes any combination of the following:

• audio clips
• video clips
• application simulations
• pre-testing
• mastery tests
• certificates of completion

as necessary to support the educational objectives.

the emergence of the internet

the arrival of the internet in the 1990s changed three things.

1. firstly, the costs of developing and delivering cbt changed dramatically. using industry standards such as html and javascript to develop content, and the internet to deliver it became commonplace. content delivered across the internet became known as wbt.

    

2. secondly, a new breed of on-line synchronous training systems were developed. initially little more than on-line presentations controlled by the lecturer, these have now evolved into sophisticated systems with on-line chat, discussion groups, two-way interaction .

    

3. finally, applications called "learning management systems" began to be widely deployed to administer student enrollments, testing, certification etc.

    

the combined effect of these three changes has been to give a massive boost to the e-learning industry.

einstein was right!

einstein's words are so appropriate to engineering today, yet so little heeded. because of the prodigious rate of research and development, the body of engineering knowledge is becoming so vast that students emerge from colleges either as generalists - several years from being 100% effective in a job - or as specialists - able to do one job immediately but with little grasp of anything outside their narrow focus. furthermore, the term web-based training (wbt) is, today, becoming somewhat too general in that it encompasses a wide variety of technologies and techniques.

one of the most exciting developments is the gradual convergence of performance support systems (pss) and wbt. you've all seen performance support systems - they're the screens that are fired up when you hit the f1 key in your windows applications and which most of us call "help systems". pss is, by its very nature, "just in time" training -you invoke it when you're stuck with a problem and need quick information. as such, it could be a wonderfully cost- and time- efffective productivity tool.

unfortunately, too often a pss screen is simply a description of the a gui menu with little process context. but, as wbt development increasingly utilizes an object-based development approach, this is changing. rather than simply have a single monolithic course called "fluid dynamics 101", we might have separate objects such as:

• conservation of momentum
  1. basic principles
  2. bernoulli's equation
     • derivation of the equation
     • applying bernoulli to a venturi-meter
     • applying bernoulli to a pitot static tube
     • applying bernoulli to a carburetor
  3. navier-stokes .

the individual training objects can either be accessed sequentially as part of a certification course, or on demand as and when required. and they can be incorporated into a pss as web-based training snippets so that you can "top up" your training as you need it. and the objects don't have to be generic - you could have objects created covering your in-house processes and procedures to supplement the standard pss.

i'm confused - what do i choose?

if you're tasked with developing a training plan, either you work for a software vendor putting together a training development plan or you're a senior engineer working to develop an in-house training program. don't despair.

training requirements assessment

a professional e-learning consultancy will often carry out a training requirements assessment (tra) before starting a project. this involves looking closely at:

1. the students including their likes and dislikes about the various modes of learning (an audience analysis)
2. the current skill level of the audience
3. the desired skill level for the audience (after training)
4. development and deployment costs

if (as is likely in the engineering world) you can't afford to get a professional to do this for you, you can do this for yourself. just make sure you do spend time on it; it's effort well invested since it dictates both what you teach (the content) and the delivery methods. it also makes it easier to get money out of your hr or training department!

the options

once you have a clear understanding of who you are teaching (including how they like to learn) and what you need to teach then you can proceed to evaluate the relative merits of wbt and ilt approaches. the following table, based on material in the astd handbook of training design & delivery, presents this as advantages and disadvantages of wbt.

the costs

ok . it all looks like wbt is the way to go. but don't get too carried away by the excitement of e-learning. a swift dose of reality comes when you start looking into the costs of developing such materials. commercial development of wbt ranges from $20k to over $60k per course hour!!

is this reasonable? $30k covers (very approximately) 30 man days of work. if you think of the time and effort that has to go into professional software development, you'll quickly realize that this is quite reasonable.

so the decision may not be so clear cut. and, if you take into account learner preferences for face-to-face learning, you might well choose a judicious blend of ilt and wbt.

e-learning & cooling

i've talked a lot about e-learning and very little (so far) about cooling. so let's think a little about what kind of learning resources an average design professional might need. i believe that there are three areas which could and should receive immediate attention.

1) a cbk for thermal design professionals?

what this industry could desperately do with, and something which other professions (e.g. information security, project management .) are already addressing is the development of what they call a "common body of knowledge" (often shortened to "cbk"). this is a compilation of the most fundamental concepts and practices which a competent professional in the field needs to know.

the availability of a central cbk would lead naturally to the concept of certification. by ensuring that professionals have an understanding of the cbk, standards are enforced whilst raising the status of the profession. wouldn't it be wonderful if the thermal design profession received the credit that it deserved. part of achieving that status would be to enforce a certification program,  perhaps a ctdp (certified thermal design professional) qualification which would require demonstrated experience and the successful passing of an exam and continued education/requalification.

what do we need to achieve this? establishing a cbk and a certification process can't be done by a single person or company or organization - it needs buy-in from a broad cross-section of the profession. perhaps coolingzone could kick-start the process by opening a discussion forum to encourage the exchage of ideas?

2) software application training

the level of software application training in engineering is parlous. all too frequently, a training course is simply a walkthrough of the gui - menu by menu. but that can change if you want it to change. if you're buying software, become an educated buyer .

• be aware there are alternatives to classroom training and build this into your assessment criteria when selecting software solutions. with the rapid turnover in staff in the tech industry (in particular), shortening the learning curve is a key concern.

  
  

• ask that vendors carry out a short tra before proposing a training solution.

  
  

• insist that the training reflects your company's products and design methodologies. don't allow trainers to spend 8 hours on heatsink design if you always outsource these components. why learn about fans and fan trays if all you ever design is sealed boxes or natural convection cooled racks.

  
  

• ask about the vendor's ongoing training development plans. do they have a range of courses from general awareness through introductory training to advanced techniques. how often do they update material and how flexible are they in customizing it.

   

insist that the vendor supplies you with the training that you need, not just what they want to give you. it may even cost you a little upfront, but i guarantee that the overall productivity improvements will be dramatic.

3) company-specific training

unless you're going to be the only person doing thermal design for the next decade, you'll probably have to teach others about the processes and procedures that apply to thermal design within your company. in the cooling business, it's also important that practitioners become advocates of good design practice. but this won't be possible until you educate the others in your company.

how do you do this? certainly not be forcing everyone to sit the introductory training class for your thermal analysis software. after all, even you found it hard going! instead, look to software and hardware vendors to support your efforts by providing general awareness courses and material. and work with your training departments to embed thermal design awareness within the induction process for new hires. perhaps you can get your system administrator to give you a small area on a web server in which you can post material. don't imagine that this approach will give you an instructionally perfect solution but, let's face it, it's better than nothing!

finally, keep your eye open for new design support systems which integrate training at the very heart of the design process.

about steve addison

from his early days as a project manager at british aerospace working on guided missile systems through phd studies in gas turbine engineering, post-doctoral work on aeroelasticity and vibration, consultancy in fields as diverse as the design of fans for vacuum cleaners, the development of diesel emissions sensors, analysis of power station heat exchanger performance.steve has worked across quite a spectrum of engineering disciplines.

from 1993 to 1999, steve worked for flomerics in the uk, california and massachusetts. amongst other things, he ran the san jose office, edited the user newsletter and developed web-based applications such as flopack and, more recently, flo/eda. he was also involved in the jedec jc15 committee on thermal standardization. in 2000, he worked for a time as the vp services for an e-learning consultancy headquartered in boston.

he is now living and working in seattle as an associate professor and program director for the oregon institute of technology and consultant for addison robson llc.

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