Another high-profile public sector elearning project is under the spotlight.

NHSU, the corporate university for the NHS, has cancelled a major elearning procurement and is changing its approach to technology provision, according to an internal memo leaked to Computing.

The news about the Virtual Campus project at NHSU follows the recent closure of UKeU, the government's flagship online learning project for the higher education sector.

A Computing investigation revealed that UKeU attracted just 900 students, cost the UK taxpayer £50m, and its £9.9m bespoke online learning platform is likely to be scrapped (Computing, 29 July).

Executives at NHSU took a long, hard look at the problems at UKeU.

An external review, led by elearning expert Professor Keith Baker, concluded that the markets, business model and processes underlying UKeU were different from those being developed by NHSU.

An NHSU spokeswoman says any responsible organisation would review the lessons learnt from the closure of a project in a related field.

'It would have been imprudent of NHSU not to take stock of the UKeU experience that possibly could help inform our strategic or operational decisions,' she said.

But a wider re-think of the original Virtual Campus plans led NHSU executives to change their approach to purchasing the technology required to support the initiative. As a result, the existing procurement was terminated.

Elearning expert and director of the LearningLab Steve Molyneux says NHSU has made the right decision.

'The people running NHSU are intervening at the right stage - before money is wasted - but they really need to go back to the drawing board and give ministers expectations that can be really delivered,' he said.

NHSU, which has a budget of £44.6m for 2004/05, is looking to support 100,000 students in the 2004 financial year.

'There's no reason why public sector projects shouldn't roll out to schedule,' said Molyneux.

'Unfortunately, expectations of civil servants, who see elearning as the goose with the golden egg, often outweigh the reality of what technology can deliver.'

Paul Leng, Professor of elearning at the University of Liverpool, says elearning course developers need to stop concentrating on IT and start thinking about their users.

'Developers are seduced by the potential of technology,' he said.

'Users want online learning because they want to study online. They're not there because they want an exciting experience.'

Liverpool offers two fully online degrees: an MBA and an MSc in IT.

The university has around 1,800 students from more than 80 countries enrolled on these programmes.

'Rather than just technology, we've focused a lot on people and processes,' said Leng.

'Good elearning is about answering a basic need and it's important to not provide anything too clever.'

All Liverpool's courses are taught in small classes and students are encouraged to complete interactive assignments.

'Elearning gives you an opportunity to give people access to an enriching community of learners,' said Leng.

'We make our structure more tutorial based so that people can interact and discuss.'

Liverpool developed its courses in partnership with online learning specialist KIT elearning, who invested $10m (£5.5m) in developing a well-honed product and provided the software to Liverpool.

But it's not just academic organisations that are working alongside technology providers.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently announced it has enlisted BT to help with a project to deliver online learning to more than 300,000 users (Computing, 10 June).

Under the 10-year contract to provide the MoD's Defence Elearning Delivery and Management Capability, BT will roll out online training facilities through a Defence Learning Portal that will be accessible by all three armed services, as well as civilian MoD staff.

Molyneux says a closer relationship between the private and public sector is essential if project failures are to be avoided.

'I fail to see how public sector projects can struggle, when large private sector elearning initiatives can work when they are heavily tied to return on investment,' he said.

'Before moving down the elearning route, public sector agencies should investigate how online learning is best used in the private sector.'

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