Online courses need practical back-up

Companies that plan to make their training entirely web-based could be selling their technical staff short, according to training providers who believe that computer based training (CBT) for IT professionals requiring new skills is insufficient for company needs.

Stanford Morris, business development manager at Computer Associates' education solutions, said: "For hardcore technical training, we like to put people hands-on in the labs." He added that CBT can be useful for IT and network managers to get an update on terms and concepts.

Training providers agreed that there was very little call for online technical courses, even though the technology existed to provide them.

Jon Burnby, an IT and network manager trainer, believed that what is learned in the classroom can be consolidated by web-based courses. "After five days of instructor-led training, IT professionals will only take in roughly 30 per cent of what is taught. If they follow up with CBT or self-paced web learning, then it will gradually sink in."

Paul Quinn, practice manager at Aris Education, said: "The benefit to network and IT managers is that they can train their end users en masse over the web." But he admitted that there was not much call for technical training over the internet from IT and network managers.

However, Mark Edmonds, senior consultant at Blue U IT training, disagreed, saying that the courses which lend themselves to e-learning are technical and process driven.

"Networking skills can be successfully delivered over the web. Network managers prefer to learn at their own pace and like the flexibility. On the whole, techies prefer e-training, and learning retention is higher for online courses," he explained.