FRAMINGHAM (11-22-95) - When the University of Alabama decided in 1992 to offer an on-line workshop on how to best use the Internet, it expected no more than 40 people to participate. But when notice of the course went out over the Internet, registration applications started pouring in -- 864 of them from 20 countries.
A second workshop drew 15,000 participants from more than 50 countries. Earlier this year, the school used the World-Wide Web to distribute self-paced Internet training materials to 17,000 subscribers, and it will continue using the Web to send educational materials to even more users.
The University of Alabama's wild success proves the Web holds tremendous value as a corporate training tool, says a report on the subject from International Data Corp. (IDC), a Framingham, Mass.-based research firm.
However, you've got to be willing to lay out the developmental dollars to come up with your own course-authoring software today or wait at least nine to 12 months for vendors to supply it for you, the report concludes.
The report, written by Ellen Julian, an IDC senior analyst in IT training and educational services, points out the pros and cons of using the Web as a training tool and provides evidence that a number of vendors will soon be producing Web-based versions of existing CD-ROM interactive educational programs.
Indeed, vendors such as Web Educational Support Tools, Ltd. (WEST) of Dublin, Ireland, and AimTech Corp. of Nashua, N.H., have already released software for authoring interactive courses for the Web.
WEST's tool, also called WEST, was developed at University College Dublin and can be used to write client/server-based multimedia applications that enable students to browse course material on the Web or even on a LAN server.
AimTech released in October Version 7.0 of its IconAuthor tool, which adds a number of features needed to develop Web-based interactive learning applications to earlier versions that were used to write computer-based training programs.
IDC's report also suggests that Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java, an object-oriented Web development technology, can also be used to develop training applications.
Java can be used to build Web-based applications that can download small pieces of code called applets to local workstations. Those applets can run on the workstation and interact with Web resources.
Another technology that will give a push to Web-based training is Cornell University's CU-SeeMe, free software that allows users to establish black and white videoconferences over the Internet.
CU-SeeMe enables you to use low-cost desktop video cameras to capture your image and existing workstation monitors to display the images of others in the conference.
With these tools and more coming on the market, the report recommends that companies at least investigate using the Web for corporate training but warns you to invest cautiously.
In the same time it takes you to develop internal applications, there will be more and more powerful shrink-wrapped packages hitting the market.
[Copyright 1995 Network World (US), International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.]