I received this from the Masie Center today. I was wary of posting it at first, but I have faith in Elliott Masie, so I’m going forward with posting it, assuming it is legit. If I discover it is incorrect in any way, I’ll amend this post accordingly:
Dear Learning & Training Colleagues:
I am appealing to you for immediate help to stop a disruptive set of lawsuits that threaten the heart and soul of the e-Learning innovation process.
In a nutshell, one small company has applied for and received a number of patents that they claim stake out their ownership of a wide range of the processes underlying e-Learning. For example, they claim to have patented the process of tracking learning based on jobs or test performance. In addition, they claim to own the patents that break documents into learning objects; and even to use one computer to access learning data from another computer via a network.
They have gotten the patents and have filed multi-million dollar suits against several of the e-Learning companies. A few of the e-Learning companies have settled to avoid the huge cost of litigation and the fear of losing in a trial. In conversations with the CEO’s of Learning and Technology companies, it is clear that these lawsuits are going to add increased costs that will be passed along to the customers, as well as have a chilling effect on the e-Learning innovation process.
Continued after the jump.
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Posted by
Michelle |
Categories:
eLearning | Tagged:
eLearning,
iplearn,
Masie |
The Masie Center delivers again. This time they have released a large yet free e-book, available for download, that covers 701 Tips for eLearning. Tips include:
#57: Business Issues Need Only Apply Make sure there is a clear business issue that e-Learning will address. Too many projects are started that do not have executive sponsorship or clearly address a business issue that needs to be resolved. The result is failure to continue once the budget comes into question.
#139: Adapt, Don’t Just Copy Put thought into the creation of the e-Learning module. Follow instructional design principles. E-learning is NOT just a conversion of Word or PowerPoint documents. E-Learning is a different medium – adapt your content accordingly.
#219: Chunk Your Training Keep you lessons at 30 minutes or less but if training on a new application, 60 minutes or less is best. Online recordings? 20 minutes or less.
#271: Respect Copyrights It’s easy to borrow content from other sites on the Internet. Most people are flattered if you want to borrow an image or some text, provided they receive appropriate credit. But if you’re using someone else’s materials, be sure to find out if the content is copyrighted. The Internet is filled with pirated images so even if it appears that something isn’t marked, it could be stolen already.
And a lot more! These tips are all provided by readers of Elliot Masie’s TRENDS eNewsletter and eLearning Consortium members. (Tip #271 is provided by a friend and colleague of mine: Jeff Harris from Trivantis, Cincinnati, OH.)
Download the free PDF or order a (free) CD
