Classrooms are passé. Online learning is in vogue. The electronic learning or e-learning industry is poised to grow at an unprecedented rate surmises Ambient Insight, a research firm. A new analysis and forecast released by this firm shows that e-learning reached $27.1 billion in 2009 and this figure is expected to double by 2014. According to its report, which is titled, "The Worldwide Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2009-2014 Forecast and Analysis," e-learning will reach a dollar volume of $49.6 billion by 2014. The report further maintains that North America will continue to be the largest e-learning market for the next five years. North America will be followed by Asia and Western Europe as the second and third largest e-learning markets, respectively by 2014.
If you want to be a part of the e-learning industry and witness the growth, you have a plethora of opportunities wide spread across the industry. Some of the job roles that you can consider in the e-learning industry are project managers, graphic developers, instructional designers or curriculum developers, content writers, technical writers, subject matter experts (SMEs), programmers, and quality analysts. The good news is except for the role of a SME, you do not need any specific qualification or field of specialization for the other roles. They are skill-based and the minimum requirement is a bachelor’s degree. However, as the name suggests, you should be an expert in a particular field of study for being a SME. Most of the e-learning companies hire an external SME for their projects. However, a few companies also have a team of SMEs internally. If you want to be a SME, you should be armed with the necessary qualifications and certifications in a particular technology or subject. For instance, e-learning vendors that create online certification courses on Microsoft products can only hire trainers approved by Microsoft. They are called Microsoft Certified Trainers or MCTs. The MCTs are the technical experts on Microsoft products and are the only authorized persons by Microsoft to provide content for training on their technologies. However, the SME only supplies the raw content, which needs to be converted into a suitable e-learning material. This is where the role of an instructional designer fits in. An instructional designer creates the high-level design or the blue-print of an e-learning course and suggests appropriate learning strategies and media treatments. After creating the high-level design, the instructional designer should also develop the content for the course.
In some organizations, the instructional designer only designs the course whereas content writers write the content based on the design strategy suggested by the instructional designer. However, by and large instructional designers design and create the content or storyboards for the e-learning courses. If you aspire to be an instructional designer, you should have excellent writing skills, strong grammatical skills and the ability to design and visualize content for e-learning courses. Once the instructional designers develop storyboards, the graphic developers should create the graphic elements. The graphic developers should be well-versed in various designing software applications, such as flash, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver as well as the e-learning tools, such as captivate and articulate. The graphic developers should finalize the media treatments in the e-learning courses along with the instructional designers. Once the course is created, the quality analyst has to verify the course for its quality and integrity. While hiring a quality analyst, the e-learning companies look for a person with strong editing skills. He or she should be prompt in grasping the standards followed by the organization and should have an eye for details. Apart from these functional roles, e-learning companies also hire project managers to plan and implement projects. A project manager should have strong managerial skills and the capacity to plan and implement projects on time. The opportunities in the e-learning industry are unlimited. With the spurt in the number of e-learning providers, the demand for e-learning professionals has increased. So you are limited only by your preferences. Reflect on your strengths and weaknesses and find out how you can make the best use of the opportunities that the e-learning industry is promising to offer.
