4 Limitations and constraints

  1. Limitations of e-learning

    E-learning is a means, not an end. Any approach to e-learning in social care must be incorporated into wider education, training and knowledge management initiatives for the social care sector. Most importantly in social care, e-learning must be linked to improved service outcomes.

  2. Basic ICT skills are needed to begin to engage successfully in e-learning. In the UK there is still a 'digital divide' - the gap between those who have access to hardware and networks and the skills to use them, and those who do not. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS 2003) show that fewer than 50 per cent of UK households have access to the internet. While this persists, e-learning runs the risk of widening the gap between disadvantaged learners and others.

  3. Research on early e-learning initiatives across a number of other sectors shows a lack of quality e-learning content and a lack of support for learners, leading to some drab and isolating experiences and low retention rates. These early initiatives failed to take account of learner preference, focused solely on the electronic transmission of information, and forgot the importance of the human element in all teaching and learning. Social care can learn these lessons from other sectors and ensure e-learning is a tool to enhance good teaching and training, not a way of replacing it.

  4. An assumption that e-learning delivery systems must be ambitious and bespoke has driven the commercial market to produce over-elaborate systems, and also to some duplicate procurements within and across sectors. The potential for sharing systems has not been fully realised or exploited. At the same time, a tendency to opt for commercial versions of systems such as virtual learning environments (VLEs), with restrictive licensing and terms of use, can 'lock out' some potential learners - and educators - from the education process.

  5. While e-learning can, in theory, be made accessible to a broad range of learners, in reality, e-learning is not currently very accessible. Sometimes this is because the technical work required has not been addressed. But sometimes it is because learning materials and the systems that support them are not addressing the real needs of users in the first place.

  6. Constraints in the social care sector

    The social care sector is dispersed and heterogeneous, and consequently under-researched. While we do not know precisely the current state of e-learning readiness in the sector, the available evidence suggests significant constraints in terms of lack of ICT hardware, lack of connectivity, lack of skills on the part of both learners and educators, and a lack of organisational awareness.

  7. The sector has a large number of small organisations, where workforce development support is limited. Interpersonal skills are properly valued in the sector, but on occasion this has been allowed to mask the need for staff to have, and to continue to acquire, knowledge and additional skills. The leaders and managers of the large numbers of relatively small and dispersed organisations that make up the sector need strategic and hands-on support in understanding, planning for and sustaining investment in and use of e-learning.

  8. Previous attempts by some e-learning providers to sell off-the-shelf 'solutions' to social care employers have created some scepticism in the sector. E-learning has matured, and the number of quality providers will continue to grow, but some ground will need to be made up in the sector before confidence is inspired.

  9. A major feature of learning support for social care is the need to deal with basic skills, since a disproportionately high number of staff need support in these areas. Effective approaches currently being used integrate vocational learning - often for the induction or foundation standards - with basic skills and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). While e-learning can be used effectively to support these approaches, face-to-face support is critical.

  10. Beyond basic skills and induction standards, social care has very complex training pathways (see View 23kb image in new window Figure 1), which can be difficult to access for learners and educators alike, and can make identification of the most effective targets for e-learning provision difficult.

  11. Two particular challenges we face in encouraging optimal e-learning for the whole social care sector are:

    • addressing the differences in culture and approach to e-learning that currently exist in the further education, higher education and workforce development sectors (both private and statutory)
    • understanding the best mix of centralised and decentralised delivery of services; where a national strategy should plan the delivery of actual products/services for the sector, and where it should play an enabling role by providing a nationally co-ordinated framework that supports individual organisations or local/regional partnerships to develop their own products and services.
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