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Next-Generation Mentoring for eLearning February 2004 Author:  Rob Edmonds Contributor:  Eilif Trondsen About This Report Table of Contents   Download the full report About This Report eLearning has not replaced instructors; it has changed their role. eLearning mentors, or e-tutors, are specialist instructors or subject-matter experts who guide learners through the online learning experience. Although mentors have been around since the early days of eLearning, their prominence is growing as companies learn to make better use of the communication and collaboration aspects of eLearning. In addition, mentoring is beginning to make greater use of other collaboration technologies and becoming a more integral part of the overall eLearning process. Start-up companies, including Ensemble Collaboration and Global Mentoring, are bringing next-generation mentoring services to market and challenging incumbents like KnowledgePool and SkillSoft. This report examines the current and next generation of mentoring services within eLearning and highlights implications for vendors and users. eLearning implementations have used mentors to perform a variety of roles beyond tutoring, including administration, motivation, and assessment. Although in this report mentoring refers to all these roles, the discussion assumes that the primary function of a mentor is to provide knowledge, guidance, and support to learners in response to requests for assistance. Mentoring is one of several collaboration applications that are finding greater use in eLearning. SRIC-BI's Learning-on-Demand Program will continue to address other collaboration issues in forthcoming reports, workshops, and meetings. Recent reports that cover other aspects of learning collaboration include eLearning in the Financial-Services Industry: A Case-Based Analysis, which examines financial-services firms' use of electronic communities in eLearning, and eLearning in the Life-Sciences Industry, which looks at pharmaceutical companies' application of collaboration technologies to their learning processes. We welcome feedback about this report and the program, and we encourage you to contact us with any questions or suggestions. For more information, contact Eilif Trondsen, director, Learning-on-Demand (LoD) Program; telephone: +1 650 859 2665; fax: +1 650 859 4544; e-mail: etrondsen@sric-bi.com. We appreciate your support of our program and look forward to working closely with you as a Learning-on-Demand sponsor. Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 About this Report 3 Toward Collaborative Mentoring 4 The Benefits of Current and Next-Generation Mentoring Services 10 Mentoring Vendors 12   Ensemble Collaboration 12   KnowledgePool 14   SkillSoft 15   Global Mentoring 16 Interviews with Enterprise Adopters and Vendors 18   Enterprise Adopters 18     Braxton 18     Unisys 19     United States Air Force Communications Agency 20     Bank of Montreal 21     Fireman's Fund Insurance Company 21     Wachovia 22   Vendors 22     KnowledgePool 22     DigitalThink 23     Online Courseware Factory 23     Forio 24     GP e-Learning 24     GeoLearning 25     Sun Microsystems 26 The Market for Collaborative Mentoring 26 Conclusions and Action Plans 30   The Future of Collaborative Mentoring 30   Challenges and Opportunities 31   Action Plans 33     Enterprise Users 33     Learning-Content Vendors 33     Learning-Infrastructure Vendors 34     Learning-Service Providers 34   Tables Phase I versus Phase II eLearning 4 Traditional versus Collaborative Mentoring 10 U.S. Market for Collaborative-Mentoring Services 28   Figures Taxonomy of Collaboration Tools 7 Collaboration Tools' Contribution to Collaborative Mentoring 8 Elements of a Collaborative-Mentoring Service 9 Global Mentoring's Real-Time Mentoring System 17 Budget Changes by Industry, 2001 to 2002 27 U.S. Market for Collaborative-Mentoring Services 28   Boxes Object-Based Collaboration Management 14 Major Software Vendors and Collaborative Mentoring 18

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