Information technology analysis firm Forrester Research Inc. released last week a case study (purchase necessary) presenting how tire manufacturer Michelin Group uses the virtual world Second Life to train employees. The report outlines how Michelin uses Second Life to teach enterprise architecture theory to IT employees, including how it organizes materials and how employees interact with it. Unfortunately, the report is thin on the empirical evidence indicating whether Michelin's virtual "islands" train employees better than, or at least equally as well as, the traditional classroom.
Michelin began the virtual training in April and 70 students have completed the course, with another 170 employees signed up to take the class. Michelin has yet to test the students who have taken the virtual course to learn if they retained the information better than those taught in a classroom. The author, Erica Driver, only cites a 2007 study conducted by the Stanford University School of Medicine that showed "no noticeable difference in . . . proficiency gains in managing basic trauma cases using a virtual world versus a human patient simulator learning environment." Driver also offers little evidence other than the assertion that "trainees like the challenge of doing EA exercises in an interactive environment and perceive that visualizing concepts makes the concepts easier to understand. Trainees also said that using an immersive environment helped them focus on training because they were always fully engaged - not unlike in a video game."
Michelin does have some preliminary, although vague, findings. Of 22 students who filled out a questionnaire on their experience with the Second Life training, 65 percent said they could use EA concepts and 70 percent thought Second Life was a good platform to take EA training.
Virtual worlds may, indeed, offer a better way to train employees. But until we have harder evidence that shows how good (or inferior) it is compared to traditional training classes, we are left with little else than quotes from virtual-world enthusiasts like this one from Michelin's chief architect, Philippe Barreaud: "We like the cool factor of Second Life and like being able to go into Second Life and see what other people have done in the area of training - like IBM and others."
COMMENTS
If the retention and ability to apply what is learned in the classroom is equal to the results of a classroom situation, this is a strong case for virtual classrooms.
If companies are able to buy servers or server time and the electricity to keep them running, virtual classrooms may help them get around the rising expenses and hassles associated with travel to a training site or a meeting.
It seems that anytime a training or meeting is held outside of home location a growing number of attendees end up stranded somewhere - far away from where they really want to be. This is after paying a hefty price for the ticket itself.
Bottom line - if it is just as good, and costs about the same now, it's probably going to be a good strategy for the future. Has anyone looked at the overall price of setting up a virtual training center vs. on-site training?
Rick Lux 06/10/08 08:31 am ET
Allan,
All points well taken but having attended and sent employees to many training sessions over the years, I'd be hard pressed to deliver any empirical evidence that I/they retained the information taught there, either. The paucity of such evidence hardly is surprising given the relative newness of Second Life.
Driver has done a fairly long series of studies of virtual worlds for business and has expressed a healthy dose of skepticism along the way. (And she will be missed now that she has left Forrester) At this stage, though, the main contribution of consulting firms and educational organizations vis a vis Second Life, et al., is to chart how they are being used. There's little enough information that even that is of value.
Most serious observers fairly quickly say that the place for true virtual training is in worlds that live behind company or agency firewalls. But places like Second Life still offer interesting recruiting advantages and with those, the "cool" factor is a real advantage.
For true training, one of the best opportunities lies with RealWorld (http://theagilemind.blogspot.com/2008/02/rehearsing-for-battle-in-game.html), a simulation-building platform under development at DARPA and part of the DARWARS line of training products along with the popular sim Ambush!.
Probably best not to subject such nascent products to harsher evidentiary standards than the old brick-and-mortar schoolhouse just yet, though.
Anne Laurent 06/09/08 09:48 pm ET