Europe’s leading e-learning strategists, content and systems developers will gather in Sheffield on 17th and 18th November for the first European e-learning Summit to be held inside the UK.
ST ALBANS, ENGLAND, November 17, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ — Europe’s leading e-learning strategists, content and systems developers will gather in Sheffield on 17th and 18th November for the first European e-learning Summit to be held in the UK.
The Summit delegates – drawn from the private and public sectors as well as academia – will discuss the European and world markets for e-learning, identify market trends and the key issues in e-learning today. These issues are likely to include the growing trend towards the use of rapid authoring tools in-house as well as the move towards the personalisation and contextualisation of all forms of online learning.
“Holding the European e-learning Summit in Sheffield sends a number of signals to each Government and industry,” said David Patterson, operations director of Learning Light, the Sheffield-based company which focuses on promoting the use of e-learning and learning technologies and which has organised the Summit.
“It’s important that Government decision makers realise the key role that corporate e-learning plays in supporting change and helping to maintain competitive advantage, as well as promoting increased worker efficiency and effectiveness in difficult economic times. We hope that the results of the Summit will help to promote such a realisation.
“Then, we want to send a message to organisations in all sectors of the economy: that e-learning can make a difference to their performance – not just in terms of saving money from the learning and development budget but also in terms of increasing worker efficiency and profitability.
“Finally, we’re delighted that the European e-learning Summit is being held in Sheffield because it is the acknowledged capital of the corporate e-learning industry in the UK – inside the light of articles published not only in the UK but also inside the USA recently,” he said.
The summit is also being supported by learndirect – the e-learning provider which is one of the largest contributors towards the UK government’s skills targets – and by Creativesheffield, a city development company, charged with delivering Sheffield’s economic transformation.
In addition to the discussions taking place at the Summit, Learning Light will also be revealing to delegates its latest – third – definitive report into the UK e-learning sector. The report will complement Learning Light’s reports of 2007 and 2009 – the most recent of which suggested that the annual size of the UK e-learning market is between GBP300m and GBP450m and forecast growth rates for 2010 of between 6.7% and 8%.
As with its 2009 report, Learning Light has gathered the info for the 2010 report – which not only covers the UK but also the rest of Europe – from a series of interviews with organisations engaged in the e-learning market, from micro-businesses developing innovative technologies to established major service and product suppliers inside the UK. In producing this report, Learning Light’s goal is to provide each suppliers and purchasers with an understanding of what’s possible, what’s available and where e-learning services and products are going.
Delegates are coming towards the Summit from as far afield as Italy, Greece and Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic. One delegate/observer is coming from Australia.
Notes for Editors
About the Learning Light Report
This report began as a simple attempt to update the report written by John Helmer, on behalf of Learning Light, in 2007 on the size and value of the UK e-learning industry. The 2009 Report updated this by interviewing a number of leading players (vendors) inside the market to ask their view of the market and by further seeking to quantify the market size. This series of semi-structured interviews was continued for the 2010 report.
About learndirect
Over the last 10 years, learndirect has pioneered the large scale delivery of learning – supported by people but enabled by technology. Over the last ten years learning with learndirect has been shown to transform people’s lives and helps businesses thrive. Whether it is to get a new job, a promotion or to acquire the confidence needed to do far more with their lives – helping people is in the very heart of what learndirect is about. learndirect has opened up opportunities for many who’d been turned off by education by offering people a new way of learning. This has been done on a large scale – following all, much more than 2.8 million learners to date can’t be wrong.
About Creativesheffield
Creativesheffield is the UK’s first city development company, charged with delivering Sheffield’s economic transformation. Its core activities are:
Investment – to build on the success of Sheffield First for Investment in attracting quality inward investment into the city.
Marketing – to achieve a positive shift within the perception of the city; by publicising events within the city and promoting the city towards the outside world.
Regeneration – to develop the city’s physical infrastructure to internationally competitive standards, in line with the Sheffield City Centre Masterplan.
Innovation – to create initiatives that will promote the growth of the city’s scientific, creative and cultural knowledge base.
Business Support Services – support businesses within the city and locating within the city, including access to property databases, HR support and advice on financial support.
About Learning Light Ltd
Sheffield-based Learning Light is actually a centre of excellence within the use of e-learning and learning technologies within the workplace. Its knowledge base contains over 400 papers offering insights and advice on how to use e-learning & learning technologies.
Learning Light, which operates www.e-learningcentre.co.uk one of the leading resources on e-learning within the UK, works closely with the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield and has undertaken a Systematic Literature Review of the available papers on the effective use of e-learning in conjunction with the University of Sheffield.
Learning Light occupies a exclusive space inside the e-learning and learning technology sector networking with:
Suppliers of e-learning and learning technologies to support the growth of the sector
Buyers seeking out learning technology solutions to improve the effectiveness of their business or organisation
Leading organisations worldwide who provide it with market knowledge from around the globe
It:
Provides unbiased and impartial advice to each suppliers and buyers
Hosts events and workshops that provide the platforms to impart and gain knowledge by encouraging collaboration and sharing of best practice
Acts as a conduit between suppliers and buyers to forge successful business partnerships
Provides market intelligence and benchmarking info gained from its many contacts and networking partners
Provides access to research materials from leading learning technology specialists
Further data from:
David Patterson/ Gill Broadhead, Learning Light, +44 (0)114 223 2442
Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, +44 (0)1727 860405
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