1.2 - H. E-training of government officials and citizens

Mr. Kyosuke Yoshimura, from the Learning Solution Division, IBM Global Services, gave a presentation on the importance of e-training to effectively implement e-government. In his presentation he discussed training needs in e-government projects; e-training organizations; user training planning to implement e-government; and gave some examples of successful e-training.

Mr. Yoshimura said the Information Age had changed customer needs, and altered the context in which governments made and implemented decisions and services. E-government had transformed processes to build productive and creative nations. e-training supported e-government transformation, but e-government needed to have an integrated management system to form communities of interest to address key issues across the government and private sectors. e-training was a common infrastructure which could assist in the implementation of each e-government project. e-government needs included businesses, citizens, media, other governments, community organizations, officials and employees. The impact and benefits for those other groups included technical advances and economic, political and social changes. Egovernment was about transforming the organizational and technological aspects of a government organization to appropriately leverage the knowledge and information needed to best support all of its customers (Figure 9 [PDF 111KB | 1 page]). Governments needed to communicate policies and provide training on new processes and procedures and IT skills that were critical to the success of e-government.

IT skills and application training that emphasized transforming technology for e-governance and demonstrated how it could be applied was needed to communicate what it meant to go "e". Education (teaching and learning) methods were also changing and learners’ active participation was becoming more important for the training result. E-training was required to successfully implement e-government projects (Figure 10 [PDF 123KB | 1 page]). E-training assisted implementation by providing access to e-learning technology. E-learning technology was interactive and included e-mail, CD satellite and TV/LAN Internet. There were several ways to develop training content using e-Learning technology.

The four-tiered E-learning approach was effective for education and training. E-training used chiefly Tiers 1 and 2 and government officials and citizens learned from information and interaction:

Tier 1 Learn from information
Tier 2 Learn from interaction
Tier 3 Learn from collaboration
Tier 4 Learn for colocation

Governments faced many challenges in the development of human resources. IT skills training accelerated industry development and employment. However, e-government projects needed to have IT professionals to implement the system and to train officials and citizens to use the system. IT literacy training consisted of the seven skills category/model, each of which were necessary to reach the next category (Figure 11 [PDF 97KB | 1 page]).

E-training provided flexibility and was useful for training both officials and citizens. A well developed training strategy was a key to success for project implementation. Therefore, e-training was discussed as the common infrastructure of any e-government project. The scope of e-training planning focused on user education and training strategy, specifically: (a) organization: new roles, responsibilities and competencies; (b) process: business practices and associated operating principles; and (c) IT: understanding of and facility with any new package or system. The scope needed to be the development of training material, e-training user documentation, change communication, delivery of training, assessment of training, documentation of maintenance and post implementation support. The key concerns of the e-training programme were identified according to the needs of the e-government project master plan, with e-training considered as a common e-government application.

Mr. Yoshimura gave as an example the Venezuela Ministry of Science and Technology. The Ministry established and developed a software workforce to improve its global competitiveness and encourage productivity with the use of e-business. Its training partner’s experiences in the software industry, e-business technology and IT training services provided a complete solution for the government’s objectives. The Ministry quickly and cost-effectively started the training element of the software industry development plan and enabled the Government to address its employment, economic and technology issues earlier. High-level professionals from the first class of graduates were now in the market with only one year of time invested. Training costs per student and student dropout rates were both lower than the industry standard.

Another example given was the Japan Institute of Workers’ Evolution (JIWE) which provided a job search web site for citizens, which also supported skills assessment and e-training. The mission of the JIWE was to support citizen reemployment and to provide classroom seminars and information materials to help citizens find jobs. The challenge was in how to provide support services to women who could not visit the training centre because of child care or aged family care responsibility. JIWE therefore, wanted to provide employment information and e-Learning services anytime, anywhere, to a wide range of people and help “Mothers back to work!” The solution was to use a prototype approach to capture the clients’ requirements and to shorten the development cycle. JIWE provided e-learning curriculum design consultation and e-learning contents development, and developed and provided an elearning 24-hour hosting service called “Hurray Hurray Net” (URL: http:// www.jiwe.or.jp/english/evolusion/index.html). The system had e-learning standard compliance as well as a flexible and rich courseware selection. The on-demand hosting system services made it possible to implement the system quickly and reduce maintenance costs and provide 24-hour operation. Userfriendly web-based e-training content motivated users who were not familiar with personal computer operation. Users could join the virtual community from home and exchange their experiences with each other.

In the plenary discussion, Mr. Yoshimura was asked to define elearning, and how its success and quality could be measured. He explained that e-learning was a blended solution, not only IT-based. It could involve mentoring or discussion in addition to the use of IT. That combination approach resulted in a higher productivity in general than classroom education. One characteristic of e-learning was the increased students' learning time, because less time was given over to presentation of course content and more time was made available for individual learning. Another important factor was learners’ attitudes, as positive attitudes were very important.