programs rather than giving new employees an orientation program. Employees benefit from this



learning and development program since they can excel at their role and responsibilities better

with these knowledge resources, besides also channelizing their knowledge into workable ideas

that can translate into business solutions.

Since organizations have the unique responsibility of consolidating knowledge and

information into training modules for employees quicker and more effectively than before, they

need to look for technologies that will cohere knowledge into a centralized access point, and

present it seamlessly.

This is where e-learning steps in. It is critical to the success of organizations,

communities and economies, and individuals. Through e-learning portals, effective educational and

training courses can be brought to the PCs of employees who can benefit from it in terms of

receiving upto date information, customized, accessible 24/7, flexible, convenient, user-centric

and in the form of centralized knowledge management.

What is an e-learning portal? An organization sets up a virtual

environment for disseminating access to knowledge to its staff. This is how an e-learning portal

is born. Such portals are known differently—e-learning centers, internal portals, online

education centers, virtual universities and corporate universities.

These are the frameworks for e-learning, or training to happen. Besides, learners can

also use specific tools to access, navigate and aggregate "learning chunks" (whether complete or

bite-sized) or "learning objects" from courses, web sites, internal databases or

repositories.

The e-learning portal, therefore, becomes an access point from where courses,

training, applications, services are sent out to customers, employees, partners or suppliers. On

the other hand, it is also the meeting place for the organization's web channels such as the

Internet, intranet, extranet, etc to combine information that will benefit the larger

community.

Benefits of e-learning portals: You get the benefits of real time

training, replete with integrated multimedia and instructor-led in an environment of pooled

resources. The benefits they give organizations in the following areas are:

• Recruitment and selection: They help attract, rate and hire fresh
  
  talent



• Retention: They serve to retain staff



• Career growth through learning: They provide online and offline
  
  training and other related learning activities



• Rewarding staff: E-learning portals help recognize star performers
  
  of organizations



• Succession planning: To identify and develop the best workers with
  
  acknowledged skills and competencies who can make their mark in the organization

Pratibha R. S.

Executive - Instructional Designer

About CommLab IndiaCommLab India (www.commlabindia.com) is a Custom

eLearning Solutions Company based in India. Since 2000, it has been providing state-of-the-art

eLearning services to organizations across the world in the areas of Learning Consultancy, Custom

Courseware and Learning Technology. Some of our reputed clients are BC Hydro, George Washington

University, Kawasaki and Deloitte. We are preferred vendors to some of the Fortune 500 companies

like Alcoa and Hill-Rom.