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E-Learning at Oracle

Next week Oracle Corp. will formally announce its new online learning network. The new part of Oracle University will allow users at all levels to subscribe to the company’s e-learning facilities.

Oracle University has been training its employees and customers for a while now in a classroom-based setting. But recently, Oracle decided it would be more cost-effective and time-efficient -- for both the company and its end users -- to put learning into the hands of the students.

After testing the e-learning model internally on Oracle employees, the company decided to roll it out to the public. In the online classroom model, users purchase a subscription for one year -- at a cost of $1195 -- that gives them access to all the lessons on the Oracle Learning Network (OLN).

Instead of spending days in the classroom and giving up valuable work time and spending a good deal more money, subscribers can access lessons -- that are broken up into about hour sessions -- and learn at their own pace, on their own time.

“With the new model, classes are more like two hours long, rather than the two days of classroom training,” says Chris Pirie, vice president at Oracle University.

Users will be able to access the most current information relevant to them, or they can take series of classes that will prep them for Oracle certification -- in much less time than in a purely classroom setting.

“With this we have an e-learning fast track. For those without base level experience to take all the certification classes would take about 22 days in the classroom. At $450 per day that equals almost $10,000. By applying e-learning, we’ve cut the 22 day program and instead you come to the classroom for 10 days, five at the beginning and five at the end,” Pirie says. At this pace, he says, a program that would take 15-18 months in the classroom would take about 15-18 weeks with the online and classroom learning combination.

Currently Oracle is offering about 80 hours of content, but it expects that to grow to about 600 hours during the next year. Interested parties may go to the Oracle University site for free trial subscription that allows them to view about 30 hours of content. ­–Alicia Costanza

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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