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An Overview of the Canadian E-Learning Industry

By Gary Woodill

 

Here's a preliminary view of the scope of the e-learning industry in Canada using publicly available information from several sources. 

 

Canada has a thriving e-learning industry. The country has more than 300 companies offering some combination of e-learning technologies, services, and content. There are government programs that support e-learning at both the federal and provincial levels, as well as a host of universities, colleges, and school boards that offer online courses, research, and publications. Here's a preliminary view of the scope of the e-learning industry in Canada using publicly available information from several sources.

 

How Canada compares to other countries

 

The Canadian e-Learning Directory from the Canadian eLearning Enterprise Alliance (CeLEA) (www.celea-aceel.ca), the Directory of e-Learning Providers on the Brandon Hall Research website (www.brandonhall.com), a search using Google, and personal contacts were used to build this picture of the Canadian e-learning industry.

 

The largest directory of e-learning companies appears to be the one maintained by Brandon Hall Research, a group of analysts headquartered in California. The locations of e-learning companies around the world as listed in the 2005 Directory of e-Learning Providers are shown in Figure 1. 

 

Figure 1

Figure 1 – Distribution of companies listed in the 2005 Directory of e-Learning Providers available from www.brandonhall.com; N = 1021

 

 

It is not surprising that U.S.-based companies dominate this list, as it is maintained by an U.S. organization. However, it is surprising that on a per capita basis, Canada has more e-learning companies than any country on the list, including the United States. (Note: the United States is approximately 10 times more populous than Canada). Germany is third in terms of the number of companies listed.

 

The e-learning industry in Canada has benefited from research funded by its government through the National Research Council (NRC). Current projects supported by the NRC include the Distributed Learning Object Repository Network (DLORN) and OLDaily, a daily newsletter on e-learning put out by Stephen Downes, a NRC research officer in Moncton, New Brunswick.

 

Also, the e-learning industry has an interest in e-learning research occurring at various Canadian universities. University based e-learning research initiatives include the Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research (CIDER), the research arm of the Centre for Distance Education at Athabasca University in Alberta, and the Ontario Education Portal being developed at the University of Toronto.

Indeed, the Directory of e-Learning Providers drastically under-represents the size of the Canadian e-learning industry. Rather than a mere 100 companies, there are more than 300 e-learning companies in Canada. The Canadian e-Learning Directory lists companies as well as universities and government agencies involved with e-learning. Separating out the non-business organizations leaves 225 companies from the directory. Google searches and personal contacts allowed the addition of another 75 companies that were not listed in the directory, for a total of 300 identified e-learning enterprises in Canada. In addition, there are approximately 50 organizations in the directory that are associated with universities and government agencies, for a total of 350 groups involved in the industry.

 

Regional analysis within Canada

 

For several reasons, the 350 e-learning companies and organizations in Canada are not distributed evenly across the country. Rather, there are specific areas where e-learning companies have congregated and other parts of the country with little or no involvement in the e-learning industry. Of course, large Canadian cities, such as Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, have been magnets for high-tech companies.

 

However, there are large centers without many e-learning companies and a number of small cities and towns with quite a few. In large part, these variations are a result of incentive programs and infrastructure support provided by provincial governments in Canada (education is a provincial responsibility). In addition, “early to market” companies in smaller municipalities and regions have drawn in others interested in working in this industry. 

 

The geographical breakdown of the distribution of e-learning companies and organizations within Canada is shown in Figure 2.

 

Figure 2

 

Figure 2 - Identified e-learning companies, agencies, and other organizations in Canada by province; N = 350

 

Breakdown by organization focus

 

The Canadian e-Learning Directory lists companies and organizations as to whether they are involved in the following areas:  

  • content: custom courses, post-secondary courses, and industry-specific courses
  • technology: LMS/LCMS, authoring systems, and content management systems
  • services: strategy, planning and project management, instructional design, and website development.

 

Even though most companies checked all three areas of expertise, they typically focus on one of the three areas, relying on partners to cover the other two. In order to get a more granular view of the primary focus of each company, a visit to  each company’s website to scan marketing materials was conducted. As shown in Figure 3, approximately 53 percent of companies had a primary focus in the content area, 23 percent in the services sector, and 24 percent in the technology arena.


Figure 3

Figure 3 – Primary focus of Canadian e-learning companies; N = 225

 

A review of the offerings of each e-learning company in Canada shows a wide breadth of expertise throughout the country, allowing groups of Canadian companies to tackle large scale national and international projects. In addition to the areas listed above, e-learning capabilities of Canadian companies include

 

  • 3D imaging
  • assessment software
  • collaboration software
  • content filtering software
  • data management and data mining
  • digital broadcasting
  • DVD authoring, indexing and replication
  • e-commerce for e-learning
  • graphical and interface design
  • intelligent tutoring systems
  • intelligent whiteboards
  • interactive voice response systems
  • internet marketing
  • knowledge management software
  • language training
  • multimedia production
  • planning tools
  • portal development
  • simulations
  • web conferencing systems. 

 

Canadian companies as “nearsourcing” partners

 

In his recent book, The World is Flat, Thomas Freidman discusses the trends towards outsourcing. Because of perceived lower costs, much work has gone to such countries as India and China. As this trend has increased, so too have problems with privacy of data and piracy of software. Nearsourcing is outsourcing to a neighboring country, rather than half way around the world.

 

For companies that are looking for e-learning suppliers, there are many ways to access Canadian expertise. One way is to search the Canadian e-Learning Directory, and then click on the website address for specific companies. Another is to send a Request for Proposal (RFP) to the Canadian e-Learning Alliance (send to http://info@celea-aceel.ca), which will then distribute it to its members.

Canada is uniquely positioned as a nearsourcing partner in e-learning for companies in the United States seeking this type of arrangement. It is geographically next door, simplifying travel between the countries, compared with the long flights necessary to reach suppliers in other parts of the world. Canada has a lower value per dollar, and in many cases, lower labor costs for highly educated workers compared to the United States.

 

English is the primary language of both countries, but Canada also has a huge diversity of non-English communities that can provide translation and language services in many different languages. The capabilities of French speaking companies in Quebec and New Brunswick are a huge resource. Less well known outside Canada are the large Chinese communities in Vancouver and Toronto, and the fact that Toronto has over 60 identified languages with more than 1,000 native speakers per language group.

 

Canton (2004) has identified other advantages of using Canada as a nearsourcing partner:

 

  • high regard for the protection of personal information of customers
  • respect for the confidential information of the outsourcer
  • respect for intellectual-property protections;
  • clear written obligations in contracts that are relatively easy for U.S. companies to enforce in the Canadian legal system
  • Canada's labor costs are higher than those outside North America, but they are still lower than in the U.S. after the exchange rate is applied.

It is clear that Canadian companies individually and collectively can supply the content, technologies, skills, and project management capabilities to tackle any major e-learning project. It is a growing industry, ready and able to tackle any set of e-learning requirements.

 

References

  • Canadian e-Learning Directory (2005); www.celea-aceel.ca 
  • Canton, David (2004) Outsource solution right here. CNEWS, October 2, 2004.
  • Directory of e-Learning Providers (2005); www.brandonhall.com
  • Freidman, Thomas (2005) The World is Flat: a brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Both the Canadian and the Brandon Hall directories are based on voluntary registration by the listed companies.

Gary Woodill is chief learning officer of Operitel Corporation, and a member of the board of directors of the Canadian eLearning Enterprise Alliance (CeLEA). He is the author of Emerging eLearning: new approaches to delivering engaging online learning content (Brandon Hall Research, 2005). Contact him at gwoodill@operitel.com.

 

 

 
 
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