Personal learning environments in the workplace: an exploratory study into the key business decision factors

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) have emerged as a solution to the need of learners for open and easily customisable learning environments. PLEs essentially hand complete control over the learning process to the learner. However, this learning model is not fully compatible with learning in the workplace, which is influenced by certain business factors. These factors are being investigated in this paper, through an exploratory study within a variety of private organisations in the UK. Based on the results of this study, 10 key factors affecting the adoption of PLEs in the workplace have been identified. The authors propose a framework for the adoption and diffusion of PLEs, aiming at informing decision makers within commercial organisations about the successful introduction of novel learning methodologies in their respective organisations