E-learning has become a significant supportive cornerstone of the educational process at universities and in companies, where it is applied as supplementary education of the staff. At the Silesian University in Opava, School of Business Administration in Karvina, under completion of grant projects e-learning study of number of bachelor study programs received an accreditation. E-learning is applied for training in the business sector in the Czech Republic as well as in different countries. Both at universities and in companies there exist specific solutions of effective implementation of the individual e-learning systems depending on a myriad of factors derived from differences in the individual environments. The articles provides an overview of potential problematic areas, which may occur in implementation of e-learning and it is in the Czech Republic where these problematic situations have been tackled. The purpose of the article is to list basic problematic areas, each of which deserves a separate article and a detailed analysis.E-learning, life-long education, off-line communication, on-line communication, e-learning electronic study material, text study supports, number of students, Learning Management System (LMS), information system, computer literacy

Suchánek, Petr

English

Research Papers in Economics

OVERVIEW  OF  POTENTIAL  PROBLEMATIC  FIELDS  AND 
EXPERIENCE  WITH  RESPECT  TO  IMPLEMENTATION  OF  E-
LEARNING IN A COMPANY AND SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT IN THE 
CZECH REPUBLIC 
Petr Suchánek 
Key  words:  E-learning,  life-long  education,  off-line  communication,  on-line  communication,  e-
learning electronic study material, text study supports, number of students, Learning Management 
System (LMS), information system, computer literacy 
New concept of economy and new approach to problem-solving in all areas of the social life brings 
pressure  for  development  of  means  through  which  you  can  easier,  faster  and  more  effectively 
achieve completion of particular solutions and goals.  Different information and communication 
technologies (ICT) appear to be relevant instruments. [1] The area which can hardly do without the 
ICT nowadays is education. It does not concern education at different types of schools but also the 
area of so called life-long education. It is evident that any university achieving any standard can 
hardly produce absolute specialists whose knowledge, abilities and skills gained at the university 
shall  be  sufficient  for  their  entire  life.  This  holds  true  also  for  lower  education.  The  current 
environment is changing very fast an each employee at any level must keep learning about new 
possibilities of more and more modern technologies, business practices, management processes, 
legislation, etc.  In this relation we speak about the system of the life-long education. Nearly all 
universities and higher education institutions and to a certain extent even high schools deal with 
life-long  education  nowadays.  Even  the  companies  on  their  own  endeavour  to  educate  their 
employees  since  they  are  well  aware  that  in  the  severe  competition  only  such  a  company  can 
succeed which shall, besides other competitive advantages, gain the advantage of the educated and 
continuously improving employees at all levels. E-learning is a considerable means for support of 
life-long educational activities.  
E-learning is a convenient alternative of the classical education. [2] It can be generally observed 
that it does not show such an effectiveness as the classical education but it is characteristic for 
a number of advantages, of which the financial takes the first place. The e-learning minimises or 
eliminates transport, accommodation costs and other travel expenses, as well as education rooms 
rent costs and lecturer’s remuneration, etc. The lecturer taking advantage of e-learning methods 
takes a role of so called tutor. He communicates with the students via an off-line communication (e-
mail, electronic notice boards) or online communication (for instance chat, videoconference), where 
he can get involved in the discussion with students, reply to their queries, or, where appropriate, 
motivate them to study.  
The study materials for e-learning are usually worked into so called hypermultimedia form, which 
means that they include besides the basic hypertext also photographs, video sequences and so on. 
Images, videos and appropriately written hypertexts altogether with interactivity, which should be 
an integral part of each electronic education material, help an easier and faster comprehension of the 
taught/learnt matters. As our experience indicates the intensity of the tutor’s work is derived from 
the quality of the study materials. There is a number of principles applied for their making. It is 
assumed that the e-learning study material should: 
·  comprise comprehensible texts – all described events must be depicted in a simple manner so as 
to be properly grasped by the students, 
·  have  a  comprehensible  structure  –  logical  arrangement  of  the  individual  parts  including 
compliance with the consistency principles, 
·  contain sufficient number of images, video sequences and so no, - images and videos often 
better clarify the described phenomenon, ·  include interactive features – make the student actively work with the material and keep his 
attention, 
·  contain check and feedback features – for instance mock tests, where the student can verify the 
mastery of curriculum, 
·  be  user  friendly  –  the  student  should  take  advantage  of  the  table  of  contents  rather  than 
painstakingly move among the individual course parts, etc.  
Should the study material be worked out comprehensibly, the tutor has less work with additional 
explanation and specification and can devote his time to organisation matters. 
Nevertheless, the goal of this article is not to describe e-learning methodology. The e-learning 
principles and rules as educational methods are generally recognised. A specific approach resulting 
form the specifications of the environment in which e-learning is always needed. It concerns school 
(university and higher education institute) and company environment. 
The number of students is usually the first difference. If we assume a small or a medium-sized 
company (up to 60 staff) the e-learning implementation is far easier than at a university, where in 
one year of the study ensured in such a manner the number of students can be far higher. This is an 
example of the School of Business Administration in Karviná, which is one of the two faculties of 
the  Silesian  University  in  Opava,  having  5,600  students  altogether.  At  the  School  of  Business 
Administration in Karviná there are currently 2,746 students, of which 250 students are enrolled in 
the e-learning form of study. Should we add the courses tutors, we will get to the number 300 
people. At the present time these students are in three years of the bachelor study and they study 
"Marketing and Management“ and “Economy of Enterprise in Trade and Services”. Students are 
also offered the accredited majors "Finance", "Public Economy and Administration" and “European 
Integration”. Regarding the study organisation, all the 300 students must have an access to LMS 
(Learning Management System), where a problem-free operation must be ensured. At different 
universities in the Czech Republic the numbers of students may be considerably different. 
Under the university education in the e-learning form, it may not be ignored that the electronically 
processed  study  materials  can  be  effectively  utilised  also  for  the  full-time  study  forms.  [3] 
Practically  all  tutors  at  universities  are  university  pedagogues  and  the  materials  which  they 
developed for e-learning are often used in their full-time courses. In this relation, the capacity of the 
servers should be pointed out since in general there is a multiple increase in the number of visits of 
the e-learning management system. This fact was in some cases omitted in the very beginnings of e-
learning implementation and the performance capacity of the system must have been increased 
immediately. 
University  education  calls  for  transfer  of  far  broader  information.    Regarding  companies, 
a continuous training is assumed, which is usually oriented only to a specific content unit. This 
reduces demands for LMS, which can have a simpler structure with regard to organisation of the 
individual courses. 
A  wide  offer  of  LMS  products  exists  which  are  developed  on  the  common,  already  general 
philosophy derived from the needs of the e-learning system, however a number of them may not be 
utilised directly. Companies which develop these products practically do not cooperate and each of 
them endeavours to push though their product as the best one. Their prices are in some cases 
however rather high regarding the respective performance and it is rather the business efforts to 
penetrate  on  the  market  so  as  to  achieve  profit.  Some  companies  and  organisations  purchase 
different types of systems and then ascertain that they have to invest other considerable amounts 
into  their  adjustment  to  their  respective  requirements.  In  some  companies  a  situation  occurred 
where it was found out that the purchased system for e-learning support cannot be fully used even 
after the adjustments. 
Different systems are implemented at different universities and higher education institutes, where e-
learning  is  used  for  the  purposes  of  distant  education.    Even  universities  cannot  arrive  at  an agreement as to which product is the most convenient for this type of education. It can be derived 
from our experience that at the very beginning the individual schools tried out some products which 
had  not  been  sufficiently  elaborated;  they  started  using  them  and  adjusting  to  their  needs  and 
afterwards none of the universities were willing to make any further changes of the system and on 
the contrary they push through those which they use as the best. Universities appear in this respect 
to be very complicated organisms, which do not accept any change, even a reasonable one.  There 
appears one more fact, when at universities there are numerous e-learning theoreticians who discuss 
about didactical parameters of the courses, evaluate their individual systems without being able to 
make comparisons with other ones and they write articles about their advantages. A considerable 
inertia  of  the  educational  systems  at  universities  can  have  a  significant  influence  on  the 
unwillingness with regard to the prospective changes. Some companies on the contrary consider e-
learning as a product, which can be installed and shall keep on working. Usually they do not realise 
that assumption of e-learning and its effective utilisation (which shall bring expected savings and 
enhancement of competitiveness) may be achieved only by intensive internal marketing, change in 
the processes, motivation factors and so on. 
The Czech Republic with its 11 million inhabitants belongs to smaller countries. The historical 
development before 1989 had negative effects on the language skills. Even at this time, the statistics 
reveal that every fourth Czech cannot make himself understood in any foreign language. Even such 
a factor has effects on selection of an appropriate LMS. In foreign countries (France, Germany, 
Canada and so on) the tradition of e-learning is richer and there exists a number of more effective e-
learning systems, which have not arrived to the Czech Republic only due to the language barrier. 
One of the possibilities of avoidance of high financial cost with regard to purchase and operation of 
LMS is development of own LMS system or taking advantage of an open source solution. At the 
present time, I do not consider development of own LMS to be the appropriate alternative. Taking 
advantage of one of the open source products is a far more elegant solution. 
E-learning has to be incorporated into the organisation structure of the particular institution, not 
only in terms of organisation but also technologically.  E-learning and its management is based on 
utilisation of LMS. At universities as well as in companies exist information systems, which must 
collaborate with the respective LMS. There appears another bottleneck which has caused several 
problems. Communication of these two systems must be clearly defined and controlled. There are 
many products for which the authors claim a platform independence. This combination of words 
has in many cases become a mere phrase rather than a reality and many who believed this assertion 
have  been  exposed  to  considerable  problems  or  even  financial  losses  caused  by  expending 
additional investments with regard to the adjustments of the particular system. 
After a roughly three-year use of purchased licenses at LMS Tutor2000 the School of Business 
Administration moved to LMS Moodle, which is an open source solution. A distance education 
institution has been established under which a team dealing with administration and deployment of 
use of the particular system operates. In each semester, so called tutorials are held. They are joint 
meetings of students and tutors in the individual subjects (courses). Moreover, in some courses 
students have textual study support materials so that they can use both the computer materials as 
well as the textual study materials.     
Despite it is assumed that the e-learning would be held using a computer and study materials in the 
electronic format, it is necessary in many cases that the study materials be transferred into a printed 
format. Not everyone is able or willing to study with the computer. In this respect we can consider 
that it is a generation problem, when the middle-aged people who have been exposed to the need of 
education are not accustomed to mere reading from the computer screen, but I am convinced that 
this situation shall carry on the future. The evidence of this observation is that even at the School of 
Business  Administration  in  Karvina  where  for  all  e-learning  courses  so  called  distance  study 
support  materials  are  made.  They  are  written  according  to  standard  which  are  officially 
acknowledged  by  the  distance  education  centre  of  the  Czech  Republic  and  represent  essential preconditions for the presentation of the content, structure and motivation features and so on. This 
fact can be also the single negative feature in the implementation of e-learning in companies, which 
are often not able to provide a deployment of education materials in sufficiently high-quality in the 
printed form. 
The study materials in the electronic format enable one feature which is rather complicated to 
implement  using  textual  materials.  As  it  is  becoming  apparent  students  tend  to  prefer  study 
materials in their hard copy as regards the explanation part and electronic format as regards the 
course revision, tests, samples, fill-in exercises and so on. Computer environment makes it possible 
that  very  effective,  interactive  and  user-friendly  forms  of  revision  test  and  assignments  be 
developed, using which the students are able to try out on their own to what extent they have 
mastered a particular issue.  LMS furthermore make it possible to provide independent monitoring 
of such activities and the tutor is offered an overview of the continuous students’ work. 
In any case there is a presumption that the e-learning students show a certain degree of computer 
literacy. In many cases they must be able to work with the Internet, download different working 
files, etc. Problems of this type are commonplace in some companies. Therefore, an appropriate 
selection of the target group is an important aspect so that the study would be a study for the 
participants rather than a suffering. This is the reason why a preparatory stage in many companies 
includes courses dealing with essential operation of computer technologies. Of course, there exist e-
learning courses where the participant works for instance with a CD and no more competence of 
work with PC is required but its turning on, insertion of the CD or DVD into the drive, start up of 
the course, whose operation may be quite trivial.   
Summary 
The  e-learning  in  the  Czech  Republic  corresponds  with  the  development  and  utilisation  of  e-
learning  in  the  adjacent  countries,  Poland  and  Slovakia.  The  local  development  of  e-learning 
systems commenced later than in some western countries but despite this in many cases no transfer 
of their experience has been observed. This in some cases has led to development of inapplicable e-
learning  systems.  In  the  Czech  Republic  as  well  as  in  other  countries  e-learning  is  utilised  in 
educational and company environment. In both the cases we can find possibilities of the same as 
well as different approaches to implementation of e-learning. After their implementation a number 
of aspects must be taken into account, of which the most important ones include financial cost, 
organisational  structure,  technological  base,  management  processes  and  the  target  group.  There 
exists no universally applicable e-learning system. It is however possible to design specific tailor-
made  systems  which  shall  ensure  an  error-free  compliance  with  the  requested  educational 
objectives. The mentioned problematic situations mentioned in the article may, in case of their 
omission, cause a number of problems from which the most fundamental include a possible increase 
in financial cost and failure to comply with the expected targets resulting from the requirements laid 
in respect of enhancement of education standard. The problems which have been observed in the 
Czech Republic have their counterparts in other countries as well, and there will be continuous 
efforts to minimise them. This can be secured by a systematic approach based on experience from 
the hitherto well tried and tested completed e-learning projects. 
 
Literature: 
[1]  KOLIBA,  F.,  SUCHÁNEK,  P.  Assisting  Elements  oj  Distant  Learning  at  the  School  of 
Business Administration in Karviná. In Transition Countries Joining European Union, 17. - 19. 
6. 2002, Karviná, 2002. ISBN 975-81 0O-22-X.  
[2]  SUCHÁNEK, P. Nový trend e-learning. Elektrotechnika v praxi, 2002. Ro￿ník 12, ￿íslo 4, 
strana 36-37. ISSN 0862-9730.  [3]  SUCHÁNEK,  P.  Zkušenosti  z  tvorby  e-learningového  kurzu  'Podnikání  a  obchodování  na 
internetu". Zlín: Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlín￿, 2002. Sborník z konference eLearning ve 
vysokoškolském vzd￿lávání 2002. ISBN-80- 7318-105-3.  
[4]  KOLIBA,  F.,  VAN￿K,  J.,  SUCHÁNEK,  P.  Softwarová  podpora  e-learningu  na  OPF  SU. 
Sborník p￿ísp￿vk￿ Informatika X./2002 : Studnice, 21.-23.1.2002, MZLU Brno, 2002. ISBN 
80-7302-027-0. 
[5]  VAN￿K,  J.,  SUCHÁNEK,  P.  E-learning,  p￿íležitost  pro  rozvoj  lidských  zdroj￿  malých 
a st￿edních  firem.  In  Male  i  srednie  przedsiebiorstwa  wobec  wspolczesnych  wyzwan 
gospodarczych i spolecznych. Katowice: Gornoslaska wyzsa szkola handlowa im. Wojciecha 
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Overview of Potential Problematic Fields and Experience With Respect to Implementation of E-Learning in a Company and School Environment in the Czech Republic

Overview of Potential Problematic Fields and Experience With Respect to Implementation of E-Learning in a Company and School Environment in the Czech Republic

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Research Papers in Economics