Leveraging Virtual Environments to Deliver Corporate Training
The impact of immersive virtual environments is just starting to be felt by corporations, and is likely to have a significant impact on many businesses. The value of learning simulations has been chronicled for more than 10 years, but little has been written about the specific industries or processes that will benefit. The processes will vary by industry, but those that will benefit from virtualization will offer dramatic new opportunities for high impact corporate training. Skills or processes that involve social networking will be obvious starting points — for example, traditional training areas, such as new hire orientations, diversity and inclusion, ethics, sexual harrassment, cultural understanding, and policy changes. Talent management areas, such as critical thinking, leadership, logic, rational decision making, strategic planning, sales effectiveness, and negotiation skills will also benefit. In addition, employee and partner interactions are good candidates for virtual world interactions.
Traditional training is less effective in areas such as the construction of interactive device models, learning by discovery, acquisition and storage of domain expertise, and the automated presentation of instruction in the context of working device models (think airplane pilots or heavy equipment operators). Virtual environments excel at training for these areas. Complex tasks require learning by doing, and learning by doing in a designed virtual experience is much closer to the real thing than standard classroom role plays.
Simulations have limitations other than subject matter. Although the technology for virtual environments is improving rapidly, it is not yet robust enough for most business-critical processes. Users are largely unaccustomed to using avatars and 3D interfaces, so adoption rates can be low at the outset. Trainers themselves may find teaching through an avatar an unnatural skill that requires them to rethink their teaching style. Businesses probably have a window of 18-24 months to develop a virtual training strategy and begin implementing a technology solution.
As I defined it previously, a virtual world is “a persistent simulated space inhabited by multiple concurrent or non-concurrent users who share a sense of physical embodiment that enables them to interact imaginatively with others and experience real world outcomes.” Virtual worlds will not eliminate traditional training, since they are not designed specifically for education, but they will change significantly how learners learn. Research in the field, such as that by the U.S. Army Research Institute, shows a dramatic improvement in learning behaviors and effectiveness in learners using immersive virtual worlds. Unlike traditional page turning self-paced courses, virtual worlds provide a way for multiple users to enter a customized environment, together with the instructor or in teams, and interact with each other in real time using avatars to accomplish designed tasks. Avatars become increasingly relevant, since new employees raised on MTV and video games are accustomed to using them and readily make the leap from virtual world activities to real world learning. Existing teaching aids, like slide shows and video clips, can easily be incorporated.
Types of Virtual Environments
There are two types of virtual environments: gaming and social. Both may be used to achieve different educational objectives. Gaming virtual worlds have an element of competition, with the implication of a prize or reward for completing the game. People may socialize in them. Social virtual worlds are environments where people interact socially or professionally, may compete for rewards in them, and there is no final ending or completion. There are two broad areas of corporate training: process steps or procedures, and interpersonal skill development. Organizations will be able to achieve the fastest return on investment by focusing initially on interpersonal skills development and social interactions, which are multi-user in nature.
Different types of businesses will benefit in different ways from training in virtual environments. Field forces in hazardous roles, such as oil well drilling, chemical plant management, heavy equipment testing, explosives, material management, power plants or nuclear facilities, or even surgery, can learn using precise models of actual equipment they will be using and make mistakes harmlessly. Knowledge-based organizations such as far flung consulting or professional services firms can benefit from the social networking an collaboration inherent in a multi-user virtual environment. Other organizational areas that can benefit include recruiting, global networking, internal communications, and talent management and development. Fictitious environments or real world replicas can set up conditions conducive to good learning experiences. For example, in Second Life the University of California-Davis created a simulation of a schizophrenic/hallucinagenic experience to teach medical students. Caterpillar created simulations of mining sites to train dump truck drivers in operational hazards and vehicle controls. The U.S. Army uses virtual world courses to train soldiers in combat techniques and negotiations with local civil authorities. Virtual worlds provide excellent opportunities to recreate an historical period or travel virtually to places they have never seen, making them come alive to learners.
Some forward thinking companies have already begun to apply virtual worlds to real world processes and problems. Other organizations still have time to develop their learning strategies. Virtual world technologies are in a state of transition from a largely entertainment platform to a stable business platform. Existing issues with most of the include data security, user authentication, hacking, and intellectual property protection, but vendors are working aggressively to ameliorate those risks. The greatest security is still a proprietary system behind the corporate firewall. This can be accomplished using a number of technologies, including retired commercial gaming platforms such as The Sims, Asheron’s Call and Earth & Beyond, or newer virtual world platforms like Second Life, Forterra, There, Active Worlds, Kaneva or Entropia.
Evaluating Effectiveness
J.E. Morrison and C. Hammon of The Institute for Defense Analysis provide seven measures that can help when analyzing training effectiveness, which I paraphrase here:
1. Identify specific measurement issues
2. Create a measurement plan covering both performance measures and research design
3. Use valid and reliable performance measures
4. Impose normal experimental controls on the the research to the extent possible
5. Measure as accurately as possible
6. Use analytic models throughout the development of the simulation
7. Incorporate user feedback and reactions, in addition to performance data and analysis
Manipulating the variables of time and point of view contribute to an immersive feeling in a virtual world, and provide other measures for training success. These are especially relevant for training objectives of improved decision making and collaboration.
In order to retain a learner’s interest after a long period of time, normal online training courses use brief paragraphs of content, wide spaces between different ideas, hiding of unnecessary information with hyperlinks, and the use of color to separate different types of information. Instant access to online help and the ability for users to provide feedback throughout the training further enhance the learning experience. The equivalents in a virtual world include quests or tasks that can be accomplished quickly by an avatar, a back story that provides visual and spatial richness for the learner to experience between tasks, removing information related to tasks that have been completed previously or that the learner is not yet ready to perform, and visual identifiers for tasks that can be done (such as avatars identified by a symbol above their heads or colored lighting to highlight a location where a task can be obtained). Research also shows that virtual world training should focus more on measuring performance against training objectives, and less on the specific aspects of the operating system or user interface.
Recommendations
The high visibility of Second Life and its virtual economy have made virtual worlds a common discussion point in many Board Rooms. Gartner research says that by 2010, most leading corporations will embrace virtual environments for applications such as collaboration, education and communication. Training and development budgets for 2009 should include virtual environment development, including the internal communications and change management components that are vital to adoption rates. Corporations should begin to develop a virtual training and simulation strategy today that includes identifying their key business processes that might be taught effectively in a 3D simulation. If the senior management of the organization have little personal experience with gaming or 3D social environments (and that will apply to most corporations), outside consultants may be needed to ensure that the right decisions are made to make use of the medium. A virtual world is not an exact replica of the real world, and the team who will design the world needs to understand the differences that will make the virtual experience effective. Planning should also identify virtual world platforms with the security and functionalities required by both business users and existing IT systems. Enlist the aid of system architects to select an appropriate technology and understand clearly how learning management systems will or will not integrate with the virtual environment platform.
