What is a good percentage of usage for a first year e-learning program? We have purchased a program for managers only as a development tool, it is not mandatory to use yet. Anyone have any similar situations?

You will likely see low %. Why? Voluntary.

That would be okay IF there was good reason for them to participate. Here are three principles I use:

1. Everyone listens to WIIFM - What's In It For Me. They have to get something out of it.

2. What gets rewarded, gets repeated. What is the reward? Does their job depend on it? A bonus (not for completing the course) but for performing better and this course will teach theme how.

3. What gets measured, gets done? See #2.

Having worked for a Fortune 50 company that had a rather large library of e-learning courses, I can say the % was quite low. I am not sure of the 1st or 2nd year of the program, but the 3rd year showed a utilization rate of under 20%. Of course, that % only counts the number of courses completed. I know many more employees accessed the on-line courses, but for a variety of reasons did not complete. So, to answer your question, I am not sure what a good number is. I guess it depends on your purpose of offering courses on-line. (Please note: The above utilization % reflects voluntary courses only...courses that were mandatory had a much higher utilization %...funny how that works!)

How did you market it? How did you do the launch? Wnat incentive was there to sign up; to complete it? As Ben Pitman says, did you communicate the WIIFM and was it enough to get the level of involvement you wanted?

Each of those questions will be a factor in your rate. If you did a poor job of any of them, your rate will be low. If you did not deliver what you promised, the rate will be low. If you are not giving appropriate time at work to participate in the courses the rate will be low.

It is really hard to pick a good rate without some more info.

Hi, I would agree with the previous post, marketing is really important to achieving take up. One of our most popular free reports is How to Market Elearning which you can find at http://www.kineo.com/elearning-reports.html. This sets out how to plan and run a marketing campaign for elearning. Hope it helps.