Republic of Ireland

Abstract

There is a major contrast in the Republic of Ireland between e-learning content production and the actual use of e-learning technologies. Per head of population, Ireland has one of the highest participation rates in e-learning content production in the world. CBT Systems was set up in Ireland in the mid-80s, and subsequently evolved into SmartForce and later SkillSoft. The original founders of CBT Systems later went on to set up other e-learning ventures such as Riverdeep. In addition to these well-known companies, there are many smaller content-development ventures that either trade under their own names or contract to larger e-learning content providers. There has been some investment in content-development operations by overseas companies. NETg recently closed a major operation in Ireland as part of a restructuring process after their acquisition by Thomson. However, several international corporations have located internal e-learning content development in Ireland. Indeed, Ireland’s industrial development agencies have identified e-learning content development as a growth opportunity, listing availability of software and pedagogy skills as well as excellent international broadband connections as competitive advantages for such investment (http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/ or http://www.idaireland.com/).