Sustainable Business Models for E-Learning

E-learning becomes more and more important. Reasons are the paramount importance of knowledge, life-time learning, globalization and mobility. Not all providers of information system components for the specific domain of e-learning succeed in closing the gap between costs and revenues. Especially in the academic sector e-learning projects suffer more and more from decreasing funding. For many currently active research groups it is essential to market their research results, e. g. e-learning applications, in order to fund actual and future e-learning projects. Basis of a successful commercialization of e-learning products is a coherent and consistent overall e-learning strategy. E-learning strategies have to address economical, pedagogical and technological goals. For ensuring pedagogical and technological quality, different theories and models for e-learning already exist, e. g. the Essen Learning Model (ELM). But there is a lack of theories and models ensuring economical “quality” in terms of marketable and sustainable products. This paper presents a framework for sustainable e-learning business models. Its advantage is its suitability for products designed for, e. g., computer based training (CBT) as well as for web based (WBT) or mobile based training (MBT). Thus it considers opportunities enabled by new information technologies. The framework is also suitable to complete existing e-learning theories and models focusing only the pedagogical and technological dimension of e-learning. According to this new approach sustainable business models for e-learning integrate and consolidate strategic propositions concerning market model, activity model and asset model. By analyzing these issues, crucial success factors for the commercialization of e-learning products are identified. Additionally, successful relations between core activities and revenue models are presented.