David Patterson, a director of Learning Light, explained, “ELCET provides an objective assessment of any piece of eLearning by, basically, providing a quality mark for eLearning content. It’s something that the corporate-learning-technologies sector has needed for many years.

"The tool itself contains eighteen metrics – or criteria – that can be applied to any piece of eLearning. Depending on the complexity of any piece of eLearning, it can be subjected to seven, twelve, or eighteen of these metrics – and this produces an objective evaluation of 'low', 'middle' and 'top' end eLearning materials. Meeting the ELCET criteria provides an ‘accreditation’ for any piece of online-delivered learning material," he concluded.

Only ELCET accredited eLearning materials are allowed in the "courses" section of the recently re-launched website The E-Learning Centre. The site is an information resource about eLearning and learning technologies for business education, not-for-profit, and the public sector.

In addition to the information and the many resources that are freely available on the site, there is a vast array of eLearning materials gathered under the heading of "courses". These learning materials are produced by acknowledged leaders in technology-delivered corporate learning, including the Virtual College, EJ4, eltalking, and the language-learning specialists Altissia.

"Since all the eLearning materials in the Centre’s ‘courses’ section meet the ELCET quality criteria, anyone who’s looking for eLearning materials for their organisation or themselves can be confident of the quality of those available via the eLearning Centre website," Patterson said.

"ELCET also makes the job of assessing potential learning materials for the eLearning Centre website easier. Now that the Centre’s growing portfolio of eLearning materials is becoming known in corporate learning circles, we’re being approached by producers to include their generic eLearning materials. This means we need an evaluation tool, such as ELCET, to streamline the selection process and provide the quality criteria that determine the outcome of each producer’s request."

At present, the learning materials available through the eLearning Centre cover topics including business improvement; business productivity; communication; customer service; equality and diversity; food hygiene; health and safety; health and social care; HR conversations information and data protection; leadership and management; learning and development; maths/ grammar for business; recycling and waste management; selling skills, and languages. This list of topics is expected to grow as more producers submit their products to the scrutiny of ELCET.