A Framework to Leverage and Mature Learning Ecosystems

With the average shelf life of an employee’s skills at less than five years, it is im-perative that organizations support their employees in staying current in new and emerging skills and in learning how to learn. Learning management systems, once seen as a one-size-fits all learning solution, have not effectively kept pace with wider technology development, and the needs and expectations of workplace learning. Moreover, organizations tend to have too narrow a view when consider-ing the elements that affect learning at their organization. An ecological and holis-tic approach is needed to improve learning environments and to future-proof these environments for new developments in education and technology. This pa-per explores the existing literature and frameworks for learning ecosystems and proposes a new learning ecosystem framework that consists of seven key ele-ments: (1) technology and data architecture, (2) governance, (3) analytics, (4) se-mantic ePortfolios, (5) intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, (6) social learning and engagement, and (7) personalization.