Via Distance Educator, from the Financial Times, a story on how e-learning and corporate universities in Europe are using business models as a benchmark for their programs.

Corporate universities can now turn to Clip, the Corporate Learning Improvement Process, as a quality benchmark, while the introduction of the Certification of e-learning (CEL) also offers a standard for customers.

The CEL has to some extent been born out of necessity. E-learning has much to recommend it; it is accessible, quick and once established, it is cheap. These benefits have led to its rapid growth.

However, there is cause for concern, as the quality of both the products and the programmes varies widely. To address this, the European Foundation for Management Development, the Swiss Centre for Innovations in Learning at the University of St Gallen, and Spirus Applied Learning Solutions formed a joint initiative, the CEL.Gray's E-Learning Weblog is here is also a good source of information on the subject.