careers
A job like mine R
od Knox wants Virtual College to reach 20 million learners. The target – to be reached by 2020 –is part of the company’s 20/20 vision set out
to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The college already has 2 million and is acquiring new learners at the rate of 2,000 a day.
It may seem ambitious but not impossible for
an organisation that won Gold for the E-Learning Development Company of year in the 2015 E-Learning Awards, with Knox himself awarded silver in the outstanding contribution award. Knox has clearly always been driven, ambitious
and innovative. As production engineer at Microvitec – he was tasked to increase production of colour monitors from 10 a week to 20 a week over a six- month period but actually managed to increase output to 50 monitors a week within a month. Six years later at one point he was managing production of 3,600 monitors a week.
His first taste of computer based learning was in the late 1980s when Microvitec received a government grant to install at laser disc cutting facility, a piece of kit which took up a lot of space and which amongst others Yorkshire TV used downloading film onto a disc which was then used to speed up the editing process. Knox, responsible for quality and plant at Microvitec, oversaw the company’s training programme at a time when it was hiring new people every week. He worked out if the filing cabinet of training material could be put on a laser disc which people could access at any time that would free up the tutor to focus on tutoring and learning content. Virtual College was founded up 1995, but Knox says a lot of work was performed prior to establishing the company which included him exploring various aspects of learning as well as forming a high tech partnership of companies in the Bradford area. He co- founded Virtual College with Bob Gomersall (founder of BTL Assessments) on the back of rolling out online learning – at the time on CD-ROM – to electronic businesses across the UK. The company now has a turnover of £7.2 million and 140 employees. And it has just been recognised as one of a thousand companies to inspire Britain, a research project created by the London Stock Exchange to ‘celebrate the UK’s fastest-growing and most dynamic small
32 Knox: driven, ambitious, innovative
and medium sized businesses’. “Everyone says their business is unique”, says Knox “but within the e-learning sector we have evolved our business and now have a range of provisions.” These include an LMS – which can trace its origins back to 1995; content creation for customers, in partnership with bodies such as the Trading Standards Institute; and for itself which it sells online raising over £1.5m a year in online revenue selling courses to businesses and individuals; it also developed an academy model which provides e-learning on issues such as safeguarding. Safeguarding online training started with Bradford Safeguarding Children Board before being adopted by 76 other boards in the wake of the Victoria Climbié case. Knox describes it as a great example of e-learning where traditional learning could not cope. He says Virtual College is about enhancing the traditional models of teaching not replacing them through the creation of innovative solutions. One of the issues that fascinates Knox at the moment is lifelong learning. Later this year Virtual College is launching the Personal Learning Vault which is about capturing a learner for life: “When we have the learner, we have these eyeballs so the strategic question is how do we provide life-long learning – a concept that has been banded around since I was a lad – and technology now provides an answer.” Virtual College is developing a model where anyone who joins as a learner has the opportunity to self- develop through free courses and VOOC, vocational open online courses, a concept that Knox says
Each issue of e.learning age profiles someone who is carving out a career in the industry. This month, Rod Knox, chief executive at Virtual College, talks to Peter Williams
pre-dates MOOCs, and with completion rates of 68% which far outstrips completion rates of MOOCs which some claim are as low as 7%. Knox describes the approach as ‘a Trojan mouse’ engaging young learners through free courses that cover lifestyles and personal health issues.
As for the e-learning industry, despite that £7m-plus annual sales making Virtual College a significant presence, it has stood apart from the current consolidation. It has formed strategic alliances and now has 10 strategic content partners – “carefully selected where we can get growth” – in subjects such as the food and catering industry, where it recently signed a deal with publisher and event organiser William Reed best known for The Grocer magazine. Knox says that they do get “acquisition knocks regularly on the door” suggesting various deals. But he qualifies that statement: “I’m passionate about how I want to run it but with the right partner who knows where we might get to. “
The low down
n Yorkshire-based Rod Knox describes himself as an engineer by background. After leaving school he studied for an OND in Technology in his home town of Bradford, West Yorkshire.
n His third and final year sponsored by Rank Hi-Fi manufacturer of Wharfedale speakers and after gaining a distinction the company sponsored him through a four-year ‘thin sandwich’ degree, 6 months studying, 6 months learning about the electronics business.
n As Knox notes, Bradford was a hub for technology manufacturing in the 1970s and early 1980s before being decimated by competition from the Far East. Moving from Rank Hi-Fi Knox joined Microvitec, best known for manufacturing the colour monitor for the BBC Computer which the government of the day put into every primary school in the land.
e.learning age april 2016
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