The Ecology of Elearning Defined

Elearning would be analyzed in this article as the first true worldwide and boundary-free system that allows people to share knowledge without geographical frontiers and minimizing cultural differences. Elearning is a Complex Adaptive System characterized by the way it manages energy, information and intelligence. Knowledge is the driving energy in the creation of elearning systems; it is shared and exchanged through multiple interactions among agents ssuch as authors, publishers, learning objects developers and open courseware providers. Through digitalization, knowledge becomes information transformed into textual, visual, audio and tactile elements to become agents of meaning across micro to macro levels of an elearning system, adaptable to specific niches, and vying for the resource of attention. System-level intelligence emerges in elearning as the many existing programs compete by similar resorces represented by enrollments, critical aliances, private and public funding. A number of general principles determine creation, development and sustainability of elearning systems, such as convenience, transactional distance, industrialization and requisite variety. A major factor determining the birth of elearning ecology is that the existing programs are inter-connected to a certain degree because they share the Internet as a common environment for reaching their clients. This "view from the top" is necesary to analyze properties such as resilience, robustness, and evolvability of elearning systems.