Like something off YouTube

I've been trying to envisage an organisation where access to rapid authoring is easy and people pitch in to create their own learning material for their own audiences to freely access. When discussing it with my colleagues the idea is attacked from two directions:

• 'There's a legal risk - what if someone plagiarises a book or article and we allow it to be published on our site? We're responsible. We'd need very stringent checking of all content ...etc'
• 'What about design standards? You'll have people creating rubbish.'

I'll talk about the first another time, but the second made me think of the introduction of desktop publishing in the 80s. I can remember when it was exciting to get a workstation in the training department with PageMaker so we could design workbooks and handouts. Nay-sayers said we knew nothing about layout, typography etc - how could we possibly do it ourselves. We learned, albeit producing some turkeys along the way. Then, as time went on, DTP software became more freely available and we started seeing local companies, charities, voluntary groups etc producing their own newsletters and promotional literature. And true, much of it was what I called DTPizza - random mixtures of  clip art and fonts, the more the merrier.  We still see it but less so. Why is that? I'd guess that (a) the general understanding of 'what looks good' has risen, aided by templates from the DTP providers and (b) more people recognise the limits of their skill and get in a designer when it's important to do so. That doesn't stop them producing quick stuff themselves when they need it.

Maybe what we see with YouTube and Captivate and the many DIY 'learning stuff' sites that are springing up is the same as the early stages of the DTP cycle. Skills are being learned,  and it will dawn on people why  certain standards are adopted by professionals.  Those who  want something quick-and-dirty will still be able to do it, those who begin to recognise the limits of their skill will call on professionals for advice or commission them to do it. Looking over a company's e-learning we may see a difference over the next few years in the perception of amateurism: for now 'It looks like something off YouTube' might appear modern and edgy; in a few years, it might be a byword for amateurism (cf 'It looks like desktop publishing'); but by that time I'll be the overall standards of what is presented in YouTube and in learning sites has risen and nobody will be saying we should go back to the days when only expert technicians produced e-learning, any more than we would tell people they have to go to an agency to get a newsletter created.