How do we know E-learning works? Or does it?

E-learning is an accepted and commonly used component in tertiary education. However, success would appear to remain variable. Effective e-learning is a concept which sometimes eludes even the most reputable of online educators. It is an issue which plagues both the corporate and education fields and which is frequently aggravated by the numerous, often contradictory, studies on the subject. This article seeks to yield the merits of these studies in order to decipher some of the better means of effectively evaluating, designing and managing e-learning programmes and to accurately envisage what the future may hold for the development of online education in the tertiary education sector. It attempts to merge the experiences of the business and education sectors into an effective approach to be used in the design of such programmes and to present guidelines concerning the future of e-learning in tertiary education.