The Hard Rock Cafe International, Inc. is a subsidiary of the infamous Hard Rock Cafe that first opened its doors on October 19, 1971 in London. The current infrastructure of the corporation is such that each cafe operates completely independent of the other, having complete autonomy. Due to the high turnover of staff, a board directive mandated that a review of the current training procedures among the network of cafes be evaluated and revised as necessary.

Enter Ryan and Judge Designers, the company hired to develop the instruction for the café network. In their infinite wisdom, and due to the scope of the project, the designers decided to select a pilot location to implement and evaluate the instruction prior to rollout to the entire network. Based on statistical research, the Madrid location was identified as the location with the highest turnover of restaurant managers so it seemed like the best place to start.

As designers developing distance education for the international market, there are several factors we needed to take into account that can make or break effective distance education. Three of the factors discussed in this story will be cost, accessibility, and quality issues.

We were lucky to land this job! The accessibility issues that are commonly addressed when delivering distance education internationally were not necessary for our project at Hard Rock. The company had T1 lines in place for connectivity, as well as the appropriate hardware/software specifications necessary for optimal instruction via the Internet.

The cost issue for this project was a concern to us at first, knowing that Madrid is not the wealthiest of countries. Research indicates that there is a digital divide between rich and poor countries of this world. Some claim that without the funds available to build the infrastructure to support distance education, instruction is not available or is very limited. At Hard Rock, the corporate office supplied the resources necessary to get the Madrid café operational. Luckily, in this situation, big brother was able to foot the bill. Some institutions are not so lucky!

At Hard Rock, we are designing a web-based course and moving the corporation away from print training materials so the issue of one media vehicle being better than another will be eliminated. Although not applicable in this situation, in our vast experience as designers, we have witnessed inequality of instruction delivered internationally. The concern in this industry is that traditional classroom instruction is of higher quality than it's online counterpart.

The question many people ask is how will the quality of content issue be mandated? As distance education becomes more and more popular, governing laws will be put in place to protect the learner and the country with regard to cost, quality and accessibility of distance education internationally.

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