Hi Matt

This is a discussion worth having, though in my current role my learners are engaging purely with eLearning, without any live components - e.g. no online discussion forums, virtual classroom, etc. 

I came into eLearning as a designer hating eLearning! However I had some formative experiences just as I applied for jobs - I found multiple video courses that were on topic. They were great refreshers. And my wife (an IT hands-off person) also did a course she loved. So to summarise the elements that made them work for us:

• the content was very good - right on topic and up to date
• they included a social context - there was a discussion forum, or video of a class discussing, or interviews between two people, or a video of a live presentation
• There was some flexibility around tasks and the sequence that they could be completed
• There are a modern interface that gave feedback about progress
• There was access to written resources too (e.g. pdf version)
• I could continue it while travelling - on my phone
• The course included examples / scenarios / context that we could relate to

Some ways that these courses weren't so good was:

• one of them gave too much detail without summaries of each section
• one course had a completion date that my wife missed, so she had to wait 5 weeks to do it again. 

My own conclusion is that success is based on:

All three are essential. Somewhere in there is the social component, too.