eLearning Developer

Creating custom eLearning is both an art and a science. There are a wide range of tasks that must be completed and specific instructional design and technical skills required. This article on “creating eLearning” provides a high-level overview of major eLearning development roles and responsibilities and the amount of time that should be allocated and budgeted for each.

eLearning Instructional Design vs. Courseware Authoring

The eLearning development process can be generally divided into two major areas – Content Development and Courseware Authoring (aka Media Production). Content development is a function of Instructional Design during which the target audience is defined, the learning objectives (or outcomes) are identified, the course outline is created, content/narration is written, storyboards are created, and all content is reviewed and approved for production. Media Production begins by taking the narration (if this is an audio/visual course) and recording the eLearning script digitally, cleaning up or producing visuals (photographs, 2D and 3D graphics and animations, etc.) and assembling these “digital assets” into a standards-compliant (generally AICC or SCORM) format in a meaningful way.

Primary Instructional Design Tasks

The time required to perform quality instructional design can vary greatly, depending upon several factors such as

• Creating totally new and custom eLearning course-ware vs. content conversion
• Complexity of the subject matter
• Level of interactivity and visual stimulation desired

Creating totally new and custom eLearning courseware vs. content conversion

Converting existing content (PowerPoint files, lecture notes, stand-up training, existing quizzes/tests, etc.) makes the job of producing eLearning based on this content much faster. Custom eLearning courseware from scratch.

Complexity of the subject matter

Highly theoretical, subjective, and complex content generally takes longer to create than objective skills-based training (such as computer applications training).

Level of interactivity and visual stimulation desired

Writing detailed analogies and creating custom illustrations and animations to support the written and spoken word takes longer than communicating factual information in a very straightforward and literal way.  Whenever possible, budget time for your instructional designers to develop meaningful visuals and supporting narration, rather than simply list bullet points supported by “eye candy” (great looking photos/images that do not substantively support the given concept).

High-level Instructional Design Tasks

Let’s look at a high-level listing of instructional design tasks based on the following scenario: You wish to convert your existing employee onboarding course “New Employee Orientation” to an online format. The course generally lasts 4 hours as instructor-led, but you believe you can create this course as a one-hour online course supported by in-line interactivities/games, and a post-test.

The total labor for the above is 156 hours. Note that these hours are based upon using a highly skilled and experienced team comprised of eLearning development experts who have created dozens of hours of courses already. Internal training departments that are new to this process will find that times take significantly longer as they overcome significant learning curves.

This project plan also spans approximately 4 weeks and incorporates the following staff members:

• eLearning Project Manager
• Instructional Designer/Writer
• eLearning Content Editor
• Graphic Designer

For information regarding tasks and times related to the courseware authoring process, please see the eLearning design articles on this website.