I received an inquiry from a reader and I'm hoping that people can chime in on their thoughts. It relates to my post about eLearning Costs, which bases cost estimates on seat time of the eLearning course. So, the basic question is:
We current provide a two day (16 hour) classroom training course for our employees. We are planning to prepare an e-learning course based on this classroom course. How should we estimate the e-learning course duration for this lesson? What are the important criteria in estimating eLearning duration when its based on a classroom course?
Conversion Estimation
Some resources on the conversion of Instructor-Led Training (ILT) to eLearning / Web-Based Training (WBT) – found through eLearning Learning using Convert ILT as the starting point:
In What Training Costs Part I: Converting Content from ILT to WBT, they discuss compression of ILT when its converted to eLearning:
Compression ratio: What would the length of the course be if it were online vs. classroom based? There's been a lot of research on this, and answers vary anywhere from 20% to 80% of the original length, but there's general agreement that an average compression ratio is typically about 50%, or a four hour course in the classroom should take the student 2 hours to complete online.
In Costs, Donald Clark talks about seat time during conversion:
Seat time is the time spent by the learner in a learning environment. For many types of content, elearning clearly offers an advantage. The research generally shows that there is at least a 50% reduction in seat time when a course is converted from classroom learning to elearning. Brandon Hall reports it is a 2:1 ratio.
"Brandon Hall, editor and publisher of the Multimedia & Internet Training Newsletter, cites an overall 50 percent reduction in seat time required for a student to learn the same content using online training as compared to in a classroom (Puget Sound Business Journal)."
Of course, a lot of this has to with the type of content. For example, we normally read at least twice as fast as compared to someone speaking. Thus such courses as compliance training offers a seat time advantage due to rather than having an instructor do all the talking, we can now just read it. However, if we are practicing a new skill, then there is normally no real time advantage as we need the same amount of time to practice in an elearning environment as we do in a classroom.
And Donald makes a good point about the fact that it takes more time when you are listening to audio as compared to reading (or skimming).
The 50% compression ratio is similar to what I've heard, but in almost every case there are a whole lot of factors the come into play. In Case Study: Converting an Existing Course to E-Learning, they detail a series of factors. Quite a good article when you are thinking about this conversion.
- If there is an existing ILT course, how complete is it?
- Are there any hands-on labs in the ILT course? Will these need to be converted? Is it feasible to do so?
- Is the person doing the conversion already familiar with the ILT course?
- Is the person doing the conversion already familiar with the product or service being taught?
- Will subject matter experts (SMEs) be available for consultation as needed?
- Will the person doing the conversion be dedicated to this project exclusively?
- How many people will be working on the conversion team?
- How much animation is required?
- Is the scope of the conversion effort clearly defined?
- What is the approval process? Who will sign off on the project?
- How will the finished product be implemented within the organization?
- Does the organization use a learning management system (LMS)? If so, will this product be required to interface with that LMS?
- How will learning be measured?
- Is the person doing the conversion familiar with the e-learning software? Does the person doing the conversion have prior experience with similar projects?
What factors do you consider? Do you think rules of thumb are okay to use?
Cost Comparison
The other question the reader asked is about calculating the value of doing the conversion:
For example, the current ILT course takes 2 days (16 hours). There are 10,000 employees who will take the training. Travel is not as much the issue as it is time away from the job and trainer costs. How do we go about calculating the possible return of delivering this as eLearning instead of ILT?
I'd recommend using some of the resources from a fairly old post ROI and Metrics in eLearning such as:
- Cost Comparison: Instructor-Led Vs. E-Learning
- Assessing the ROI of training
- Comparison of Web-based and Face-to-Face Training Concerning Patient Education Within a Hospital System
They look at a whole series of cost comparison factors and the last of these compares outcomes and costs in a research study. Quite good.
Again, I'd welcome pointers on this topic.
5 comments:
We current provide a two day (16 hour) classroom training course for our employees. We are planning to prepare an e-learning course based on this classroom course. How should we estimate the e-learning course duration for this lesson? What are the important criteria in estimating eLearning duration when its based on a classroom course?
Conversion Estimate
One of the key benefits, from a learner’s perspective, for eLearning is that they get to consume the learning at their own pace. So it is not a surprise that responses to estimated course duration vary from 20 – 80 percent. It is safe to say that eLearning seat time is going to vary widely for your audience. A learner’s background knowledge and experience as well as their ability to learn will drive the time it takes for them to complete any learning. In many classroom trainings the instruction is geared for the average learner so those that could proceed through the training at a quicker pace are not given the opportunity to do so. For some, reading the content themselves would be the preferred method, whereas others would require the content read to them. It is always a favorable option to have narration available in your eLearning. This does have the potential to increase development time and cost, but will provide a group of learners with their preferred learning methodology.
Some additional factors for consideration when you are thinking about converting instructor led to eLearning would be.
• What software applications are going to be used for this conversion? Some applications require technical expertise whereas other applications are similar to familiar desktop applications.
• How long is the course’s shelf life? Will the course need to updated on a regular basis? Is it time sensitive?
• Is this the first conversion effort for your company? If so, will there be additional courses converted? Before beginning a large eLearning initiative time should be taken to develop your company’s eLearning Standards and Guidelines.
Cost Comparison
For example, the current ILT course takes 2 days (16 hours). There are 10,000 employees who will take the training. Travel is not as much the issue as it is time away from the job and trainer costs. How do we go about calculating the possible return of delivering this as eLearning instead of ILT.
According to the articles cited in this blog, eLearning has shown to be cost effective for organizations whose user audience is at least 100. If we take the average estimate of 50% less seat time, the eLearning version of this course will save an estimated 80,000 man hours. Depending on the employee’s salaries this could be millions of dollars. These savings provide plenty of dollars for adding the narration option I mentioned above.
Great comments and good additional questions. One thing this has got me wondering is whether audio in courses is inherently added cost in terms of added seat time?
I am interested in lerning more about the seat-time reduction. When I have seen the stats, I see things like "a two day ILT course" reduced to 8 hours of e-learning [asynch I presume]. Well, each day of an ILT course might look like this:
9-12 3 hours minus a 15 minute break
1-4:30 3.5 hours minus one or two 15 minute breaks
Total: 5.75 - 6 hours per day. So the reduction is from 12 hours to 8.
Surely an asynch class will have less seat time because the learner won't be able to ask questins during the computed time; nor will there be discussion. So do we need to add email back-and-forth with the instructor, time spent on a social network discussing topics? Or do we just throw out those times in our new computation?
:: rant on::
A basic pointer is to stop talking about "content" when discussing learning (or trying to compare between ILT and eLearning). Real learning requires experiences: engagement, reflection, application, etc.
When you talk about "content" you're talking about an information dump -- a broadcast. The format of the content (read vs. spoken) doesn't matter much -- the point is that people don't learn from content, they learn from experiences.
To do a real conversion, you need to identify the learning outcomes in the ILT, and determine how those outcomes could be addressed in an eLearning environment. I doubt you can come up with a generic formula that you can apply across the board... that's why considered estimates range from 20% - 80%.
"Content" does not equal "learning!"
::rant off::
Hi, Tony!
Just found this post while Googling something else, but I wanted to comment.
Over the years, we'v found that repurposing ILT to elearning saves 50% to 66% on seat time. And to you question about audio--we keep media files to short clips of just a couple of minutes, when seat time is an issue. And many times these files are drill-down information and not necessary for assessment knowledge.
Jack Pierce
wslash CEO + Cheif Strategist
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