Development Time

milorenz

For a fully interactive e-course or module of about 45 minutes in length that's pretty much a conversion of existing training material (with some revising/restructuring), and contains no audio or video and just a few "homemade" animations, I'd say it usually takes me about 8-12 weeks from start to finish, including two rounds of user testing. However, I usually have to work on other stuff at the same time, so figure that I'm only averaging maybe 40% of my time on the e-learning project. If I were 100% dedicated to the e-learning project, I could cut that time down significantly; however, there's still going to be a certain amount of calendar-time involved, especially at the end when I'm scheduling and conducting the user testing. (I hold "live" user tests, with the users in room together so I can observe how they interact with the e-course.)

Of course, the length of time to develop an e-course varies widely depending on the level of interactivity, the use of media (if any), whether you're developing the course from scratch (as opposed to converting an existing instructor-led course), how complex the content is, and your level of proficiency with Lectora (and whatever other software you're using to create the e-course).

Hope this helps!