Published in Learning Circuits, February 2000
Constraints for an Online Project
- Editorial and graphics guidelines:
- Style guidelines to standardize editorial treatment of issues such as headings, numbers, names, and capitalization (most large organizations have a preferred style)
- Dictionaries to use to standard spelling
- Corporate identity and other graphics guidelines
- Prescribed screen designs and page layouts (usually set by the corporate communications group or as part of an earlier learning project)
- Clip-art library
- Authoring environment: the organization might have specified guidelines for some or all of these:
- Authoring software
- Word processing
- Database
- Graphics
- Audiovisual production
- Presentation
- Programming language
- Browser
- Plug-ins (such as Flash, and music and video players)
- Hardware platform
- Processor:
- Memory:
- Hard drive:
- Operating system (such as Windows or Linux)
- Graphics adapter
- Diskette drive
- ZIP drive
- CD-ROM or DVD drive
- Delivery environment: minimum system requirements of viewing equipment
- Hardware platform: usually the same types of issues as specified for the hardware platform of the authoring environment
- Software platform:
- Browser (type(s), version(s))
- Plug-ins
Component Costs for an Online Learning Project
Labor Costs
- Fully "burdened" cost of the instructional designer and course developer. A "burdened" cost includes both the cost of labor and additional "burden" costs; that is, the fully burdened cost includes the salary, benefits (if any), employment taxes (if any), and related overhead expenses (such as the cost of the office, cost of support services). This cost is usually based on time, charged either by the hour (for people working as contractors and consultants) or the month (for full-time employees).
- Fully burdened cost of the project manager, about 15 percent of the total time of the project
- Fully burdened cost of an editor, about 10 percent of the total time of the project
- Fully burdened cost of a graphic design; estimate varies based on the number of graphics anticipated in the course (for example, a course with a lot of animation will require more graphics services than a course with an occasional line drawing)
- Fully burdened cost of the production staff, about 15 percent of the total time of the project
Other Development Costs
- Costs of specialized services, such as the cost of conducting a usability test
- Equipment costs, such as the purchase or lease of a special computer for the project
- Software costs, such as the purchase or lease of an authoring system or graphics software
- Training costs associated with the project, such as the cost of sending the instructional designer to a training class on authoring software
Production and Distribution Costs
- Copying and distribution costs for review materials
- Packaging costs (costs of production and printing for courses distributed on CD or DVD, such as costs of cases, labels on the cases, duplicating the CDs and DVDs, and related documentation and workbooks)
- Production and printing costs for related print materials (such as related workbooks, if any)
- Inventory costs for storing workbooks, CDs, and DVDs
- Marketing costs (even for a course intended for use internally, the course must be marketed to encourage learners to take it and complete it)
Delivery Costs
- Learning time (use the average anticipated learning time for the course, and use an average salary for the target audience to estimate the labor cost; calculate for different audience sizes)
- Travel time to class (needed if online courses are taken in a Learning Center and for all classroom courses)
- Costs of building and maintaining a Learning Center (if needed, as might be in manufacturing, customer service, and sales work places, where workers either have no access to computers or the workplace is too distracting for learning)
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