Are you assembling a new learning or training team in your organization? Or onboarding a new employee who has never used eLearning authoring tools before? Here’s why you’ll want to stop and ask yourself a few key questions before you buy that expensive eLearning subscription or software.

Third party course authoring tools like Articulate Storyline™, 360™ or Adobe Captivate™ can be expensive. If $1,600 USD for a subscription to a cloud-based suite of tools seems reasonable to you, think about the extended learning hours, trial and error, and upskilling necessary for your team to get up to speed.

If you’ve read my other article on the benefit of Rise over Storyline, you know you might not need an annual subscription or new tool at all. In fact, many organizations overlook the course authoring tools directly available in their Learning Management System (LMS), and purchase a costly authoring tool to essentially replicate what they could have done via their LMS.

In my experience, organizations just getting started with eLearning are often too quick to purchase a subscription to an eLearning course authoring tool, slow to invest in training on those tools, and in denial about how long it takes to develop decent courses with those same tools. 

The result: new employees spend hours developing a hodgepodge of courses without a consistent strategy, template or instructional design principles. Sure, they’ve explored the tool, but how does it align with the business goals?

Questions to determine your organizational readiness for software subscription

Here are the questions I recommend asking before purchasing any annual software subscription; because it’s not just the cost of the software—it’s all the hours your team will spend trying to learn it.

• Do your internal resources have experience with this tool?
• Is there a clear strategy or plan for when, how and why to use these tools?
• Will the organization invest in building templates and best practices?
• Do you have existing course authoring abilities in your LMS? (More often than not, you can build quizzes and deliver content with tools you already have; you might not have to buy a third-party course authoring tool.)
• Are the employees new to instructional design (e.g., new career change, or are they Subject Matter Experts who recently became trainers) and would they require professional development or funds to attend training themselves?
• Is there anyone in the organization who already uses Storyline who can mentor them?
• How much of their time do you anticipate they might spend using it? It takes years to become proficient at these tools. Are you sure you want to invest in them becoming proficient? Is their time or expertise better used as a SME?
• Would it be more cost effective to use internal resources to develop the content (draft it first), and outsource the course authoring? 
• Do you encourage employees to join professional development groups outside of working hours (e.g., the Articulate Users’ Meetup group in Vancouver, or a local offering of an Articulate Roadshow where they can find support?

Only invest in learning tools if you can invest in training as well

Yes, it’s definitely a good idea to invest in tools for your learning or training team, but only if you can also invest in training or upskilling your team on those tools. You’ll also want to provide leadership for them to use the tools consistently, align with your organizational goals and create a style guide and guidelines of use (or be prepared for the wild west!)

I’m not saying you shouldn’t support your team with the tools they ask for, and I’m not saying they shouldn’t experiment with new tools. But instead of agreeing right away, ask instead:

​For any new system or tool, be prepared to build in discovery time if your team is inexperienced with eLearning software, and be sure to ask for rationales behind their prototypes and samples of work to ensure they’re on the right track.

What does eLearning mean in your organization? I’ve learned that whenever we’re talking about online learning assets, it’s better not to assume! Is it a standalone "module" that looks like a self-directed PowerPoint deck? Or is it any combination of interactive files, media and learning activities— basically any learning that isn't delivered in person in a classroom?

With any gig I take on, I always check with my client to clarify what we both mean by eLearning. It's surprising sometimes to see how close or far our definitions can be! Having worked with a variety of customer and employee-facing online learning materials, my own definition of eLearning has broadened over the last few years. I’ve embraced a more inclusive understanding of eLearning than its traditional definition, in line with many of the organizations I serve. 

Don’t forget about the course authoring tools in your LMS
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How eLearning is built (or authored, to use industry jargon) has a wider array of options now too. Formerly, eLearning mostly referred to custom developed content using a third-party authoring tool like Articulate Storyline or Adobe Captivate. Period. And that’s still completely acceptable and highly impactful. But many organizations forget that they can author courses directly in their LMS (arguably a better strategy than third-party applications, depending on your LMS, of course!) If you haven’t explored using your LMS itself to develop an eLearning course, this might be the time. 

What are some effective course objects (or rich media assets) used in eLearning? 

Depending on what your organization needs and how it makes sense to deliver them, any combination of these learning assets or course objects could form an engaging eLearning experience:

• Discussion forums
• Live or recorded webinars
• Assignments (downloaded/uploaded)
• Proof of training or certification
• SCORM file (a Sharable Content Object Reference Model usually becomes the course itself, but could also be one of many types of media that makes up a course)
• Graded or non-graded assessments: Exam/quiz/survey
• Videos, interactive videos, 360 videos
• PDFs or other types of static file downloads
• Text with hyperlinks to internal/external pages, wikis, collaboration channels, etc.

​There is a valuable movement happening in the eLearning industry right now; we’re finally shifting away from thinking of learning as a course and more as an experience. Learning doesn’t begin and end within the confines of an eLearning course—it happens on the job, during a commute, in discussion on social media, and a million other digital ways. Thinking of eLearning in the broader context of the experience will help you build more impactful online learning too.

​Planning to develop an eLearning course? Then you’ll want to know how much time it will take. The answer: It depends. eLearning courses range in duration (how long it takes a typical learner to complete) as well as development hours. 

Do you know how much time and effort your organization spends on a typical, 30-minute eLearning course build? Depending on the level of interactivity and custom engagement, your project infrastructure and more, developing a new course can take anywhere (truthfully), from 20 to 200 hours.

This is why I recommend starting with a small scoping project to test if your budget, project plan, or contractor-client relationship are aligned.