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| | PRINT | | Costs and Financing of eLearning |
Cologne, August 2005 – The main purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the diverse costs related to eLearning projects. Based on case studies at several German universities, the costs of various eLearning projects have been calculated.
Three types of projects have been taken into account: small eLearning projects, e.g. the development of online courses running one semester, medium-scale online projects serving such as a two-year programme, and large-scaled projects providing content for a longer study programme.
An introductory overview on costing issues and methodology explains the basic cost concept applied. An eLearning project is subdivided into five major steps (preparation / planning, obtaining technology and infrastructure, development, pilot and full-scale implementation), and the relevant activity-based costs were figured out using a questionnaire.
Specifying the costs related to the time input proved to be the most difficult issue. On the one hand there was no detailed documentation of all (small) project related activities, and on the other, some activities were quite time consuming but couldn't be specified exactly (e.g. discussions with colleagues and experts in the planning phase). Therefore some of the figures are estimations and represent a possible range of costs.
The findings of the case studies show that the total costs for small projects (the development of online courses) are in a range of less than 100,000 euros, mostly between 35,000 and 65,000 euros, depending on the particular set-up and the media employed. The largest amount (nearly 90%) is caused by the opportunity costs, i.e. the time involved, particularly time spent by professors.
The medium-scale projects already require an impressive amount of money in a range of more than half a million euros at the high end to around 150,000 euros on the lower end. Again the investment costs seem to be negligible; potential cost drivers may be expensive media with a large animation component and, again, time-consuming activities like development and maintenance.
Concerning the large-scale projects, real figures cannot yet be presented because most of them were still under development at the time of investigation. So far one finding seems to be that a great deal of time and costs (20% to 25%) is directed at management, administration and coordination, especially when there are many cooperation partners at different locations. A second cost driver of large projects seems to be the content and media development, which requires up to seventy percent of the budget. |
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