I was slightly baffled by this week’s assignment as budget
is usually never discussed in any instructional design model and had never
really come up in any of the previous classes I had taken, so this was
definitely a challenge.
Resource 1
I really like this website as I have used Don Clark’s other
resources before for other instructional design classes and have found his
advice to be very useful. What is particularly good about this website is that
it gives a very clear guideline to estimating development hours. This is a real
help to anyone creating any type of instruction. I was amazed at how many hours
of work it can take to create an hour long simulation. Although I have been
teaching for a long time and I am halfway through my instructional design
course, I have never really understood how to estimate the design/ development
time for an hour’s instruction. Now I
feel that I can give a true estimate.
The other useful information here is the cost of developing
training. I have no real idea about how much instructional designers, technical
writers, technical developers etc. charge so the estimates here actually really
help if I had to provide someone with a quote.
Don Clark’s website then goes on to provide estimates on
eLearning courses; this is where my interest peaked. I’m interested in creating
e-learning courses for the future and this website has a plethora of
information about the different types of e-learning and the development time
for each one.
There are some very cool tools such as the excel cost
estimator available on this website.
Resource 2
The second resource that I really like is this:
I like this one because it is about creating online courses.
It uses a web based program created by West Dominion University to estimate the
cost of the courses. Since more and more institutions are offering online
courses, the demand for instructional designers is increasing. Some
institutions hire full time instructional designers, while others hire
contractors. Either way, it is important to know the time and effort an
instructional designer will spend on creating these courses. It goes through the different phases a
university will go through to create the courses and how they can estimate the
cost and effort. The web based program
is available for download here http://preweb.clt.odu.edu/price/
Resource 3
This is another good source of information for general
instructional design use; it is not specific to any project and so the advice
can be applied to anything. The site shows visually where the instructional
designer will spend the most amount of time in the ADDIE process and typically
that will be in the development stage. It also differentiates between the
novice and the expert instructional designer and takes that into account when
estimating development hours. A novice is more likely to take longer to develop
a course than an expert designer. The
other interesting aspect of this is that it takes into account learner mastery
of skills; the more difficult the content, the more development time. The other resources do not really take into
account these variables and so this is what makes this website so special, important
and definitely worth checking out.
References
Gordon, S.,
He, W., & Abdous, M. (n.d.). Using a Web-based System to Estimate the Cost
of Online Course Production. The
University of West Georgia. Retrieved May 31, 2012, from
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall123/gordon123.html
Clark, D.
(n.d.). Estimating Costs and Time in Instructional Design. Colocation |
Broadband Wireless | Dedicated Servers | Web Design & Development | DSL |
Web Hosting | Infinity Internet. Retrieved May 31, 2012, from
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html
Munson, D.
(n.d.). Estimating Instructional Design and Development Time | LearnCentrix. LearnCentrix
| a place where e-Learning practitioners share, exchange, and network.
Retrieved May 31, 2012, from http://www.learncentrix.com/estimating-instructional-design
Sheila to Munira:
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that I visited your blog and added you to my Google RSS feed! Your resources this week are terrific and very validating of design and development estimates that I have always used. Your first resource was wonderful because it provides very credible references to support each cost estimate line item. I downloaded a copy of all three of your resource articles for my records because they were extremely helpful.
I was wondering especially about a consultant or contract hourly fee because I plan on securing some contract work this fall when I am finished with this Walden program. When I ran my own design firm, I charged approximately $100/hour for most of my clients over ten years of work. This was to take into account the many hours of unbillable or hidden time that a consultant must spend during the ADDIE process with a new client. Your resources validated this approximate rate, so I am glad to plan on this rate again for the future. Thanks for a great post Munira!
Munira,
ReplyDeleteI, too, greatly appreciated the first resource and the references to back up the data. I have done design work for many years and I have picked up the occasional freelance job and giving an initial estimate is always the most difficult thing for me. I struggle with the issue of whether to charge a low rate to secure the job or to charge a higher rate for the monetary benefits. As the course text this week mentioned, sometimes taking a smaller ROI is beneficial to get your foot in the door for future work. Again, great resource! I have bookmarked it and will definitely use it in the future.
Chris
Munira,
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding me of the link to the Don Clark site. That is a very useful site that I thought I had bookmarked in the past but definitely have bookmarked now. Like you, I especially like the segments that provide a dollar amount or and hours of effort amount to help us as we create budgets. This will add authenticity and accuracy to the budgets we submit. Even if we have to adjust the dollar amounts for inflation, at least this site provides us with a good starting point.
I also like the resource you provided on the program created by West Dominion University. I particularly like the way they set their program up in a spreadsheet like manner where the variables can be plugged in to get a reasonable estimate for their budget. As somewhat of a spreadsheet fanatic, I immediately began thinking of possible modifications to use in other situations.
Thanks again for these also resources. As always, I enjoyed reading your blog.
– jeff
Munira,
ReplyDeleteI like resource number 3 because it estimates how long in each ADDIE process a person may spend the majority of their time in the project. I also like how this may be adjusted according to experience levels novice or expert.
The two resources that I found out about had to do with estimating budgets. Estimating budgets is what I find to be the most challenging aspect of the being a project manager.