How long will my course take to complete?

Have you ever tried to calculate the length of your eLearning course? Not in terms of slides or scenes, but in terms of how long it’ll take your learners to complete it? You may have tried the ratio of 1 slide=1 minute or, you may just be using your gut instinct based on how long similar courses have taken your learners to complete. But did you know that Articulate Storyline provides you with an estimate of your course’s length? Here’s how you can calculate it:

1. Open your course in Articulate Storyline.
2. In the Articulate Storyline ribbon, click on the Publish
3. In the dialog box that appears, click on the ellipsis button to the right of your course title.

4. Next to Duration you’ll see a drop-down menu with the default selection Calculate Automatically. To the right of this, you can see Articulate Storyline’s estimated duration of the course. 

One thing to keep in mind is that Articulate Storyline’s estimated duration is just that: an estimate. The time it may take to complete your eLearning course can vary on a number of factors, these include:

Number of slides

Some of your slides may have multiple layers, and each of those layers might reveal a few paragraphs of content, or videos, that your learners must view, affecting the duration of your course. You may also be using a branched scenario, in which case the learner might not see all of the slides in the alternative paths in the scenario therefore completing the course quicker than Articulate’s estimate.

Audio, Video, and Interactivity

The length of your eLearning course can vary greatly depending on whether you have audio, video, and interactive elements in your course. The time taken to complete a course also depends on whether the learner is required to sit through these elements or if they can skip ahead.

Your learners

No two learners are the same. Different learners will react to your course in different ways. For example, a tech-savvy learner might whiz through the content at a quicker speed than a learner who is not as familiar with technology.

There is no exact calculation to determine the duration of an eLearning course. In the end, all that matters is that your course should take as long as it needs to for the learners to truly grasp your content.