Another thing to think about is facilitation. Will you or someone from your organization be actively facilitating the course or will it be offered in a self-study format? This may well be a capacity decision because course facilitation requires a significant allocation of time to monitor participation, respond to participants, grade assignments and so on. It also requires a skilled facilitator, which your organization may or may not have access to.
Facilitation can require different time commitments depending on whether the course is synchronous or asynchronous. For example, with a synchronous course, you will need to be online at the same time as the participants to deliver your training content, respond to questions, lead groups activities, etc. You will also be required to get ready for the synchronous session(s) by preparing your content and activities but also by making sure that you know how to use the various features of the online learning technology you will be using. If your training initiative includes graded assignments, you will need to mark assignments and return them to participants. You may also need to factor in time for reporting grades to other faculty or the appropriate department if you work in a college or similar setting.
When facilitating an asynchronous course, you will probably need to check in a few times each day to respond to participants' postings and questions and to monitor activity. While this may seem like a simple task, it can be time-consuming and is an important factor to keep in mind when thinking about staff time and responsibilities for your online training. You may be able to reply to some postings quite quickly, but you may have to do some research and take time to write responses for other postings.
Please see the Online Facilitation module for further exploration of this topic.
