Planning is the key to success of e-learning

Designing and development of good quality and functional e-education system requires considerable resources and a lot of time and effort if one wants to put a whole course as a module on the web. One must have in mind that merely publishing texts on the web is not so demanding, but this approach to distance education is almost the same thing as printing educational materials or their distribution through e-mail, on a floppy disk or a CD-ROM. Detailed planning for the introduction of e-learning course will ensure greater likelihood of success and decrease the possibility to fail.

E-education systems contain numerous visualizations, simulations, different interactive elements, tests, quizzes, forums, mailing lists and other forms of information presentation and communication with the participants, so investments into the preparation of an online instructional module are usually greater than they are for traditional offline instruction.

There are several reasons that justify the development of online educational system for a university course, seminar or corporate training:
- it is easier for a large number of participants to successfully and more completely acquire  instructional content;
- the need to improve the way instruction is performed and increase the satisfaction of the participants;
- decreased expenses and waste of time of the students for travelling to the class venue;
- better impression of the teacher/instructor and the institution which organized the instruction;
- available financial resources which make the time and effort financially worthwhile;
- the obligation of an instructor/teacher and/or the institution to perform a certain module online;
- a chance to master new educational technologies and join the contemporary trends.
 Evaluate the profitability of investing into e-education

Evaluate the profitability of investing into e-education

Apart from benefits, there are several unfavourable factors when developing e-education system for a course or a class:
- problems related to copyright for the content of the courses and  visual illustrations;
- the need for technical support by other people and/or mastering internet technologies;
- the possibility that, after great initial investments, a course becomes redundant;
- the need to maintain and innovate due to the appearance of new technologies in distance education;
- the possibility that the content becomes out-of-date relatively quickly (like, for example, in the case of courses on informatics);
- possible apparition of similar competitive and  better quality online educational programs by other authors.

In any case, it is a good idea to make an overview of advantages and disadvantages of e-education in relation to specific conditions and possibilities, and make a good estimate of the level of implementation of different options.

Tips & tricks: Personal equation of costs and benefits can be improved if you find an investor for development of online educational materials and good technical support (for the computer and LMS). Sometimes it is possible to get or buy copyright for publishing content or visual illustrations on the web, so you can save the expenses for the time and other resources needed for development of that type of educational materials. Also consider the possibility of translating or adapting somebody else's online course, e.g. by buying the right to use the materials or signing a partner contract. With adequate financial resources, outsourcing from other companies/institutions can sometimes be a faster and cheaper solution than investing your own time and effort. Finally, if that is possible, plan the development of online materials in the areas which will have the biggest potential user group, which includes the language that will be used (e.g. English or German). You can plan to attract (1) academic users; (2) users from big business organizations such as corporations or state institutions; (3) individual users who have been attracted through advertisements on the Internet; (4) all of the above.