Online courses are taking the world by storm. There are many advantages to taking your learning online, such as the flexibility it offers, increased engagement, and the fact that your participants will feel empowered! Find out which topics to include, how to create an online course, and why they are effective.
What is the definition of an online course?
An online course can be defined as a virtual learning experience organized into a course format. Courses can vary in their type, from informal to formal, and cover many different topics. Plus, they can be used as preparation for an online exam or simply for fun!
People are drawn to online courses because of the flexibility they give their participants to pace their own learning. They also allow creators to customize a virtual space to make education as engaging as possible. Online courses give you the chance to incorporate the latest learning trends, such as microlearning, nano-learning, and gamification.
People are drawn to online courses because of the flexibility they give their participants to pace their own learning
Topics for online courses
Once you’ve decided to create an online course, the next logical question would be: ‘What should the topic of my online course be?’ Unlike traditional courses, online courses bring the material together under a virtual roof, meaning that you can cover a variety of topics in one, organized space. That will definitely put your participants on a path to success!
The great thing about online courses is that you can make them about pretty much anything! Whatever industry you work in, there will be topics to cover with e-learning. However, while many topics are suitable for online courses, some benefit from a hybrid learning approach. Others, such as practical skills, are better off being taught in person .
Here are some ideas for online course topics within :
HR consultancy online courses:
- Managing people
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
- How to spot the best talent ( or ‘Talent acquisition strategies’)
- Interview techniques
GDPR/ cyber security consultancy online courses:
- Introduction to data security
- GDPR principles and best practices
- Managing data breaches
- Lawful processing of personal data
How to create an online course
So, you’ve decided to make an online course and picked a topic. Now what? It’s time to get stuck in! Let’s list all the steps you need to complete before you can distribute your course:
Start with your preparation
- Define your learning goals.
- Define the purpose of your course.
- Define your audience to tailor your training program.
Make a choice
- Determine some practicalities, such as the length of your course and the deadline for completion.
Create!
- Gather your resources and structure the information.
If you want your courses to be organized in a central space, you need an LMS. Easy LMS helps you to centralize all your online courses. You just need our Academy. Within the Academy, you can effortlessly design online courses. No advanced computer skills are required! You can make your courses interactive by adding images, videos, and more! Customize the colors and fonts and match your learning environment to your brand. Then view, export, and analyze your users’ results. You can even generate certificates!
The effectiveness of online courses
Still doubting if online courses are for you? This learning method has the potential to be more effective than the traditional one! Check out some of the reasons why .
Reason 1: Self-paced approach
One massive benefit of online courses is that they put participants in charge of their own learning. This approach empowers them to take courses at their own pace and ultimately achieve better results.
Reason 2: Improved engagement
We live in a digital age where long-form text is not enough to keep a participant engaged in the learning material. Online courses give you the ability to incorporate multimedia, such as images and videos, into your content. This, in turn, creates an engaging learning environment and, ultimately, better knowledge retention rates! For instance, the Research Institute of America found that e-learning can increase retention rates by 25% to 60%.
Reason 3: Improved efficiency
Are your employees struggling to work efficiently? Research shows that companies that include online courses gain 26% higher revenue per employee . Greater efficiency often correlates with more job satisfaction. This will likely contribute to a lower turnover rate because employees will feel satisfied and confident in their continuous education!
Advantages of online courses
Advantage 1: Better knowledge retention
The goal of every course is that the provided information sticks. According to Holmes and Gardner (2006), online courses are a great medium to achieve that. Research indicates that online learning enhances the efficacy of knowledge by making it easy to access a huge amount of information. Read more about the effectiveness of online learning in our article Is online learning as good as face-to-face learning?.
Online courses make it easier for your employees to retain knowledge because you can make them tailor-made and take into account the individual learner differences. Some employees, for instance, might prefer to concentrate on certain course parts, while others prefer to review the entire course. But how do you track individual needs? By asking, of course. You can also set up a basic course to track results and identify knowledge gaps. Based on this information, you can set up multiple individual tailor-made courses, which result in better-educated personnel that can excel in their jobs.
Advantage 2: Higher revenue per employee
Research shows that a comprehensive training program leads to 218% higher revenue per employee. To stay up-to-date with best practices and developments in their industry, the average employee needs to dedicate around 1% of their time per week to training. That translates to 4.8 minutes of training per day. Not much, right? Fitting regular face-to-face training into this timeframe is somewhat impossible. Online learning is a solid alternative. It enables a style called microlearning. So, an employee can start and complete a course in a quick five to ten-minute time frame.
Advantage 3: Flexibility to choose where and when
Your employees can proceed through a course at their own pace, at their place, and on their own time. It doesn’t force your employees into a poorly fitting schedule. They have the power to adjust their study scheme to their situation. For instance, early birds can start their course at dawn, while night owls can take advantage of their last work hour by starting a course. Positive side-effect: you will be less distracted by your co-course takers (but maybe more by your family or friends , see disadvantages).
If you have an international organization, the flexibility argument is a big plus. It reduces travel time (and expenses) .
Advantage 4: Reduced costs
Imagine that you need to administer GDPR training to an organization of 100 employees. By offering an online course instead of in-person training you skip the following costs:
- Hiring an external trainer for multiple days. You can’t train all employees at the same time.
- Travel expenses of the external trainer.
- Travel expenses of your employees (if they are stationed at different locations).
- Non-worked hours by your employees. According to Chapman Alliance a half-day of classical training is the equivalent of one hour of an e-learning course.
- Printed materials and a physical location to host them.
- We don’t have to do the math to show that pricing is a huge advantage of online courses.
Advantage 5: Easily update content
The world around us is changing so fast. Laws are being adjusted, legislation constantly changes, and research gets refuted. That’s why books and articles quickly become outdated. Replacing printed materials and handbooks from time to time is a high-cost item. Updating online courses is not. Of course, it takes time. But the changes you make to any of your content are immediately available to your learning audience anywhere in the world.
Advantage 6: More insight into the performance
You can set up an online course in a learning management system. These systems offer the option to test your employees throughout and after the online course. These exams enable you to evaluate whether their knowledge level increased. At the same time, the failure and success rates give you insights into which aspects need more attention.
Disadvantages of online courses
Disadvantage 1: Requires self-discipline and time-management skills
Great freedom comes with great responsibility. Some people can handle it, and some can’t. Taking an online course requires self-discipline to set aside chunks of time to complete your training. It means you have to make it a priority and let no other activities interfere. That could be difficult if you have a never-ending daily to-do list.
Disadvantage 2: Less control over cheating
Our gut feeling is that online exams are more susceptible to cheating. The evidence isn’t straightforward about this topic. For instance, research of Watson (2010) and Stuber-McEwen (2009) showed the opposite result, while Lanier (2006) confirmed our gut feeling. What’s the truth? We guess it is somewhere in the middle. Participants who are inclined to cheat will cheat, whether they attend an online course or traditional training. The fact is that online learning management systems deter cheating much better than they did ten years ago.
Disadvantage 3: Communication with the instructor is often limited
Online courses reduce the interaction between the trainers and participants to the bare minimum. For some, a trainer, personal attention, and discussions with fellow students are essential to take in new information. These aspects bring the learning content alive. The need for these things depends a bit on your generation. Research indicates that the baby boom generation flourishes with in-company training, but millennials, who were born and raised with the internet, don’t mind taking online courses. They don’t miss the contact with instructors and colleagues.
Disadvantage 4: Not suitable for every topic
No one wants to have a surgeon at their bed that learned how to stitch through an online course . Some topics, like safety standards and information about products, lend themselves more naturally to e-learning than others. Repetitive content, especially for new employees in a high turnover environment, is ideal for e-learning.
Besides the topic, it is valuable to consider your employees’ motivation levels. Not every employee is eager to take compulsory courses. If you do away with the encouraging trainer, it becomes difficult for someone with low motivation to start or finish a course. For this reason, creating motivating materials for your employees becomes more important than ever with online learning.
Disadvantage 5: Unpleasant to read
Spending hours at a computer or tablet without any breaks can ruin your vision . Also, back problems could become a serious issue. It is quite understandable that you won’t be eager to read from a screen again if you have already spent the whole day behind your desk.
Disadvantage 6: Possibility of distraction
You can ignore your lip-smacking colleague, but can you ignore your screaming child, the popular Netflix show Tiger King in the background, the smell of excellent coffee, or that pile of dirty laundry in the corner? Distraction outside the office is a potential threat to your productivity. But it certainly depends on your learning style. If you want your participants to take the whole course at once, distraction will occur faster, than if you advocate a microlearning style. Research [8] shows that microlearning helps diminish distraction.
So, what’s next?
Will online courses completely replace in-company training or training at a location? We don’t believe so. Online courses aren’t suitable for every organization, person, or topic. And we still say humans need human contact.
If you are thinking of replacing traditional learning with online training, then carefully weigh your audience and training against this list of advantages and disadvantages. Write down your goal and specific use case. Take a product tour of several LMS suppliers. Easy LMS is one of the systems you can try. With Easy LMS, you can create and manage effective training courses, challenging exams, and customized certificates. It includes a great analysis tool and automation options.
Useful resources
- e-Learning Industry
- Chapman Alliance
- University of West Georgia
- University of West Georgia
- Taylor & Francis online
- Training Magazine
- Fast Company
- The Harvard Gazette
Conclusion
In conclusion, online courses have revolutionized the way we learn, providing learners with a flexible, engaging, and efficient approach to education. With the ability to customize the learning experience and the flexibility to learn at one’s own pace, online courses have proven to be more effective than traditional in-person teaching for a range of topics. As the world continues to shift towards digital and remote learning, it’s clear that online courses are here to stay and will continue to shape the future of education.
useful resources
- mighty
- ispring
- eLearning Industry
- Schoox
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is an online course?
- online course is the best for liesure time
- Which topics should I include in my course?
- according to the skills
- Are online courses more effective than in-person teaching methods?
- both are eual its depend on the person .
