In Lessons 1.3 and 1.4 we discussed the economics of e-Learning in comparison to classroom-based training. We determined that in making comparisons, it is useful to look at the cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of delivery systems. Your context and the extent to which you can assign dollar values to benefits will determine how you will measure your return on investment; in quantitative, monetary terms or in more qualitative ways.

Considering how difficult it is to quantify benefits in monetary terms in the public sector, sustainable development community, it is likely that you will evaluate your e-Learning more in terms of how well it attained its goals and the kind of impact it had. You should note, though, that this does not excuse you from considering cost-effectiveness in the overall evaluation of your e-Learning. At some point you are going to have to determine whether the benefits of the training were worth the investment, either in their own right, or in comparison to something else.

Regardless of your situation, you should have a summative evaluation plan to ensure that you collect the data you will need to assess the overall effectiveness of your e-Learning.

Evaluating e-Learning is no different than evaluating any other form of training.

Step 1: Begin by reviewing the goals and objectives of the training as identified in the analysis phase of the instructional design process. At this stage, you identified general and specific goals and objectives for the training. Now you need to operationally define these goals and objectives into a set of evaluation questions so you can specify how each will be measured.

Your evaluation will likely be seeking answers to 4 increasingly complex questions (Kirkpatrick, 1998 in Setaro, 2001), as was discussed previously in Module 1, Lesson 4. Click, hold and drag the slider in the interaction below to revisit the 4 levels of evaluation and the questions they seek to answer.

Once you have reviewed the goals and objectives of the training, and determined what questions to ask based on the four levels of evaluation, you need to choose appropriate strategies to collect the data.