Learning with e-learning and online courses is more popular than ever, yet studies or comprehensive practical experience are in short supply. We want to change that - and we have analyzed thousands of online courses. One result: Length matters! We explain the exciting findings and provide practical tips for your online courses.
Today, there are online courses for the most diverse applications: Generally, educators either rely on blended learnings or e-learnings. The difference: An online course for blended learning is only part of a training consisting of online and in-person sessions. E-learning is usually a stand-alone, self-contained online course. But all online courses have one thing in common: They aim to convey knowledge.
But what is the right length for an online course to be practically successful?
In this article, you will learn
how our mini-study was conducted.
the key findings at a glance.
our tips for your online courses.
how the results were generated (detailed for statistics enthusiasts).
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1. Evaluation of successful e-learnings and online courses
We analyzed over 8,000 courses on our online learning platform blink.it to find the success factors for good online courses.
Evaluation by hand + eye
The evaluation was not done by a computer: Each successful course was individually examined and categorized as "e-learning" or "blended learning" based on its content. Why these categories are important, you will learn later.
What does "successful" mean?
We speak of "success" when an online course not only has a certain quality content-wise (which we cannot comprehensively evaluate in our study), but above all regarding the motivation of the participants: Did the participants really engage with the content? Did they not only start the courses but also complete them to the end? Therefore, the definition for "successful" in the context of our evaluation is:
Your course is successful when all participants have viewed all contents!
We refer to the success metric as the "course completion rate": This number indicates how many contents the participants viewed on average.
Example of the course completion rate
A completion rate of 10% indicates, for example, that participants viewed on average 10% of the content. A perfect course has a completion rate of 100%: this means that 100% of the content was viewed by all participants!
Enough math for now! Here are the results of our evaluation:
2. Results: How course length influences e-learning success
Note: In the following, "successful" means a course completion rate between 75% and 100%.
In the following graphic, you can see simplified results of our evaluation: We looked at how much content the courses have, and what type of courses they are (e-learning or blended learning)
Graphic 1: Results of our course study. Successful courses with a maximum of 25 contents are usually blended learning courses; successful courses with 25-75 blinks are predominantly pure e-learning courses.
2 important learnings from our study:
The majority of successful courses with at most 25 contents are blended learning courses.
The majority of successful courses with more than 25 contents are pure e-learning courses.
You can see that successful blended learning courses manage with significantly fewer individual learning contents - while successful e-learning courses can also be successful with more learning contents.
3. Our tips for your online courses:
We have 3 tips for you that you can use this knowledge for your next online course:
Tip 1: Make your blended learning courses short and concise!
A blended learning course accompanies in-person events and can therefore be shorter than a pure e-learning course: Not all learning contents need to be covered online. It is important that you make the connection between online and in-person learning clear to the participants. A blended learning course can be a preparation for a live appointment, a follow-up of seminar content, or a complete accompaniment (before and after the in-person appointment).
Consider which contents fit well in your blended learning course. For preparation, you can, for example, inquire about the current knowledge level of the participants. Follow-up exercises can help reinforce knowledge over several weeks. Photo protocols for in-person appointments are also perfect content for a short accompanying online course.
Tip 2: E-learning courses can be extensive - if the content is right!
The majority of successful e-learning courses at blink.it have more than 25 contents. Many even have more than 50, and some even 100 individual learning units! If that sounds like a lot to you, consider that each learning unit (for us: a Blink) in this case is only a few minutes long.
In pure e-learning courses, you should not overwhelm participants with lengthy texts or hours-long learning videos. What is more important is to break down the extensive learning material into small bites. You probably know this principle as "micro-learning".
We recommend learning units that can be processed by the participant in at most 5 minutes. So, allocate the learning material well and use different media: With a mix of short texts, self-recorded learning videos, and exercises, you can convey even extensive knowledge clearly and engagingly.
Tip 3: Choose the right format for blended learnings and e-learning courses!
One of the most exciting results of our course evaluation is that both e-learning and blended learning courses can be very successful! We cannot and do not want to give you a clear statement of "take method x". It is important that you choose the appropriate format for your content. Success depends not only on length but of course also on the content!
Consider before creating an online course:
Are the contents suitable for a purely online course?
Or is the support through suitable in-person appointments more sensible?
Which media support my contents correctly?
How can I break down the overall knowledge into small learning bites?
Then decide based on these questions whether a short online accompaniment or a detailed e-learning course is better suited for your planned measure!
Experience blink.it yourself now!
Do you want to experience how online courses can look at blink.it? Then join our free time management seminar and see blink.it in action!
4. For statistics enthusiasts: How were the results generated?
If you are wondering how we came to the results, we have an answer for you below.
The study design in detail
A total of 8,257 courses were evaluated as a random sample from the countless courses on the blink.it learning platform. All courses on the platform that, at the time of evaluation, had at least 5 active participants and 3 contents ("Blinks") were included in the selection. There was no upper limit, so courses with over 2,000 participants and 100 Blinks were also included in the evaluation.
The evaluation of the over 8,000 blink.it courses took place in 3 steps:
First, all courses were examined,
then only the successful courses.
Finally, the courses were categorized by course types to identify correlations.
Step 1: Examination of all courses
For the evaluation, the completion rate was fundamentally considered in relation to the number of Blinks (contents) in the courses. The overall picture for all courses was simplified as shown in the following graphic. Each point represents a course, corresponding to the combination of completion rate and number of contents:
You see that many of the evaluated courses contain fewer than 25 Blinks. Only very few courses have more than 75 contents. And most courses have a completion rate between 25% and 75%.
Step 2: All successful courses
As we are interested in the most successful courses in the second step, we set a minimum completion rate of 75%. With this filter, the following picture emerges:
Here, two clearly defined groups emerged: One half of the successful courses has a maximum of 25 Blinks (Group 1). The other half of the successful courses has significantly more Blinks - from 25 upwards (Group 2).
Step 3: Successful courses by course type (e-learning or blended learning)
In the last step, categorization was used: The courses were classified into the category "e-learning" or "blended learning" based on their content.
The result of the categorization clearly shows:
The courses that are very successful with fewer than 25 contents are mostly blended learning courses for the preparation or follow-up of in-person events.
The online courses that are successful with a lot of content are predominantly pure e-learning courses focused on knowledge building.
Disclaimer: The results of the evaluation relate exclusively to courses created on the blink.it learning platform. Results from other learning management systems and learning platforms may differ. Additionally, not all courses on the blink.it platform were included in the evaluation: It is a large-scale random sample of 8,257 courses. If you have questions about the study design or the data evaluation, we are happy to assist.
You can see: With blink.it, you can create both successful e-learning courses and blended learnings. Secure yourself now an insight with our free time management seminar: Experience the course as a participant and convince yourself of the simple blink.it concept!
