Learning with e-learning and online courses is more popular than ever, yet studies or comprehensive practical experience are scarce. We want to change that – and have analyzed thousands of online courses. One result: Length matters! We explain the exciting results and provide practical tips for your online courses.
Today, online courses are available for a wide range of applications: Most continuing educators either rely on blended learning or e-learning. The difference: An online course for blended learning is only part of a training that includes both online and in-person elements. An e-learning course is usually a standalone, self-contained online course. However, all online courses have one thing in common: They are intended to impart 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 most important results at a glance.
our tips for your online courses.
how the results were generated (detailed for statistics enthusiasts).
1. Evaluation of successful e-learnings and online courses
We analyzed over 8,000 courses on our online learning platform blink.it to identify the success factors for good online courses.
Evaluation by hand + eye
The evaluation was taken over by no computer: Every successful course was individually reviewed and categorized as “e-learning” or “blended learning” based on its content. You will learn later why these categories are important.
What does “successful” mean?
We speak of “success” when an online course not only has a certain quality in its content (which we cannot comprehensively assess in our study), but above all based on the motivation of the participants: Did the participants actually view the content? Did they not only start the courses but also complete them until the end? Therefore, the definition of “successful” in the context of our evaluation is:
“Your course is successful if all participants viewed all the content!”
We refer to the success metric as the “course completion rate”: This figure indicates how much content participants viewed on average.
Example of the course completion rate
A completion rate of 10% indicates, for example, that participants viewed an average of 10% of the content. A perfect course has a completion rate of 100%: that means, 100% of the content was viewed by all participants!
Enough mathematics for now! Here are the results of our evaluation:
2. Results: How course length affects 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 pieces of content are mostly 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 pieces of content are blended learning courses.
The majority of successful courses with more than 25 pieces of content are pure e-learning courses.
So you can see that successful blended learning courses manage with significantly fewer individual learning contents – whereas successful e-learning courses with more learning contents can also be equally successful.
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: Keep your blended learning courses short and concise!
A blended learning course is meant to accompany in-person events and can therefore be shorter than a pure e-learning course: Not all learning contents need to be delivered online. It’s important that you clearly communicate the connection between online and in-person learning to participants. A blended learning course can serve as preparation for a live meeting, a follow-up to seminar content, or a complete accompaniment (before and after the in-person event).
Consider which content fits well in your blended learning online course. For preparation, you could ask about the participants' current level of knowledge. Follow-up exercises can solidify knowledge over several weeks. Photo protocols of the in-person meetings 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 pieces of content. Many even have more than 50, some even 100 individual learning units! If that sounds like a lot to you, keep in mind that each learning unit (for us: a blink) in this case is only a few minutes long.
In a pure e-learning course, you should not overwhelm participants with pages of text or hours of learning videos. It’s more important to break down the extensive learning material into smaller chunks. You are probably familiar with this principle under the term “microlearning.”
We recommend learning units that can be processed by participants in a maximum of 5 minutes. So divide the learning material well and use a variety of media: With a mix of short texts, self-made learning videos, and exercises, you can convey even extensive knowledge in a clear and varied way.
Tip 3: Choose the right format for blended learning 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 like “take method x.” It is important that you choose the right format for your content. Success depends not only on the length but of course also on the content!
Before creating an online course, consider:
Are the contents suitable for a pure online course?
Or is support through appropriate in-person appointments more sensible?
Which media properly support my content?
How can I break down all the knowledge into small learning chunks?
Then decide based on these questions whether a short online accompaniment or a detailed e-learning course is better suited for your planned measure!
4. For statistics enthusiasts: How were the results generated?
If you are wondering how we arrived at 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 that had at least 5 active participants and 3 pieces of content (“blinks”) at the time of the evaluation were included in the selection. There was no limit on the upper end, 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 reviewed,
then only the successful courses.
Finally, the courses were categorized by course types to identify correlations.
Step 1: Review of all courses
For the evaluation, the completion rate was fundamentally considered in connection with the number of blinks (content) in the courses. For all courses combined, this looked simplified like in the following graphic. Each point is a course that fits the combination of completion rate and content number:
You can see that many of the evaluated courses contain less than 25 blinks. Very few courses have more than 75 pieces of content. And most courses have a completion rate between 25% and 75%.
Step 2: All successful courses
Since we are interested in the most successful courses in the second step, we have established a minimum completion rate of 75%. With this filter, the following picture emerges:
Here, two quite 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 final step, the categorization was applied: The courses were allocated to the category “e-learning” or “blended learning” based on their content.
The result of the categorization shows clearly:
The courses that are very successful with fewer than 25 pieces of content are mostly blended learning courses for 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 aimed at knowledge building.
Disclaimer: The results of the evaluation relate solely to courses created on the blink.it learning platform. Results from other learning management systems and learning platforms may vary. In the evaluation, not all courses on the blink.it platform were included: It is a large-scale sample of 8,257 courses. For questions about the study design or data evaluation, we are happy to assist you.
You see: With blink.it, you can create both successful e-learning courses and blended learnings.
