Hi,

Are there any thumb rules/industry standards to estimate the seat time of an e-learning course? I am working on an application training course and would like to know if there are any standard definitions in the industry. For example: number of steps/screens in an hour of learning etc...

With ERP apps, such as Oracle and SAP, the rule of thumb I use is 20 min/transaction. But this is just a rule of thumb and varies depending on complexity of the content.

I've found that it's kind of hard to make generalizations. If you have audio or video for each task, then you have a starting point. If the user is expected to do a lot of reading, it depends on the reading speed of the learner.

When it comes to activities, their complexity is a big factor. For example, a ten question quiz might take a lot less time than an activity where the user has to configure the Active Directory on a Windows server.

My experience has been to design activities and sessions for a particular length rather than designing something and then estimating how long a particular one will take.

One rule for one organization I dealt with was no more than 1.25 hours for a "session" with the longest activity not to exceed 20 minutes.
That worked well for the high-tech audience they were targeting. Other audiences may need other rules.

HTH