Does anyone know of any tools or industry standards for estimating the work effort and cost of creating Level 3 and 4 evaluations? I am trying to estimate these costs as part of planning the overall cost of a training project.

I am not aware of industry standard methods or values.

Working on first principles you'd expect it to be a standard hourly rate for the people involved multiplied by the number of hours each is involved, plus any material, travel and accommodation costs involved.

My view is, controversially, that in a 'well operated' business/team the costs of creating Level 3 and Level 4 evaluations are approximately ZERO.

Cheers

Martin

Hi Denise - I agree with Martin, even if possibly for different reasons, on this point -

quote:

My view is, controversially, that in a 'well operated' business/team the costs of creating Level 3 and Level 4 evaluations are approximately ZERO.

If you begin any ISD/training effort on the correct foot, you've started by knowing what the gap is, what's causing it, and the desired outcome of any training intervention used to help remedy the analyzed gap. Therefore, the proof should be in the pudding. When people have tried to do this type of evaluation after-the-fact, it's usually a huge waste of resources.

Denise, while i agree with the previous replies that evaluation should be built in rather than added on, i do appreciate your challenge.

A firm that I worked with had success writing needs assessment and evaluation data collection, analysis, and reporting processes into our proposals for design and development work. It was just part of our professional approach to providing a good quality product. Eventually clients expected us to do assessment and evaluation, and specifically requested these services.

For our organization, it boiled down to trusting ourselves and our systematic/systemic approach and not compromising quality for every client request.

Hope this helps.