JMIR Publications

Background:

The World Health Report (2006) by the World Health Organization conveys that a significant increase is needed in global health care resourcing to meet the current and future demand for health professionals. Electronic learning (e-Learning) presents a possible opportunity to change and optimize training by providing a scalable means for instruction, thus reducing the costs for training health professionals and providing patient education. Research literature often suggests that a benefit of e-Learning is its cost-effectiveness compared with face-to-face instruction, yet there is limited evidence with respect to the comparison of design and production costs with other forms of instruction or the establishment of standards pertaining to budgeting for these costs.

Objective:

To determine the potential cost favorability of e-Learning in contrast to other forms of learning, there must first be an understanding of the components and elements for building an e-Learning course. Without first taking this step, studies lack the essential financial accounting rigor for course planning and have an inconsistent basis for comparison. This study aimed to (1) establish standard ingredients for the cost of e-Learning course production and (2) determine the variance instructional design has on the production costs of e-Learning courses.

Methods:

This study made use of a cross-case method among 3 case studies using mixed methods, including horizontal budget variance calculation and qualitative interpretation of responses from course designers for budget variance using total quality management themes. The different implementation-specific aspects of these cases were used to establish common principles in the composition of budgets in the production and delivery of an applied health professional e-Learning course.

Results:

A total of 2 case studies reported significant negative budget variances caused by issues surrounding underreporting of personnel costs, inaccurate resource task estimation, lack of contingency planning, challenges in third-party resource management, and the need to update health-related materials that became outdated during course production. The third study reported a positive budget variance because of the cost efficiency derived from previous implementation, the strong working relationship of the course project team, and the use of iterative project management methods.

Conclusions:

This research suggests that the delivery costs of an e-Learning course could be underestimated or underreported and identifies factors that could be used to better control budgets. Through consistent management of factors affecting the cost of course production, further research could be undertaken using standard economic evaluation methods to evaluate the advantages of using e-Learning.