Have Your Say: Re: Changes to Ontario Education (March 28, 2018)

To the Editors,

Ms. Ferris-Little hit the nail on the head. Perhaps the greatest (and best-hidden) problem with e-courses is the cost of producing high-quality material. In fact, 2019 estimates for the total cost of a single hour of top-quality online learning material can be as high as $10,000 … and yes, that’s $10,000 per single hour! Thus, as Ms. Ferris-Little observed, there’s a huge risk that the process will be done on the cheap by “outside companies” with no real connection to any board of education.

Why such high costs? The workload required for all stages is enormous: from analysis of user needs, to design of the delivery platform, to development and execution of the actual course matter, to overall evaluation. Apart from the price of space/equipment, those tasks can easily surpass 200 hours of highly-skilled work … for each hour of what students see on the screen.

Consequently, there’s a great danger of corner-cutting. What corners? Every one of them. First, hire cheap (i.e. underqualified) developers. Then seriously reduce (or eliminate) research about student needs. After that, save by using a generic delivery platform, not a purpose-built one. And cut down on development/execution costs by simply copying old paper materials into an online format.