Typical elearning course file size

Hi Rena, and welcome to Heroes.

One thing (among others I'm sure...) will muddy the waters with this question:

Take video for example - you can link to a video, or you can compile it so that it becomes part of the course.

The second one will be smaller - Storyline is very good at that for example.

It is incredibly hard to provide the information you want, what is average? Is audio mono or stereo? How long is it - do you create 5-minute monologues or individual 30-second sound-snippetts?

Put it this way - I have never, ever had any course need re-work "...because one of the files is too large".

Are you talking about the content you create, or the base data, (the individual video files, the images etc.)

Good luck in your quest, and once again a warm welcome to Heroes.

Bruce

Thanks for the feedback Bruce.  I know it's a difficult question (... how long is a piece of string etc). 

I was thinking about the size of any individual file that I might upload - some authoring tools seem to output everything into one single swf file which makes it easy to upload but could get quite big.  Whereas Articulate Storyline for example can publish as lots of individual files in a folder structure.  I haven't actually tried to create any test video/audio clips myself (I won't be developing the courses) hence my "finger in the air" question regarding potential size.

Anyway, since you didn't jump in immediately and shout "250MB? No way!" - I take that as a good sign.  Plus the fact that you've never had to re-work due to file size is encouraging - though that might be due to good design practice and years of experience on your part :P

Piece of string is easy:

"Twice as long as from one end to the middle" 

Bruce

PS - as for file sizes, "...pure, dumb luck..." springs to mind!

Hi Rena,

Your situation may be different, but in my experience bandwidth to the users is usually more of a gating-factor than file size. The Articulate products seem especially great at creating content with overall modest bandwidth requirements; that is one of the reasons they create the file structure they do with multiple files.

Rendering that cool video clip in True HD resolution at 30fps will result in a huge file, yes.... but more importantly it may choke the bandwidth of your invidual users as well as your corporate portal and server if simultaneous users view it.

Not sure I helped, but hope so.

Bob

Thanks Bob.  Bandwidth is probably less of a concern right now as I don't anticipate many simultaneous users for these courses but is certainly something I'll keep in mind if we decide to expand the scope of this in future. 

I'm coming to the conclusion that 250MB is probably ok as long as we are sensible when it comes to designing the courses, keeping video clips short and sweet and only using when it adds something.  I've taken many regulatory/compliance elearning courses in the past (I used to work in an accountancy firm!) - I think less is usually more when it comes to prolonging someone's attention span!

Anyway, it was good to hear your views - cheers!

My main client uses SharePoint as well so it hasnt always been easy dealing with file size. I also don't want to point out the obvious, but if your course is long you may want to link several smaller modules together instead of one whole course. If you are using video you may want to link a screen capture instead of embedding your video. Last try using some software to reduce the audio size and quality. 

Think of these course as if they were being deployed to mobile devices and you will find your self planning appropriate outputs.