Forum Discussion
A silly question about Instructional Designer & Subject Matter Expert
It's an interesting dilemma, in a previous role there were four of us who had performed a tech support role on the software we were writing training for.
To some extent, that meant we were both SME and ID (albeit still reliant on input from SMEs when new features were launched).
It's seemingly easy to fall into a trap of being ID, SME and project manager as well. There's a lot to be said for good project governance; setting deadlines for review, drawing a line in the sand before it ends up being endless arbitrary changes (subjective opinions on commas, as an example).
As an ID I think you can definitely add value to what does/doesn't work in a digital format. Plus, invaluable knowledge of LMS integration/behaviour.
In an ideal world, or as part of a larger team, you'd be able to delegate portions to a graphic designer or animator or similar, but it seems a lot of us are one-man bands. I should add that reading through Articulate's article, I'm not even splitting between ID and e-Learning Developer.