Estimating Course Production Hours:

The estimates below** are based on the time the Instructor and TAs would spend producing video content for video-centric online courses such as those offered on Coursera, Venture Lab, Class2Go and edX.

These estimates are not necessarily accurate for those who are doing a flipped approach, a non-video-centric online course, or something more ambitious than inking and narrated slideshows (although they should still be OK as guesstimates).

Courses like CME that are being designed to run continuously and asynchronously, to remain sustainable, may not be able to use TAs once the course is up and running.

**Please see the table on Page 2 for an hourly breakdown of work involved in producing a video-centric course.

Hours (Instructor Time) / Purpose
2-10 hours / Creating proposal, consultation with SMILI, VPOL, ScMERI, and/or platform support, and basic design overview for the course.
2-10 hours / Designing or redesigning the specifics of the instructional approach for the course.
2-4 hours / Logistical planning time with TA’s, EdTech, platform support, etc..
5 hours/1hr of course content / Content development – identifying and obtaining graphics, illustrations, animations, video, music, graphs, charts, etc… that will be used in the course content.
4-5 hours/1hr of course content / Recording the videos (assuming content is developed and the speaker knows the material).
2 hours/1hr of course content / Post-production – editing the recordings, adding any additional polish (titles, music, etc..) and encoding the projects as playable videos.
2-3 hours/1hr of course content / Publishing – gathering and uploading materials, adding quizzes and assignments, creating instructions for students, etc…
Hours (TA Time) / Purpose
8-10 per week / TAs or Interns may spend 8-10 per week while the course is in its pre-delivery production phase. We typically pay our interns around $20/hr.
12-24 hours per week / TAs may spend 12-24 hours per week during the delivery of the course. This time is spent answering questions, directing the instructor to comments or questions of interest, and uploading or editing materials.