How Many Courses Do You Really Need?

Executive Summary

When vendors offer off-the-shelf content for corporate training, the large size of the content library is often touted as a selling point. While library size promises more value, that value evaporates when you consider how many courses are actually used. We outline three reasons for this: Large content libraries face problems with organization, updating, and delivering a consistent experience. We then suggest six questions to put to vendors that will reveal much more about their content’s quality and relevance than simply asking “How many courses do you offer?”

Vendors of off-the-shelf eLearning content often make library size one of their main selling points. For example:

• BizLibrary: “6,000+ online training courses”
• Skillsoft: “120,000 pieces of content, including over 7,000 courses, 65,000 videos, and 46,000 book options and counting…”
• Lynda.com: “more than 5,700 courses and 255,000 video tutorials”

It’s understandable why they would do this. If two libraries are comparable in price, the one with more content would be the more valuable one, right?

This is a common misconception in the eLearning industry. It is based on the idea that cost per course is the most valuable metric for measuring the value of a training library. To see why this isn’t the case, compare cost per course with cost per course viewed.

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