A critical examination of the time and workload involved in the design and delivery of an e-module in postgraduate clinical education

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Practice points

Sixteen hours of staff time (11 academic, 1.5 admin, and 3.5 technical) were required to develop each hour of online student activity. Seventy-five percent of academic contributions occurred outside work hours. Almost four hours of academic moderating and facilitating time were used per hour of online student time. Academic and administrative roles were consistently essential throughout the development and delivery of the module. However, technical demands varied which suggests the need for a flexible work pattern. We are changing the way we think students are learning, therefore, we must change the way we think we are teaching.

Figure 1. Timing and nature of staff emails pre-implementation.

Figure 2. Staff developmental time in hours by strand.

Figure 3. Ratio of staff development time by strand.

Figure 4. Focus and pattern of staff emails during module delivery.

Figure 5. Individual roles and total hours required.