Pros and Cons of in-house and outsourcing course development

When it comes to training your staff or employees with an eLearning platform, one of the biggest questions that arise with it is, “Should the courses be developed in-house or should they be outsourced from a vendor?” 

Many organizations might prefer in-house development of their online courses using authoring tools that are budget efficient (e.g. Adobe Captivate Pricing) as there’s more control over budget and security of data. However, some other organizations may find themselves not having enough resources to create great courses and opt for outsourcing the development of their courses. 

So which one is better? Here are some pros and cons of in-house and outsourcing course development; 

In-house course development 

In-house course development includes the practices of creating your eLearning courses using authoring tools without any assistance from outside the organization. Most companies however hire new people to build a separate team for course development if they do not have adequate people in their company already. 

Developing your eLearning courses have many benefits, but they also have some limitations that cannot be overlooked. 

Pros of in-house development

• Creating and developing your eLearning courses gives you the scope to customize your courses as much as you want. The courses can be customized to match your exact training requirements. The updates and changes can also be done faster when the course is developed in-house. 
• In-house course development gives you control over the budget. You can easily decide to cut down any unnecessary expenditure and won’t have to make budgets buying courses from vendors. 
• It is safer. If you are concerned about your organization’s sensitive data or any kind of confidential information, in-house development can be your solution as the developers are already a part of your organization. 

Cons of in-house development

• In-house development might demand hiring new people. This process can be time taking, as well as costly. 
• Training the team can be hectic. Be it a team of already existing in-house developers or newly-hired developers, you will anyway have to train the team for course creation. The training process too can be time and money consuming. 
• You have to invest in the right tools. When you decide to have in-house course development, you will also have to make sure that your team has all the necessary tools to design and develop quality courses. 

Outsourced Course Development 

The benefits of outsourcing course development have made it very popular among business organizations. Especially for companies who do not require too much customization or are in a need of specific courses in a short period. 

Pros of outsourced course development 

• Get your courses as soon as possible. If your organization requires courses in the shortest possible time, in-house course development is pretty much impossible. Outsourcing the courses from a vendor is a way more feasible solution in such scenarios. 
• Outsourcing your eLearning course development can give you access to a larger group of experts. It is very much possible that your organization doesn’t have in-house experts for creating eLearning courses if you are doing it for the first time. Thus, rather than doing too much trial and error and spending a lot of money on nothing, it is a better option to outsource your courses. 
• Outsourcing your eLearning courses can also enable your training strategies to always be aligned with the latest eLearning trends. 

Cons of outsourced course development

• Outsourcing your course development requires you to include a third party, for example, a vendor. This requires allocating a budget for the vendor and it may also require you to give the vendor confidential information about your organization at a point in time. 
• One of the biggest concerns about outsourced course development is the lack of control. You can communicate with the vendor to make sure that the end product is as close to your requirements but even the communication process can become difficult at times. 

Conclusion 

Both in-house and outsourced course development have their advantages and disadvantages and should be used by organizations according to their needs. If your organization needs multiple course development frequently, it is best to make long term plans and get a team deployed for in-house development. However, if it’s more of a one-time thing or at least a rare process, your organization is better off with outsourcing eLearning course development.