What’s the Best Job Title for Those Who Build E-Learning Courses?

Posted: 12 Jan 2015 11:24 PM PST

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Last year I facilitated a number of elearning workshops with about 1800 participants who are either considering elearning as a career or are active in the elearning industry. Here's a common question that I'm asked: What job title best describes the person who builds elearning courses?

Most Common E-Learning Job Titles

The people I meet have all sorts of titles. Some are clear and some are a bit ambiguous. Looking over the job listings in the elearning community, here are the most common titles:

Instructional Designer
E-Learning Developer or Designer
Learning Strategist
Learning & Development Specialist
E-Learning Consultant

I find that instructional designer is usually the most common with elearning developer being second and gaining ground. A few years ago, most of the open job titles were instructional designers. But now it's pretty common to see the position referenced as an elearning developer or designer.

What Does the E-Learning Job Title Mean?

Personally I prefer something along the lines of E-Learning Course Designer or Developer. I think that job title best describes the role and the product produced. Instructional Designer is very broad and doesn't include all the skills required to actually construct the elearning course.

In a previous post we reviewed some of the skills required to build elearning courses in today's environment. They include:

Articulate Rapid E-Learning Blog - e-learning job title online training course design skills

Performance consulting so that you know how to determine the appropriate training solution. Sometimes an elearning course isn't the right solution. A performance consultant recognizes that.
Instructional design so that you know how to craft a great learning experience. E-learning is more than putting a bunch of text on the screen.
Visual & graphic design skills are key because the course will look like something and you want that something to be good. In many cases, the course developer is also responsible for creating and laying out the graphics and visual design.
Network & media technologies play a key role in course design. Many courses include audio narration and videos that need to be streamed over a network. The course designer should have a good understanding of the technologies related to course design and delivery so that you build a course appropriate to the technology available in the organization and by the user.
Authoring tool proficiency is important. You'll use an elearning application like Storyline to build your courses. So you need to know how it works and how to get the most out of it to build good elearning courses.

The person who designs courses typically is expected to do more than just instructional design, so a title that best describes that role and expectations makes sense.

What job title do you prefer? What is your current job title and what would you change if you could? Add your thoughts here.

Also, I'll be available for a live Q&A in the community tomorrow. See the link below for more details.

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Upcoming Events (2015)

January 14 (Online): I'll be answering elearning questions via live chat from 1:00-3:00 PM EST. If you have any questions, jump in and join the chat. You can learn more here.
January 28-29 (London). I'll be at Learning Technologies, swing by the Articulate booth #42 to say "Hi."
February 2 (London). Doing a couple of free seminars on building interactive elearning while in town. Details coming soon.
February 10 & 11 (Omaha). Sign up for one day or both:
Day 1: How to Build Interactive E-Learning
Day 2: Use Articulate Storyline to Build Interactive E-Learning
March 10 & 11 (Phoenix). Details coming soon.
More coming soon.