Thanks to Richard Elliott of UNITEC for pointing me to this resource…

Titled Costs, benefits and ROI of e-learning the page provides links to resources that look at the costs (set up, development, delivery etc), the benefits of introducing e-learning and at the return on investment (ROI). Listed in order of entry with most recent first.

Many insitutions are asking questions about their ROI on eLearning, and this page has dozens of links that may prove helpful. I haven’t looked at too many in detail, but was impressed with the one entitled Evaluating the Cost Effectiveness of Online and Face-to-Face Instruction (PDF download) which presents a cost matrix tool by which the costs of online education and training can be tabulated and/or compared with the costs of the traditional education and training medium. The paper also has a useful summary of the history of distance education and eLearning to provide a context for the analysis.