Rapid learning

Rapid learning (or Rapid eLearning Development) has traditionally referred to a methodology to build e-learning courses rapidly. Typically the author will create slides in PowerPoint, record audio and video narration on top of the slides, and then use software to add tests, or even collaboration activities between the slides. The whole package is then sent, most often as an Adobe Flash file, to a learning management system or website.

E-learning has grown rapidly since the 1990s but developers and organizations were confronted by the complexity of authoring processes. The difficulty and expense of building online courses from scratch led to the idea of recycling existing resources like PowerPoint presentations and transforming them into e-learning courses. A traditional e-learning development project can take several months. In contrast the aim of rapid e-learning is to build and roll out content modules within weeks. For example, while one hour of standard e-learning can take 73 to 220 hours to develop, a PowerPoint to e-learning conversion can be estimated to take an average of 33 hours to develop.

The term "rapid learning" is also sometimes used as a synonym for "short-form" or "bite-size" learning. In this usage, it refers not to how rapidly a module can be created by an e-learning developer, but how rapidly it can be viewed by a learner.