Some time after the mid-90s when distance learning began to really take off—beyond the mainstay correspondence courses—a myth developed that online, specifically web-based, learning saves time. The thinking goes that learners can enroll, take a course by breezing through the assignments whenever they choose, and finish in no time at all. Instructors can simply use existing lecture PowerPoint presentations, publish them to a course management system or on a web server, and sit back—course development finished.

Dumping content built for use in one environment into another without any tweaking generally isn't deploying the content wisely—it's a great deal like forcing a square peg into a round hole. It can be made to work, but generally requires a lot of effort and the end result is not usually ideal. And, it certainly doesn't take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the new learning environment. And, if a course is built on a faulty foundation, then it takes only a small leap of faith to assume that other issues will be faulty as well. So, in this section, we're going to discuss the question, "how long does it take?"