How can I create eLearning content faster?

We hear this statement from many companies. The need for training is growing—there are new products, laws, tools, safety regulations… However, L&D teams’ capacities usually remain the same. This leads to overload, long waiting times, and missed learning opportunities. The good news: With the right methods, you can significantly accelerate your content creation. Modern authoring tools, AI-supported processes, and clearly defined workflows can all help you digitalize knowledge faster.

Many companies start each project from scratch. There are no templates, design guidelines, standardized processes, or clear responsibilities. This leads to work duplication and endless coordination loops.

Plus, there are often too many people involved: the specialist departments, HR, compliance, marketing, IT… Everyone wants to have a say. Meanwhile, content becomes outdated or is never implemented at all.

Another obstacle is perfectionism. Instead of publishing small, quickly implementable learning units, companies attempt to produce the perfect training course right away. That takes time and motivation.

The solution lies in structure, standardization, and having the courage to iterate. Small, agile units deliver measurably faster results.

Move to a rapid eLearning approach instead of large-scale projects to significantly reduce your development time and publish learning modules more quickly. Work with modular content and templates so that once you’ve created the building blocks, they can be reused over and over, making you up to 50% faster. Use AI-powered authoring tools that automatically generate text suggestions, quiz questions, and translations, taking care of many routine tasks. Establish clear processes and feedback cycles to shorten coordination times, reduce corrections, and speed up approvals. And actively involve subject matter experts so that content is created directly by the people who hold the knowledge. This saves coordination rounds and gives you faster, practical results.

Rapid eLearning describes the fast, iterative creation of digital learning content using simple tools and streamlined processes. The goal: Publish content faster, gather feedback, and continuously improve.

Typical characteristics:

• short development cycles instead of projects lasting months.
• repurposing of existing materials (e.g., PowerPoints, PDFs, videos),
• user-friendly authoring tools,
• focusing on learning objectives rather than design perfection,
• early prototypes, and
• continuous feedback.

Rapid eLearning is particularly suitable for training courses that require regular updates, such as compliance, processes, product training, and onboarding. It allows you to quickly convert knowledge updates into high-quality learning modules without weeks of production time.

Knowledgeworker Create provides outstanding support for this approach: The authoring tool is specifically designed for rapid authoring and allows content to be created, edited, and published to the team directly in the browser, without any prior technical knowledge. Templates, layouts, and reusable building blocks significantly speed up implementation. Existing presentations and PDFs can be converted into interactive learning units with just a few clicks. With the software’s integrated media and question management system, you can reuse elements multiple times, manage changes centrally, and so ensure you content is always consistent and up-to-date.

Collaboration is also easier. Subject matter experts, project managers, and reviewers work in parallel within the system, providing feedback directly at the relevant points and viewing changes in real time. This eliminates email loops and versioning chaos, and your training courses go live much faster.

Use modular content and templates to standardize your production processes. Reusing building blocks, designs, and interaction types can shave up to 50% off your development time. At the same time, it gives you consistency in design and user experience. A library of reusable modules—such as introductions, quiz types, and feedback pages—becomes a real productivity booster and can be flexibly adapted to new topics.

Knowledgeworker Create also offers the ideal technical basis for this: The authoring tool enables you to create and manage modular structures, centrally stored design templates, and a media and question library. So you can reuse existing elements in any number of courses and roll out any changes centrally.

Use AI-supported authoring tools to automate routine tasks. Modern systems such as Knowledgeworker Create offer functions for automatic text, quiz, and translation creation. AI can transform bullet points into structured learning texts or generate appropriate test questions. All you need to do is check and optimize them. This gives you more time for conceptual and didactic refinements, while the groundwork is completed in seconds.

Establish clear processes and feedback cycles to ensure that projects run smoothly. Defined responsibilities, fixed review phases, and structured approval processes prevent endless coordination loops. Short feedback rounds with clear goals ensure that everyone involved can react quickly. This not only saves you time, but also reduces stress and allows you to efficiently move your content through all the creation phases—from the initial idea to publication.

Knowledgeworker Create also offers integrated processes for this purpose, which greatly simplify collaboration. You can organize tasks, feedback, and approvals directly in the online course. This ensures you always have an overview and allows you to work much more efficiently, reduce your coordination overhead, and shorten revision rounds within your team.

Actively involve subject matter experts so that content is created directly by the people who hold the knowledge. Instead of waiting to be asked for their input, experts can provide raw texts, examples, or graphics that you can then adapt for training purposes. This co-creation approach reduces coordination efforts, ensures your content is technically accurate, and significantly speeds up implementation. When subject matter experts are involved in the process, you can create practical learning experiences with real added value in a fraction of the time previously required. You can also do this in the Knowledgeworker Create authoring tool. 

Below, you’ll find a practical nine-step guide to optimizing your entire eLearning workflow.

First, create an overview of all the topics that need to be covered in training. Rate them according to urgency, scope, and risk. Focus on topics that relate to legal requirements and security, or that affect a large target group.

Tip: Use a simple matrix (‘high benefit/low effort’) to identify quick wins. This will help you avoid wasting resources on non-essential projects.

Plan your courses to be modular: small units that work whether you use them as standalone content or together with others. Each module can cover a single learning objective or topic. If an aspect is needed in multiple courses, you can reuse it. This saves a tremendous amount of time in the long run. Microlearning content can also be updated more quickly when something changes.

Check what’s already available: manuals, presentations, videos, internal training materials… These can all serve as raw materials. Shorten them, adjust them, make them interactive—and the basic framework is ready. Many successful L&D teams start their courses directly from existing PowerPoint slides. The authoring tool takes care of the rest.

Your tool determines your speed. Modern authoring tools such as Knowledgeworker Create, Articulate 360, and Lectora offer everything you need to work quickly:

• Templates for layouts and interactions
• Drag-and-drop editors
• Automatic translations
• Real-time team collaboration
• AI features for texts, questions, and summaries

Tip: Utilize cloud-based systems so that multiple people can work on content at the same time.

AI can take over routine tasks, saving you hours of time. Examples:

• Generating text suggestions from bullet points
• Creating quiz questions automatically
• Formulating feedback texts or learning objectives
• Generating translations for international rollouts

Tools such as the AI assistant in Knowledgeworker Create and Articulate AI significantly speed up the workflow. Please note: Always check, adjust, and refine AI-generated content. AI does not replace expertise; it supports it.

Start by creating just one sample module or prototype. This gives stakeholders an early impression of the look and feel. Feedback at this stage prevents costly reworking. Once the prototype is right, build on it. This saves time in design and coordination.

Avoid unnecessary email chains. Use tools that allow everyone to comment directly in the software. A centralized approval process, clear responsibilities, and fixed deadlines help projects move forward quickly.

Tip: Train subject matter experts to create simple content themselves in the tool. This turns your team into quality inspectors rather than production bottlenecks.

Short test phases after each module ensure quality and prevent late surprises. Collect feedback directly in the tool or via surveys. Small, frequent adjustments can be implemented more quickly than a major relaunch.

Create an internal content library with templates, graphics, quizzes, and modules. This allows your team to get started on new projects right away. Standardized learning modules reduce production time by up to 70% in the long term. Authoring tools such as Knowledgeworker Create already include a content library.

An industrial corporation had to deliver new data protection training to 15,000 employees at short notice. Instead of months of development, the team relied on Knowledgeworker Create, used existing documents, and created a multilingual microlearning module within two weeks.

Result: Over 90% completion rate in four weeks, positive feedback, and a standardized template for future training courses.

A mechanical engineering company created a modular onboarding program. The project team worked in parallel in the cloud, used AI texts to define learning objectives, and reused graphics from existing presentations. This resulted in twelve training modules being created in three months—instead of nine as would have previously been the case.

Subject matter experts are the source of knowledge, but often, they’re not educators. Instead of leaving all the course creation tasks to them, you should establish a clear process:

1. The expert provides raw content (text, presentation, example).
2. The learning team structures and integrates teaching methods.
3. The expert checks and approves.

This co-creation approach significantly speeds up implementation while ensuring you produce high-quality content.

The best part? You don’t have to do this via email; instead, you can collaborate directly inside the tool. This saves work and reduces the effort required by everyone involved.