Unit timings

At the top right of each iQualify unit the an estimated time it will take learners to complete that page. This estimation includes the time spent reading, reflecting on content and completing any formative activities within the unit.

Adding/editing unit timings

The unit time is entered through the page settings. To access the page settings select the cog wheel next to the title of the unit, as shown below.

This will open the Edit page settings dialog box and will already be on the General settings tab.

Here the unit time can be entered under Reading time (in mins). Note that the reading time is always in minutes, so if your unit takes an hour and a half it would be 90.

Estimating unit times

Unit times can vary depending on the amount of text to read, the reading level, the amount of text to write in response to formative activities, and the sources required to answer these questions.

There are several tools that have been developed to help with this estimation.

Learner workload estimator

The Education Design Services team has created an Excel spreadsheet that greatly assists with this process.

Download Learner workload estimator.

This is best used in conjunction with Hemingway App.

Simply copy the text you want to estimate from word or iQualify and paste it into the Hemingway App. This will provide you with two key pieces of information to plug into the spreadsheet: the word count and the reading grade.

Add further information such as familiarity and sources (for writing), and an estimation of the time it would take a student to read and/or write text is given. Additional time may need to be added to account for videos and so on within the unit.

The Unit Timings Report

The iSearch print extension provides a variety of reports, including the Unit Timings Report. This report provides a simple estimation based purely on the word count and one of three reading speeds. This can be used to quickly check the estimated times against the entered unit times throughout the course.

For more information visit iTools.