What is the difference between and instructional designer and an elearning developer?


Answer: Instructional designers and elearning developers both play an important role in creating learning experiences. Instructional designers typically establish learning objectives in partnership with stakeholders, then write content based on the learning objectives. Usually, these learning objectives are skills-based and rely on an instructional designer's expertise to appropriately level the content and create activities based on task, skill and gap analysis. The content and activities created by an instructional designer is documented inside of a storyboard. The elearning developer then takes the storyboard and creates an interactive learning experience in software like Storyline 360 or Adobe Captivate. They carefully read the storyboard to understand where content belongs and how activities should be built. Elearning developers are usually more "junior" than instructional designers, because it takes less independent decision-making and expertise to be successful in their role.