Learning object authoring tool

Being desktop-based, the sharing, reviewing and updating process can be painful and time-consuming, with the risk of version control issues across multiple stakeholders. Any changes after launch require new files to be uploaded to the LMS, which takes time and effort. Themes and master slides can be shared to installations on other computers, but the process is manual and can be tricky.

Previously a desktop-based tool for windows, a update saw two major updates: some tool aspects were brought online and Mac users could finally access the software.

Captivate learning software supports a wide range of formats:. Adobe Captivate has customer success stories from brands including American Airlines and Indiana University.

Check out our in-depth comparison and review of Adobe Captivate and Elucidat authoring tool. Or… Check out the authoring software on the Captive website.

Articulate Storyline is a Windows desktop authoring application that leverages a PowerPoint look and feel. It has a modest learning curve considering the flexibility that it offers—especially if you already know your way around PowerPoint. Like Powerpoint, you can control theme pages via project colors and slide masters.

This makes it very flexible, but a bit tricky to control consistent branding over multiple courses and Storyline installations. Most end-user interactivity is achieved through the use of triggers, which fire when a screen object is tapped, clicked, rolled-over, etc.

This setup opens up a lot of possibilities when no coding is required; authoring actions are entered via a selection interface. As one of the most widely used elearning authoring tools, however, many designers will have experience with Storyline already. As a desktop-based tool, collaboration and review can hamper efficiency in the production process compared to cloud-based authoring tools.

And once projects are launched, it can be time-consuming to update elearning content or fix bugs. As a desktop-based tool, collaboration, and therefore scalability, is limited. Articulate is one of the oldest, and most widely used windows-based elearning authoring tools.

Articulate Storyline has case studies from companies including Insperity and Lexis Nexis. Find out more about how Elucidat compares to Storyline in our in-depth Elucidat elearning authoring software versus Articulate Storyline review blog. Or… Check out how Storyline fits in as part of the suite on the articulate website. Articulate Rise is a web-based authoring tool included as part of an Articulate update released around the end of Rise is really easy to use with an intuitive interface and provides a range of pre-built, standard interactions, including timelines, processes, labeled graphics, etc.

This makes it easy to create interactive content that looks good. Rise has prioritized ease of content creation over customization. It lets anyone create basic elearning courses with a degree of polish. But, highly skilled learning designers may feel frustrated by the level of flexibility to create unique designs, compared to tools like Storyline or Elucidat.

As a cloud-based authoring tool, it is possible to have authors collaborating and always working on the latest version of the content. Stakeholders can log in and add review comments, which speeds up processes that are slow with tools like Articulate and Storyline. Elearning courses can be cloned and reused to save time when working at scale.

There is no multi-SCO option available, which makes managing variations and translations more time-consuming. For a more in-depth look at the Articulate Storyline and Rise authoring tool compared to Elucidat, check out this software review blog. Gomo is a cloud-based authoring tool that allows you to create web-style content. Your courses can be hosted online via the web, or offline using the Gomo app. It avoids a lot of the headaches that come with desktop-based tools, but has some limitations in the amount of customization you can do.

Gomo comes with a range of themes you can tweak to quickly create elearning that looks modern and on-brand. There are a range of interactive templates available to bring your elearning content to life.

The interactions all sit in a two-column structure, which limits your designs a little. Pre-built templates and a quick-start wizards soften the learning curve with Gomo, so you can get up and running quickly. Being cloud-based, Gomo allows authors to collaborate on creating courses. Gomo is a cloud-based authoring tool designed for both windows and mac. For more info check out the in-depth review of Elucidat authoring tool as an alternative to Gomo Learning.

In the arena of course authoring tools, Lectora is an elder statesman. The Windows desktop authoring software has been around a long time and is geared towards more experienced authors. Recently, they have released a cloud-based HTML5 version of the authoring tool called Lectora Online, which gives great flexibility. It can be powerful when you know how to use it, but like others of this ilk, it comes with a steeper learning curve than many of the other tools in the list.

There are a ton of pre-built interaction templates available that can be used as they come or tweaked. Some aspects can be changed via the development interface, but for others you may need to use a graphics package to replace existing images. You can create great-looking elearning content with Lectora; however, you need to be a relatively experienced instructional designer and confident with the tool to do so.

The tool then automatically rescales objects to fit on mobile devices. You can then make customizations for each view to fit your desires! You need to create a new view for each device, which adds a fair amount of time to the build process. The cloud-based version of the tool enables a review and comment feature, which can speed up your iterations and keep comments from multiple stakeholders in one place.

Lectora is an online, cloud-based authoring tool that can be accessed from any operating system. The tool is highly customizable with optional programming elements if you have the knowledge to do so!

However, this tool is complicated to use, and novice course builders may have a hard time navigating the platform. It is modular, and there are a lot of content types and applications available for use with no technical skills needed. These include videos, HTML5 presentations, branching scenarios, quizzes, flashcards, and more. However, the tool is quite limited as far as creating complex and customized eLearning projects. Coassemble is an eLearning creator software designed to provide a user-friendly course creator that makes the creation of interactive learning materials easier for managers and effective for your personnel.

This training software allows you to transform your old presentations as well as PDFs and documents into engaging online courses with its available screen templates that support various media forms and provide interactive elements.

A certificate is also given to your employees upon course completion. Its course creator allows you to create courses and quizzes with hundreds of available templates and media content. It provides a premium course library available with pre-made courses on topics such as compliance, customer service , and many more that you can easily deploy to your personnel. A collaborative learning environment is also promoted through features like discussion forums and virtual classrooms. Gyrus is a cloud-based learning management platform designed with AI-driven intuitive features helping you bring world-class training and development objectives for your employees.

Its smart learning features are optimized for building customized e Learning programs for various groups of employees, and streamlining organizational compliance becomes easier for training managers. Tovuti LMS is another learning management platform that you can use to streamline your employee training process. With its built-in course creator suite, you can create, schedule, and deploy interactive courses in just a few easy steps. You can also include gamification and leaderboard features to encourage them to complete their assigned learning tasks.

Raptivity is an e Learning creator software that you can use to design engaging and visually stimulating online learning experiences. The tool features a growing library of pre-made responsive interactions that include parallax displays, panning slides, and interactions. But it is important to note that the tool has a few feature limitations and you might need to download additional tools to design a well-rounded eLearning course. It serves as an all-in-one learning platform that can help you streamline and automate processes.

With its training module creator, it also enables you to easily create high-quality training materials and provide exceptional learning experiences for employees or customers. Its course management feature also allows you to efficiently manage course and training events, may it be in-person learning sessions or e-Learning, making it compatible with a blended learning strategy. As a digital workspace and brainstorming tool, Mural allows team members to visually collaborate with one another.

With its flexibility, teams can easily use the platform to share knowledge, plan projects, organize data, conduct workshops, outline content, and so much more.

As an e Learning creator software, it allows project facilitators to create icebreakers and customize e Learning templates from the template library to enjoy a fun and interactive engagement activity with the team. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Reusable content matters: a learning object authoring tool for smart learning environments Reusable content matters: a learning object authoring tool for smart learning environments, Mehmet Ali Cinici.

Arif Altun. Mehmet A Cinici. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. Tasks in the study included determining instructional needs, searching LOs in various repositories, and repackaging existing LOs by repurposing them. Suggestions concerning properties of similar authoring tools are reported and discussed as to reusability in various smart learning environments SLE by organizing content based on various instructional needs.

Keywords: Smart learning environments, Learning object, Authoring tools, Reusability, Instructional design Introduction Smart learning environments SLEs not only utilize a range of digital technologies in supporting learning, education and training but also provide a prominent signpost for how future learning environments might be shaped Hoel and Mason SLEs could be seen as learning environments that are considerably improved to promote better and faster learning Koper The driving desire behind the SLEs movement is to transform learning and instruction in productive and desirable ways.

A SLE might include features to promote engagement, effectiveness and efficiency Spector Thus, as technology continues to evolve, SLEs and the components used in these envi- ronments are receiving growing attention from the research community. In this context, the concept of a Learning Object LO has attracted the attention of educators and software engineers since when it was used by Wayne Hodgins.

Their most fundamental feature is their reusability. With advancements in the technology and standards movement, exist- ing LOs could be reorganized according to changing instructional needs and extended to be used in in various contexts. Furthermore, the insufficiency of the authoring tools with the functions that allow the preparation of LOs in accordance with personalized instructional needs, their arrange- ment, entering their metadata, and their packaging was an undeniable fact.

Wiley claimed that since LOs in their present form were not very helpful for teachers, it was time that instructional technology was put ahead of the conventional knowledge of the LO. Thus, research was needed to be redirected into understanding how instruc- tors could reuse LOs see, Spector et al. It can be argued that studies on authoring tools for developing adaptive authoring tools, which help instructional designers to reuse and repackage existing LOs for their own instructional needs, are limited.

In order to work with content packages easily and efficiently, Kavcic has emphasized the need for a range of tools that makes the preparation, arrangement, validation, and the play of the content packages easier.

Also, in spite of the presence of a limited amount of authoring tools, authoring tools that allow the easy creation of LOs compatible with industry standards are required Rama- nathan et al. In his study, Watson suggested that teachers should be pro- vided technical support when sharing, shuffling, reusing, and repurposing the existing LOs. In case teachers are provided with tools that allow them to create LOs with peda- gogical influence without technical support, the necessity to design LOs to be reusable and modifiable will disappear.

Reusability of contents for educational purposes Reusability and repurposing LOs Even though there is heterodoxy in the definition of a LO, there is a concept that each definition consistently emphasizes: reusability i. Duncan has ex- plicitly stated that reusability is an important and an inseparable component of the conceptualization of LOs. For example, when an instructor or content developer prepares a LO for a particular group of students, that LO would address the needs of that particular group but the LO might be insufficient to satisfy the instructional needs of another teacher and student group.

Therefore, another instructor or content developer may need to modify that particular LO to satisfy their needs. It is observed in the literature that the existing authoring tools that will allow the partial or entire reuse of the existing LOs in accordance with the needs are limited.

The number of LO sources as well as the organizations that provide those LOs increase rapidly Tzikopoulos et al. In order to ensure the interoperability of LOs, it is believed that a collaborative study among different disciplines along with education should be sought. To conclude, these problem areas emphasize the need for research in: 1 gaining benefit from the use of LOs; 2 finding the pedagogic model that would be related to better learning experiences in the development of LOs; and 3 determining what pedagogical and tech- nical features LOs should possess in order to make reusability more purposeful.

Before describ- ing the methodology, it is necessary to synthesize the existing pedagogical and technical issues in LO literature. Moreover, pedagogic and technical qualities of content developers were emphasized in various research Watson ; Laverde et al. There- fore, it is important to determine the way to bring LOs together based on learning ap- proaches and strategies Baruque and Melo LOs can be developed in many ways.

One of the two commonly used methods is to prepare ex novo an expedient LO to be compatible with a specific learning design model, while the second one is to choose the expedient LOs from the existing ones and modify them to fit the purpose i. It is emphasized that the former way which is to develop LOs ex novo may re- quire the use of specific software to be as easy-to-use as popular word processors Di Iorio et al.

The widely-used LO development software providing this ease of use exists i. According to Wasim , these authoring tools can be classified according to their complexity, price, and purpose. It is emphasized that the tool to be used for the development of LOs from scratch should be at least as easy to use as existing word processors and presentation tools Di Iorio et al. Many LO development software though fail to meet these require- ments and to use the existing ones requires technical skills and time.

There exist some attempts i. DDR is a specific inquiry type in the area of instructional design and technology aiming at the creation of new information and validation of existing applications. Richey and Klein , p. This study has been executed in three stages. Firstly, the LO Reusability Model was developed based on a critical review of the literature, focusing mainly on the problems Fig.

The review process yielded the updated metadata standards for the content when packaging LOs. Secondly, these metadata standards were embedded into ONYA the software tool as a product that will serve to enable technology to solve the problems faced during the reuse of LO.

This tool is designed and developed to provide users an option to modify and to repackage the existing LOs in accordance with emerging instructional needs for reuse. In order not to violate the existing copyright restrictions and licensing, we ad- hered to original copyright statements.

If the source has open access license, users are requested to permit their consent for further use. Otherwise, they are advised about the copyright restrictions and licensing information. Most educators will want to use a tool for more than 15 days, so fees need to be considered. I am an online secondary Mathematics teacher, teaching 10th - 12th grades. View all posts by virtualmathsite.

You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Skip to content Some Learning Objects are extremely useful for math courses. Class Tools.