Me, Myself & Authoring tools !

Anyone can write an article and publish it on LinkedIn, I still have not given up and here is my 3rd one.

Authoring what?

2 years ago, when I hit the gate of the Learning and Development ecosystem, I didn’t know what authoring tools were… the term was confusing to me, I thought they might refer to a specific form of word processing software only used by education experts or academics.

But I found that authoring tools went well beyond that.

The truth is, they should be called ‘e-Learning course creation tools’, which in my opinion is a much more accurate name for this category of software, rather than the more popular ‘authoring tool’ alternative. As I began to get trained on authoring tools, I quickly realized that they held an extensive variety of development purposes.

I also noticed, as others have, that a combination of tools—that perform complementary functions—rather than a single tool may best fit some needs.

Authoring tools, but why?

Custom content is at the forefront of the e-Learning border. Learning and development professionals are frequently trying to find methods to create and publish progressively complex custom e-Learning content for use on the Internet, company intranets or devices.

Some trainers try to find high-speed deployment of critical information through an organization, known as rapid e-Learning, while others want control of course ware and independence from programmers.

A large number of organizations are attempting to reduce their training costs by developing e-Learning materials in-house. Some organizations want an authoring tool that is easy to learn and can be used by a large team of people with different skill sets; others want to move to a blended training solution by offering a combination of classroom and e-learning courses. Authoring tools offer a way for e-Learning managers to achieve their goals.

The experience

After meetings, workshops, tenders of defenses and presentations as a Presales Consultant, I found that many organizations trust internal production teams, especially when it comes to saving time and money.

When a business opportunity emerges, the ability to quickly create new training resources for the extended enterprise is the real problem. Easiness and responsiveness will depend on several factors, such as interactions with other services and design process industrialization.

To industrialize the process, customers and prospects generally use word processing software to create written documents, or a spreadsheet to manage data.

Similarly, for training purposes, they choose an authoring tool adapted to the type of learning activity to be delivered. Sometimes, they opt for a combination of tools in order to generate a framework that is adapted to the various types of content to be produced: screencast - to make video presentations or application tutorials; Interactive Simulation and Immersive Learning - to create scenarios with avatars; Rapid Learning - to convert PowerPoint files to HTML5 format; eLearning - to create interactive training content and assessments.

Since the production of training resources is a team effort (with the involvement of at least a subject expert, a pedagogical designer and a multimedia designer for the engaging visual side and testers), having an online and collaborative tool seems to be the best way to go.

I started using an online Mohive, presented it and demonstrated how to easily create content and automate content production.

Mohive integrates collaborative features for authors, contributors and validators such as task management, catalog and model sharing, notes and comments that facilitate validation.

No Internet, no content?

A prospect once asked, what about offline? There are progressively more potential learning ecosystems for mobile workers, whether at work, on trips, between two meetings or at the end of the day.

I replied there is always a solution for anything, nothing easier than using a mobile phone application helping your workforce to roll out trainings, watch videos on their smartphones without wasting time and this is one of CrossKnowledge exclusivities for Mohive users.

Get in touch if you need to know more about how to build Learning content production strategy and choose the right solution ...