How to Share Your E-Learning Course for Free With Google Drive

Mike Taylor
By Mike Taylor

Share your e-learning course for free with Google Drive

UPDATE: Google is deprecating this feature and it'll no longer work after August 31, 2016. Consider using Amazon S3 or your own website instead.

For a quick and easy way to share your published Articulate projects, you might want to consider Google Drive. You probably already know about Google Drive’s file sharing capability, but did you know that Google recently added a web hosting feature? This new feature means that Google Drive can host your published Articulate projects.

STEP 1: How to upload your published Articulate project to Google Drive:

1. Log in to Google Drive.

2. Create a new folder.

3. Set this folder’s sharing settings to “Public on the web”

4. Upload the published output from your Articulate project.

5. Rename the appropriate launch file to index.html

STEP 2: How to find the link for sharing:

1. From within the folder containing your published content, copy the characters after drive.google.com/#folders/  from the address bar as shown below.

Host Published Articulate Projects for Free With Google Drive

2. Then, to get the link you to use for sharing with others, paste those copied characters to the end of http://googledrive.com/host/ 

Host Published Articulate Projects for Free With Google Drive

https://googledrive.com/host/0B-p5Xrlt8ArKaTlPd3RSOHdjSG8/

HELPFUL HINT: I have found that Google Chrome is the best web browser to use with Google Drive. Not all Google Drive features work by default in other browsers.

Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any comments, please share them below.

Related Content

Presenter 360: Tips for Managing Project Files

David Fair
David Fair
Senior Manager of Product Documentation

Engage 360: Tips for Managing Project Files

David Fair
David Fair
Senior Manager of Product Documentation

Quizmaker 360: Tips for Managing Project Files

David Fair
David Fair
Senior Manager of Product Documentation
331 Comments
Jessica Schwab
10 years ago04/08/14 at 11:21 am (UTC)
So, I gave up for while....but I had a coworker help me today and she got it to work! What helped me: When you output, if it's just for viewing on the computer, don't publish with HTML5 as an option. If you need it to be viewed via mobile device, publish and append HTML5 file name to the end of the folder link as mentioned above. I also renamed my story.html file to index.html BEFORE uploading to Drive. Not sure if that made a difference, but I figure it can't hurt to put it out there.
Karyn Romeis
10 years ago04/11/14 at 7:44 am (UTC)
Like one of the commenters above, I tried this with my google drive within our company's space and it failed miserably. I tried it with my personal account and it works perfectly. But I now have a different question. As far as I can see, it hasn't been asked above (although I might have missed it). If I want to make it possible for people to also view the module from mobile devices (assuming for the moment that the devices have the necessary app), do I need to rename the story_html5 and story_unsupported files to Index_whatever? Or will it figure itself out?
Mike Taylor
10 years ago04/11/14 at 8:02 am (UTC)
Hi Karyn! It should automatically adapt to the correct file based on the device you access it with. If you like you can link it directly to the presentation_html5.html Just add the file name to the end of your path. For example, https://googledrive.com/host/0Bz1JYOC4wLaiZk1zNkkxUXNRTEU/presentation_html5.html You can also test that it adapts using this default link. (It worked for me on my ipad when including the HTML5 output without the ipad app option) https://googledrive.com/host/0Bz1JYOC4wLaiZk1zNkkxUXNRTEU/presentation.html
Laura Lowden
almost 10 years ago05/08/14 at 12:10 pm (UTC)
I got it to work using the Google Apps for Education. 1. Uploaded all files (had to go back and upload the story_content folder) making sure NOT to convert. 2. Named the file using the tag after folders/ and added it to googledrive.com/hosts/ 3. Added the index.html at the end of the URL 4. Tested in Google Chrome and it works... This may be deleted after a bit of time, but here is the sample link for others to try. Folder: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5PgrqjWcbQxMk41TXRFOC1MaTQ&usp=sharing Storyline Link: https://googledrive.com/host/0B5PgrqjWcbQxMk41TXRFOC1MaTQ/index.html Hope this helps someone else. Thanks, Mike, for the directions above!
Lissbeth McCrodden
almost 10 years ago05/08/14 at 2:55 pm (UTC)
Mike This has been a great thread and I was super excited to try it. I have followed all of the directions and I am having one issue that I have not seen come up. I am able to get the link open but it seems to be stuck in the upload cycle. It doesn't start the course. It opens to the player screen and remains in the cycle. Yes I am working in Google Chrome, no doc conversion and the file name was changed. "index.html" https://googledrive.com/host/0Byi-9jCZrsfRREtsMDdkMTFvMzA/ Any ideas what I missed or need to do?
Mike Taylor
almost 10 years ago05/09/14 at 4:57 am (UTC)

@Lissbeth I'm getting the same thing. It sort of seems like not all the files/folders from the published output are there. Can you compare your local published folder with your Google Drive folder? If that's not it and if you can share the zipped version of your published output I can take a look and give it a try too? Also, there is one other way you can launch your course without needing to change the file name to index.html 1. Create a new folder in Drive and share it as "Public on the web." 2. Upload your published output folders/files to this folder. 3. Right-click HTML file (player.html, presentation.html, etc) and choose "Open with Google Drive Viewer" 4. Click the "Preview" button in the toolbar. 5. Share the URL that looks like "www.googledrive.com/host/..." from the p... Expand

Lissbeth McCrodden
almost 10 years ago05/09/14 at 7:52 am (UTC)
For anyone else that comes after. When you publish your project, before uploading it to google drive, make a copy of your html file and rename it to the format that you need. I needed index.html. Now you can go ahead and upload the course to the google drive and the link will work beautifully. Thank you to everyone for all your help. This has truly opened another door for me in completing projects and sharing with my clients. Mike, nice reference to the "A" team.
Heather Williams
almost 10 years ago05/16/14 at 8:19 am (UTC)
I would rather use Dropbox since I have a corporate sign on to the service rather than my personal google account. Are there instructions to making the Storyline course launch in Dropbox? I cannot find anything and other options are not viable as needing a CC for Amazon and the tempshare will not complete loading my file at 99%. Most of my elearning courses will be large simulations that need to be reviewed by SMEs before I post them to our customer facing website.
Sign In to Comment