Rise 360 Course Review Checklist

Creating a course in Rise 360 is so quick and easy that you might be tempted to send it off without doing a formal Quality Assurance (QA) test. But no matter how easy the course creation process, it’s always a good idea to thoroughly review your course. Spending a little extra time reviewing and testing your Rise 360 course will ensure you deliver the most high-quality version, not only to stakeholders, but also to the learners.

Here are some things to consider before publishing your Rise 360 course.

Is the content accurate?

No matter what authoring app you’re using to create your courses, it’s a good practice to read through your content and make sure everything is correct. Here are some things to pay particular attention to.

Content

When you insert a block type in Rise 360, placeholder text is automatically added. Although blocks make it easy to plug in your text, it’s easy to forget to replace the filler content with your course content. Carefully read through each scenario, labeled graphic, process, timeline, accordion block, and quiz content to make sure you’ve replaced “lorem ipsum” or other placeholder text with relevant content and that your content is accurate.

Spelling and Grammar

A course filled with spelling and grammar errors can lose credibility, change the meaning, or reflect poorly on you or your company’s image. As you review each lesson block and quiz, look out for spelling and grammar errors. Since Rise 360 is in your browser, you can also use the spell-check feature in your browser settings.

Is the design cohesive?

One of the great things about Rise 360 is that your courses look beautiful automatically. That being said, there are customization options that can make your course look even sharper. As you’re reviewing, have a look at these visual design elements.

Theme

Companies often prefer that the visual design of the course match their brand. If you need to meet branding guidelines, Rise 360 has a variety of customization options, including: uploading a logo; adding a cover photo; changing the font and accent color; and customizing sidebars, labels, and text. So before you send your course off, make sure to personalize it as needed.

Course Author

When you create a course in Rise 360, your Articulate 360 account name is automatically displayed at the top. If you are creating a course for an external client or if multiple people are working on the project, you have the option to remove yourself as the author. To do that, select the drop-down arrow beside your name and choose Hide Author.

Imagery

As mentioned earlier, the blocks in Rise 360 automatically include placeholder content—and that includes images. Click on every block to make sure you haven’t overlooked any default imagery. And while you’re at it, take a step back and consider whether you’ve used a consistent image style throughout. Are all your images in color, or have you mixed black-and-white with color images? As a general rule, it’s a good idea to choose a style and use it throughout your course for a cohesive feel.

Layout

Your course layout plays an important part in learning. The way you arrange elements could either enhance or distract your learner. Since there are so many options in Rise 360, it’s tempting to try to use every block type to make it engaging; however, adding block types just for the sake of adding block types can make the content feel disjointed. Having a consistent layout helps the learner know what to expect. Look at your course and make sure you are using the same block types for similar content across lessons.

Collaboration

If you have an Articulate 360 Teams subscription, you can easily collaborate on Rise 360 projects with other team members at the same time. This is great for productivity, but it can sometimes lead to design changes you’re unaware of. If you’re collaborating on a course with other authors, do a final review of all the lessons once everyone is finished with their work to be sure the formatting and layout is consistent throughout.

Does everything work?

Since all the interactivity is built out for you in Rise 360, you may think it’s unnecessary to click through the whole course like you normally would during the review process. However, there are a few items to take a closer look at as you review your course.

Buttons and Hyperlinks

Buttons and hyperlinks are key to navigating content and resources. You don’t want learners being directed to the wrong lesson or website. Click each button and hyperlink to be sure they link to the correct content.

Media

If you’ve added media to your course, it’s a good idea to listen to each audio file and watch each video to ensure the correct content is playing and that it plays all the way through.

Quiz Questions

It’s easy to get caught up in typing quiz choices and feedback and overlook selecting the correct option(s). Answer each quiz question to confirm the responses display the corresponding correct or incorrect feedback.

Navigation Settings

You can control whether learners navigate through your Rise 360 course freely or only in the order you’ve defined. Adjust your navigation settings as needed. If it’s a compliance course, you might want to turn off the sidebar menu. For stakeholder feedback, remove restricted navigation to make it easier for reviewers to navigate, but don’t forget to leave a comment in Review 360 letting them know it’s for review purposes only.

What if everything looks good?

It can be challenging to spot errors when you’ve been working on a course for so long. After you’ve gone through this checklist, it’s a good idea to ask someone else to review your course. Review 360 makes it simple to gather and share feedback. Getting another perspective will help you find mistakes that went unnoticed.

Are the analytics and reports accurate?

When you’re ready to publish, you’ll want to host the Rise 360 course on an LMS if you need to track learners’ progress. To do this, you’ll need to select the appropriate reporting options, export the course, and upload it to your LMS. But before you roll your course out to learners, make sure to test it in the LMS environment to be sure that the completion and quiz data are working correctly. If you don’t have access to the LMS for testing, you can use SCORM Cloud.

More Resources

Hopefully this article will help you feel confident about the quality of your Rise 360 courses. For more helpful advice on creating and reviewing courses, check out these resources:

And if you run into an issue you can’t solve, our support team is here to help! Ask a question in the E-Learning Heroes discussion forum or open a case with our Support Engineers.

Do you have any other tips for reviewing your Rise 360 courses before publishing? If so, please share your ideas in the comments section below.

Want to try Rise 360, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.