How do I publish my course on a website or share it by e-mail?

Nov 05, 2012

Laila Nyberg
By Laila Nyberg

Excuse a beginner but, am I just stupid or why doesn´t it work when I try to share my published course on a website or by mailing the link?

It says in the tutorial: "Now that you've published, it's time to move your web-ready course to your website or server, give it a test run, and then send your users a link to the story.html file so they can access your course."

The only link I can get out of the story.html looks like this: file:///C:/Users/Laila/Documents/My%20Articulate%20Projects/Preteritum%20regelbundna%20-AR-verb%20output/story.html

and it´s clearly linked to the drive on my computer and not to the web, so it doesn´t work anywhere else than on my computer. What am I doing wrong?

I uploaded all the files to my website. Is that correct? I read about the FTP-folder alternative, but I don´t know the name of the server, the directory (is that the web site´s adress?) or even which username or password to use (the same that I use to log in and make changes to my website?). Do you have to do it the FTP-way if you want to publish on a website or is it possible to just upload all the files when your on your website managing it (like I did)?

I´ve had problems with this before. I´m just trainig to be an e-learrning expert so I´m in school right now learning about this stuff, but in the latest school projects we´ve had this has been a problem for nearly all my class mates, and we´ve had to share our courses by uploading a zipped file to Dropbox, inviting each other there, and downloading each others zipped files and extracting them on our own computers. Is that really the only way to share if you don´t have a website to publish on?

Please answer quickly if you can. I need to share this course within 17 hours!

Kind regards,

Laila

21 Replies
Patti Bryant
over 11 years ago11/05/12 at 6:57 am (UTC)

Laila,

To share a course publicly, I generally upload the entire folder (not a zipped file) to the public folder within dropbox. Then, right click on story.html and select Dropbox > Copy Public Link and that is the link that should be shared.

An excellent tutorial on this is located here. I would recommend taking a look at the link.

I hope this helps!

Keepin' the joy,

Patti

Laila Nyberg
over 11 years ago11/05/12 at 10:10 am (UTC)

Thank you Patti and Mike. The tempshare is a good temporary solution for 10 days, but I still want to know how to publish my course on my web site - for ever and ever!

The Dropbox solution also sounded like a good temporary solution, but unfortunally I did not get any Copy public link- alternative from the drop down menu. Why is that? I s every program trying to mess with my mind? I´m about to give up my career in e-learning before it even begins. :(

Patti Bryant
over 11 years ago11/05/12 at 10:21 am (UTC)

Laila,

Don't give up! Be persistent - it pays off.

You can't really publish a course "on your web site" unless you have an LMS that you use or upload all of the files in a subfolder somewhere within your website and reference those on your website. If you are familiar with HTML and your website structure, it could be accomplished, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't just use a service like Dropbox and leave it there. For example, on my website, I have samples of my work. All of them "live" on dropbox and are easily accessed via a link on my website (http://learningreinvented.net/portfolio-highlights/). 

Dropbox has several folders. To get the Copy Public Link, ensure the files have been copied to the "Public" folder (there are private folders, etc.) and also ensure you are selecting "story.html" and not a folder to share. 

I hope this helps! If it doesn't, let us know what happens. Also, if it does, let us know. ;)

Keepin' the joy,

Patti

Laila Nyberg
over 11 years ago11/05/12 at 11:17 am (UTC)

Thansk again, Patti. I´m beginning to understand that e-learning is not made to be published on web sites for anyone to see. I´m not ready to get my own LMS yet or try to go deep into the HTML-code.

In that light, yes, the dropbox-solution sounds like a great alternative. But I swear I can´t get the Copy Public Link-alternative to appear even though I do everything correctly: I publish the files to my public folder and I select the correct story.html-link and not the folder.

I even tried to reinstall Dropbox, but to no use.

Well, at least I have a temporary solution for now thanks to tempshare. I´ll try again tomorrow to make it work with the web site and/or Dropbox. I´ll keep you posted!

Alexandros Anoyatis
over 11 years ago11/05/12 at 11:42 am (UTC)

Hello Laila,

Since you are on a tight schedule you should just upload your output to Dropbox for now, as stated above. If the "dropbox application" process isn't working for you, then you can try uploading directly through www.dropbox.com.

On the other hand, I see no reason why you can't upload to a web server using FTP. All you need is an FTP application (such as Filezilla for example) and your FTP Username, Password and server address. You did mention you don't have that info handy, but you can usually get them easily.

Most of this information can be found through the control panel of your webhost. Some webhosts even create an FTP username and password by default (again you will have to find what that is through the control panel of your webhost). If you don't have a username and password already made, you should be able to create one through that same control panel.

Once you have that information, fire up the FTP application of your choice, connect to your server and copy the entire output folder to any folder inside your domain. You should then be good to go.

Hope it helps,
Alex

Mike Enders
over 11 years ago11/05/12 at 12:19 pm (UTC)

Laila,

If you have a relatively new DropBox account, then the process has changed for getting the public link.  And I agree with Alex in that you can certainly load your eLearning course directly to your website.  The process can seem a little bit overwhelming at first, but once you understand the process, it's really quite simple.  

Now, it sounds like you have a website already.  Is this a site that you created on your computer and then loaded to your server?  If so, loading your eLearning course will be pretty similar.  Typically, you can use an FTP client or simply manually load them.  

Here's what I'd do (this is a generic solution and may not work)...

1. Log-in to your web server

2. Go to the folder where your website is being served up. Typically, a "public html" folder or something similar.

3. Inside that Public folder, create a new folder (give it a unique name. For now, we'll call it "course")

4. Manually load your published course files into that folder

5. Now, to test, type in http://www.yourwebsitename.com/course/story.html

Again, the architecture of where you have to place that course folder may vary...but the process should work.

Mike

Laila Nyberg
over 11 years ago11/05/12 at 2:48 pm (UTC)

Thank you so much Alex and Mike.

I just got Dropbox to work for me. Turns out I didn´t mark the story.htlm so that it turned blue before I right clicked. That meant the program thought I wanted to share the whole folder, and then you don´t get the alternative Copy Public Link, of course. Embarrasing, but I´m glad it finally works, and I wanted to share my mistake in case somebody else out there is as dumb as I am and needs a little help.

I am going to try again with publishing directly on my web site. I´m sure it´ll work with the new tips. The only thing that might be a problem is that I didn´t create it myself from scratch, but I used an online Create Your Own Website-site, and I suspect that means I don´t have as much control over it as I would otherwise, and they kind of hide away all the technical details that a normal user isn´t interested in, since it´s supposed to be super simple. But I will ask them to help me and I´m sure it will be possible.

Thansk again!

Laila

Crystal Horn
over 5 years ago12/19/18 at 6:40 pm (UTC)

Hey there, Scott!  You'll link to the presentation.html file in the published output.  Here's more information about distributing your Presenter '13 content.  We also have a great article about the different publishing formats and how to share their output.

Let me know if you need anything else!

Lisa Anderson
over 5 years ago12/19/18 at 7:40 pm (UTC)

Hey Scott,

I have found that Amazon Web Service works great (AWS). It's free for a year and has generous usage. If you go over, it's not very much. Also, I recommend that you download and install Cloudberry Explorer, which will help with transferring files. It may take you a couple of hours to watch tutorials on Cloudberry, start your AWS acount, and transfer your files, but it's totally worth it.

Once you transfer your files, you can right click on the .html file for Presenter (which would launch your course) and you get a web URL. You can test it there or copy it onto a new document to test. Works great! 

Also, if any of your courses have audio and you use Chrome, you'll need to update your courses by installing Articulate Updater. Chrome made changes, again recently, preventing audio from playing. 

Hope this helps!

Lisa

Robin Storch
almost 5 years ago06/27/19 at 1:46 pm (UTC)

Hi!  I am trying AWS but perhaps I am doing it wrong.  I signed up for the free S3 option and transferred the files for my Articulate project into a bucket.  I can click down to the story.html file and get the address but it looks like this: 

 s3://articulate-project/web-project/Storch_Project_Web - Storyline output/story.html 

When I put this in a browser, it launches my windows ftp software.  Do I have to register a domain and pay the $12 before I can get a link to story.html that runs correctly?

 

 

Lisa Anderson
almost 5 years ago07/01/19 at 4:37 pm (UTC)

Hi Robin,

I use Amazons S3 option and it works great! You can load your files directly on AWS SW console, after you login on the AWS websiste. Your URL, should begin with http://your bucket.name.la(these are my initials. I think Amazon assigns this, so either its coincidental or it is your initials).s3-us-(your location)west or east-1.amazonaws.com/name of your folder/story.html.

You get this address by right clicking on the story.html file and selecting "Get web URL". Keep in mind you have to give permission by setting the ACL Settings (right click on the story.html file again). Click all sub folders, and manually check. Sometimes it doesn't always get all the sub folders.

I don't use the AWS Console. I downloaded and use Cloud Berry as stated above. It's super easy to use. There are several tutorial videos that will  help you how to set it up. It doesn't take too long, and I found it totally worth it.

You can simply email the URL, or link to it from your personal website, if you have one.

Kimberly Schwabenbauer
over 3 years ago12/11/20 at 5:47 pm (UTC)

Greetings! 
I am a doctoral student and professor also looking to publish my Articulate 360 storyline project to the web before my free trial runs out on Sunday. If someone on this thread would be willing to help me do this via zoom screen share to save me some time I can pay $30/30 min or $60/hour via PayPal in the next two days, please contact me via email (sch8939@calu.edu). I am available today Fri Dec 11th after 2pm EST and tomorrow all day! Thank you! 

Jose Tansengco
over 1 year ago10/20/22 at 3:01 pm (UTC)

Hi Joe, 

If you're looking to add links to your course that can open URLs when clicked, all you have to do is highlight text in your course and select the hyperlink option: 

Doing this will allow you to add triggers to your course that can link back to your other presentations when clicked. 

Hope this helps!

CxC Corporate Training
1 year ago03/14/23 at 1:53 pm (UTC)

Hello, I am having difficulty uploading my course to OneDrive in a sharable format. 

I followed the instructions in Storyline 360: Publishing a Course for Web Distribution and I saved it to my desktop, and when I click "View Project" I can see the course. Or if I click the Story.HTML from the folder I can also see the preview. 

However, that link doesn't work for anyone else, so I tried to upload the course to a shared drive, our company uses one drive. And when I click on the story.HTML from there I get a blank web page as the preview. If I try and copy and paste the link to the story.html it also gives me a blank web page, and no one else can use the link. 

What else can I do to share this? 

 

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