Does anyone have any experience using Thinkific alongside articulate as your LMS. We are just starting out and need a simple, low cost LMS that has ecomm. After some research thinkific seems to suit, however I'm told I need to email them the scorm file rather than upload it myself.
Advice very welcome on thinkific and other LMS platforms.
I personally prefer to be able to upload a course myself rather than rely on somebody else. This also means you don't have to pay them for additional costs (they can charge you for the course hosting, checking the course works etc etc).
Thinkific isn't actually an LMS - it's a website designed for anybody to post their own courses and charge for them. You may be better off setting up a server and installing an LMS yourself, or perhaps look for an LMS that hosts the courses but allows you to upload yourself.
I am also planning to use thinkific. I have an education business, so the payment and bundling options in thinkific work really well for me. I'm curious about ways I can make the best use of storyline within the thinkific framework.
For example, I have created a 13-video series using powerpoint and loaded it up as 13 chapters on thinkific. Each chapter has a screencast version of the powerpoint which I created using snagit, plus a worksheet and a quiz.
It seems like the kind of interactivity I could create with storyline won't fit well within thinkific, however their ecommerce is a perfect fit for my business. How could I create a different type of product in storyline that would allow for more interactivity and choice for the student.
Another question - if I upload the storyline product as html5, will there be problems with responsiveness on mobile devices, or any issues with browsers?
I'm also thinking about uploading some courses into Thinkific...I'm not yet sure how that would work.
Hopefully this week I can do some interactivity tests on my end.
Has anyone else tested to see what level of interactivity and files can be uploaded to Thinkific as a course? Or any other platform similar to Thinkific?
Joseph I am having a test course uploaded by the articulate team atm. I figure it will play exactly as it does in a browser with interactivity and responsiveness.
I also converted my ebooks for each course to rise 'mini-courses' and have loaded them up to thinkific. They look great.
Good to hear back. I decided against Thinkific in the end as it was too difficult to get them to upload it - it meant any changes I did at all, they would need to reupload - so nothing instance and relying on a time zone difference. To share learning, however I went with articulate and then Talent LMS - the latter is very basic and I think impacts the users experience massively, so with hindsight wasn't the right decision so I'm rethinking things!
It will be great to hear how you find thinkific once you've uploaded.
That was my thought as well. Once the courses are up its a bit of a deal to
tweak and update. I suppose they would have a 'fair usage' on the process.
I'm in Australia and they got my test course up overnight, so no problems
there.
Too bad Articulate didn't have a per-user package on their Articulate Online LMS to accommodate the smaller and newer user of Articulate 360. Could be a money maker for Articulate as well.... hook them while they are little! :-)
Kim, How did you handle the issue of dual course players (the one that is part of Rise, and the one that is part of Thinkific)? Is there a way to suppress the Rise course player? Thanks in advance for your help.
Hi Kim, I advised a client to use Thinkific to host courses as it said it could host SL, now having built the first using SL2 I am having problems publishing it for their IT to 'prepare'. Between that and having to wait 2-4 days for upload, I am quite concerned. Been using various LMS' for the last 7 years and this is the first time I've encountered such issues. Plus they are PT and it's a Sunday, and I am AEDT and need support now as my client just wants the course up and running as planned.
10 Replies
I personally prefer to be able to upload a course myself rather than rely on somebody else. This also means you don't have to pay them for additional costs (they can charge you for the course hosting, checking the course works etc etc).
Thinkific isn't actually an LMS - it's a website designed for anybody to post their own courses and charge for them. You may be better off setting up a server and installing an LMS yourself, or perhaps look for an LMS that hosts the courses but allows you to upload yourself.
I am also planning to use thinkific. I have an education business, so the payment and bundling options in thinkific work really well for me. I'm curious about ways I can make the best use of storyline within the thinkific framework.
For example, I have created a 13-video series using powerpoint and loaded it up as 13 chapters on thinkific. Each chapter has a screencast version of the powerpoint which I created using snagit, plus a worksheet and a quiz.
It seems like the kind of interactivity I could create with storyline won't fit well within thinkific, however their ecommerce is a perfect fit for my business. How could I create a different type of product in storyline that would allow for more interactivity and choice for the student.
Another question - if I upload the storyline product as html5, will there be problems with responsiveness on mobile devices, or any issues with browsers?
Hi All,
I'm also thinking about uploading some courses into Thinkific...I'm not yet sure how that would work.
Hopefully this week I can do some interactivity tests on my end.
Has anyone else tested to see what level of interactivity and files can be uploaded to Thinkific as a course? Or any other platform similar to Thinkific?
Joseph I am having a test course uploaded by the articulate team atm. I figure it will play exactly as it does in a browser with interactivity and responsiveness.
I also converted my ebooks for each course to rise 'mini-courses' and have loaded them up to thinkific. They look great.
Good to hear back. I decided against Thinkific in the end as it was too difficult to get them to upload it - it meant any changes I did at all, they would need to reupload - so nothing instance and relying on a time zone difference. To share learning, however I went with articulate and then Talent LMS - the latter is very basic and I think impacts the users experience massively, so with hindsight wasn't the right decision so I'm rethinking things!
It will be great to hear how you find thinkific once you've uploaded.
That was my thought as well. Once the courses are up its a bit of a deal to
tweak and update. I suppose they would have a 'fair usage' on the process.
I'm in Australia and they got my test course up overnight, so no problems
there.
Too bad Articulate didn't have a per-user package on their Articulate Online LMS to accommodate the smaller and newer user of Articulate 360. Could be a money maker for Articulate as well.... hook them while they are little! :-)
Kim, How did you handle the issue of dual course players (the one that is part of Rise, and the one that is part of Thinkific)? Is there a way to suppress the Rise course player? Thanks in advance for your help.
Hi Kim, I am trying to export my Rise courses onto Thinkific. Can you please guide me ?
Hi Kim, I advised a client to use Thinkific to host courses as it said it could host SL, now having built the first using SL2 I am having problems publishing it for their IT to 'prepare'. Between that and having to wait 2-4 days for upload, I am quite concerned. Been using various LMS' for the last 7 years and this is the first time I've encountered such issues. Plus they are PT and it's a Sunday, and I am AEDT and need support now as my client just wants the course up and running as planned.