Need help selecting an LMS to house my portfolio of work

Apr 08, 2020

Hello all!  I hope you are doing well during these crazy times!  I'm using my extra time to learn Rise and Articulate.  I signed up for the 60 day trial and am having fun playing around.  I produced a course in Rise.  But now I'm wondering where to put it?  I looked for a free LMS and found one, Latitude Learning.  But my Rise course does not appear to be in the right format to deploy the asset.  Do y'all have any LMSs that you would recommend?  Or is there a better home for my work?  I would ultimately like to use the landing spot as a portfolio so I could share my work with potential employers.  Or, am I having a problem because I'm working in the trial?

Any advice would be most appreciated. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 Replies
Karl Muller

For a Rise course to work in a LMS, it typically has to be exported as a SCORM package. Rise exports support several different types of SCORM exports.

Find out which format works best with Latitude. Once you have created your SCORM export (a ZIP file) your next step is to import the ZIP into the LMS and create a course. 

Mastery Network

Typically you would only need an LMS if your goal is to have students sign up for your courses.

If your goal is only to build up a portfolio, what you could do is create your courses in Rise, and then export them to "Web". That will then create a content folder zip file that has an "index" file in there. You can actually open this "index" file without an internet connection from your computer, and it'll have your entire Rise course in there along with your Storyline blocks. 

Just be careful - you can't have any embeds in there from sources that require Internet to open them (for example if you embed a YouTube video).

What I did is I created a Rise course that's literally called "My portfolio", and I made each lesson be a different kind of portfolio item. For example, in "Storyline Exercises" I just put a bunch of my Storyline build-outs in there - one after another. Another lesson is "Videos" where I uploaded all my videos I make using programs like Renderforest and just screen recordings.

That way, if you don't want to extend your trial of Articulate, you can still keep what you produced on your computer.

Also, if you do decide you need an LMS because you want to sell your courses to students, you'll need to find one that supports either xAPI or SCORM packages. I use LearnDash (Wordpress only plug-in) along with Uncanny Owl's Tin Canny plug-in to import my Rise courses as xAPI packages, and I really like it. I did a lot of research on different LMS systems, and this was the only one I found that was highly customizable and didn't cost an arm and a leg. You could really go down the rabbit hole here.

Happy to chat further if you have more questions!

Alyssa Gomez

Hey folks! You've asked some great questions! 

Bal - Is there anything that I will not be able to access in the courses I create after my trial ends?

When your trial period expires, your Articulate 360 apps will stop working. You can re-enable them by buying or renewing a subscription

We'll keep your Rise 360 courses and Review 360 projects on our servers for at least six months after your trial expires. Anyone who has direct links to your Rise 360 courses will still be able to view them. And anyone who has direct links to your Review 360 content items will still be able to view them and add comments.

Also, learners will still be able to view published courses that you host on your own web server or LMS.

Bal - When I export the file in Rise it does not appear to be a zip file? Am I incorrect or do I need to get windup and zip it myself?

Exporting a Rise 360 course for Web or LMS should result in a zipped output file. If that's not happening, reach out to our Support Engineers, and they'll take a closer look.

Kim - Could you tell me approx how much these plug-ins cost?  Are there any limitations on the kind of interactions you can import?  

This is a good question for Alina to answer! :)

Kim - Is there a method to the madness of choosing Rise vs Storyline?

For rapid e-learning development, Rise 360 is perfect. It’s quick, the output is beautiful, the content is inherently responsive.

If you need a course that includes custom interactivity and a more immersive learning experience, then you’ll want to use Storyline 360.

You can dive deeper into the difference between the two tools in these articles:

Mastery Network

Sure! Even if you let your trial lapse, you'll still be able to access your "index" file if you export your Rise course to Web. I would just test it and make sure your course functions properly without Internet or the use of your subscription by putting your computer on airplane mode and turning off wifi. 

If you want to show a mix of work that you do in Storyline and in Rise, then create a lesson in your Rise portfolio course that only has Storyline blocks and import them all in there. It should all still work even if you don't have a subscription (I'm 95% sure on this).

Mastery Network

Sure - Here's info on Learn Dash - I have the plus package, but there are different tears of pricing.

And here's info on Tin Canny. $179/year for 1 site.

The word press site shouldn't cost you anything if you know web development. I personally paid a hefty price tag to get it built for me (because mine required a lot of custom coding and creation of a membership component as well). Codeable is an amazing website for this if you need help with build-out. I couldn't be happier with their contractors (especially Alejandro and Tamara).

I'm not 100% on limitations. I create Rise courses using almost all of the available Rise blocks and I also import a variety of Storyline blocks.

So far I haven't found anything that doesn't work in LearnDash. If you need very detailed reporting (for example, you need to know if they got a certain quiz score or answered a certain way on an assessment) that might be a little more challenging. Also, if that's the case, you may consider creating the quizzes directly in Learn Dash even if you have the bulk of your course uploaded from Rise or Storyline.

I don't have a need for that personally. I just care that they complete the course. 

Mastery Network

Also, Kim you don't have to choose between Rise and Storyline. You can build a Rise course and import Storyline blocks into it. That's what I do because as Alyssa stated below, Rise has a little to no ability to create customized interactions (e.g. drag and drop interactions, complicated branched scenarios, custom responses on quizzes, etc.). However, Rise is beautiful and works for 95% of course content. Storyline just helps you spruce things up in there if you choose to add it.

This is just my take.

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