Engage 360: Publishing a Standalone Interaction for LMS Distribution

If you're using a learning management system (LMS) to track e-learning content, you'll want to use the LMS publishing option in Engage 360.

1. Enter Title, Description, and Folder Location
2. Enter Additional Project Info (Optional)
3. Adjust the Player Settings and Interaction Properties
4. Choose Your Reporting and Tracking Options
5. Publish
6. Distribute Your Published Interaction

Step 1: Enter Title, Description, and Folder Location

1. Click Publish on the Engage ribbon.
2. When the Publish window appears, select the LMS tab on the left.
   
   
3. Enter the Title the way you want it to appear in your published output. It defaults to the name of your project file. (Changing the title won't affect the name of your project file.) The maximum length for a project title is 80 characters.
4. Use the Description field to give learners a synopsis of your interaction. 
5. Use the Folder field to indicate where you want to publish your interaction—for example, your computer desktop. Click the ellipsis button (...) to browse to a location. Engage will create a new folder in that spot with all the files needed to operate your interaction.
   
   Important: Always publish to your local hard drive. Publishing to a network drive or a USB drive can cause problems with your published output. After publishing to your local hard drive, upload the output to your LMS for testing.

Step 2 (Optional): Enter Additional Project Info

Click the ellipsis button (...) next to the Title field to define additional project information. Currently, this information is for your reference only. It won’t be visible in your published output.

1. The Title and Description fields are the same as those on the Publish window (see the previous step).
2. The image below the Title field is the interaction thumbnail. By default, Engage uses an image representing the type of interaction you’re building, but you can choose a different image. Just click the hyperlinked text below the image, click Picture from File, and choose an image on your hard drive.
3. Enter values for Author, Email, Website, Duration, Date, Version, and Keywords if you'd like.
4. The first Identifier is a unique string of characters assigned by Engage that your LMS uses to identify your interaction. If you're republishing an interaction that's already in your LMS, don't change the value in this field.

When you're finished customizing the project information, click OK to return to the Publish window.

Step 3: Adjust the Player Settings and Interaction Properties

Use the Properties section of the Publish window to make last-minute changes to your player, quality settings, theme colors, and playback mode.

Player	This property shows the name of the player currently assigned to your project. (The player is the interface learners see around the perimeter of your interaction.) To make adjustments to your player, click the player name to open the player editor.
Quality	This property controls the compression settings for audio clips, videos, and JPG images in your interaction. The quality settings default to whatever you used the last time you published an interaction. To change them, click the quality property and make your adjustments.
Theme Colors	This property shows the name of the theme currently applied to your project. To switch to a different theme, click the current theme and choose another one.
Playback Mode	This property controls how learners navigate through your interaction. To change the playback mode, click the current mode and choose a different option.

Step 4: Choose Your Reporting and Tracking Options

Click the Reporting and Tracking button to open the following window, where you can choose how your LMS reports and tracks learners' progress.

1. Choose a specification from the LMS drop-down. Ask your LMS administrator if you're not sure which spec to use. Engage supports Tin Can API (xAPI), SCORM 2004, SCORM 1.2, and AICC.
2. Complete the fields in the section called LMS Course Information and, if you're publishing for SCORM, the section called LMS Lesson SCORM Information.
   • If you choose Tin Can API as your reporting specification, you'll see a field called Launch URL. Enter the full URL for the interaction.html file if you plan to host the content on a server that's separate from your LMS.
   • The Identifier is a unique string of characters assigned by Engage that your LMS uses to identify your interaction. If you're republishing an interaction that's already in your LMS, don't change the value in this field.  If you choose Tin Can API and need to change this value, avoid special characters and spaces.
3. In the LMS Reporting section, choose the wording you want your LMS to display for learners' statuses in reports. (This section isn’t available for Tin Can API content.)
4. In the Tracking section, choose the number of steps learners must view to register completion in your LMS.
5. Click OK to save your changes.

Step 5: Publish

When you're finished making selections, click the Publish button. When the publishing process is complete, you’ll see the Publish Successful window with several follow-up options.

View Interaction	This launches the published interaction in your default web browser. However, it’s best to upload the published interaction to your LMS for proper testing.
Email	This opens a new email message with a zipped file of your published interaction attached. This option is helpful if you need to send your interaction to an LMS administrator for deployment.
FTP	This opens a window where you can enter your FTP credentials and transfer your output to a server.
Zip	This creates a zip version of your interaction files in the same location where your interaction was published. This is the most common choice when you publish for LMS. Upload the zipped interaction to your LMS.
Open	This opens a file viewer where you can see the files Engage just created. There will be multiple files and folders for a published interaction. Tip: If your LMS requires you to identify the file that launches your interaction, point to index_lms.html for SCORM/AICC content or interaction.html for Tin Can API content.

Step 6: Distribute Your Published Interaction

Now that you've published your interaction, it's time to upload it to your LMS. Each LMS uses a different process. Contact your LMS administrator if you need help uploading, launching, or tracking content.