Getting Started with Articulate Studio
If you’re new to Articulate Studio ’13, this quick-start guide is for you. It’ll help you ramp up on core features, so you can begin turning your PowerPoint content into e-learning courses. You’ll learn how to: Create your first e-learning project, right in PowerPoint Make your slides more engaging with multimedia Quickly create cool interactions Show your learners what they need to know with simple screencasting tools Add effective quizzes and knowledge checks Publish your course to web or mobilePresenter 360: Adding Content Library 360 Media
Content Library 360 has more than 100,000 combinations of photographic and illustrated characters, expressions, and poses plus 6+ million high-resolution photos, illustrations, icons, and videos. You can access them right from PowerPoint, and they’re all royalty-free with no attribution required. To add Content Library 360 media to a Presenter 360 course, go to the Articulate tab on the PowerPoint ribbon and click Characters, Photos, Illustrations, Icons, or Videos. See the articles below for details on each media type. Presenter 360: Adding and Editing Content Library 360 Characters Presenter 360: Adding Content Library 360 Photos Presenter 360: Adding Content Library 360 Illustrations Presenter 360: Adding Content Library 360 Icons Presenter 360: Adding Content Library 360 VideosThe Secret to LMS Debugging
Unraveling the chatter between your learning management system (LMS) and the content you’ve produced in your authoring app can be frustrating. What should you do when learners do one thing but the LMS says they’ve done something else? How do you handle it when the score or status isn’t recorded as you’d expect or when the course doesn’t suspend or resume the way you’d like? An important first step is to test your project in SCORM Cloud, but what should you do when your course works properly in SCORM Cloud but not in your LMS? That’s where LMS debug mode comes in! It’s an easy way to see exactly what your AICC, SCORM, or cmi5 content is sending to the LMS and how the LMS is responding. By default, LMS debug mode is disabled in your published output, but it’s easy to turn on. In this article, we’ll walk you through that process step by step. If you prefer, you can watch this video instead: Step 1: Locate Your Published scormdriver.js File First, publish your course in cmi5, SCORM, or AICC format (this debug process does not work for xAPI/Tin Can API). If you’re using Storyline 360, Presenter 360, Quizmaker 360, or Engage 360, the next thing you’ll do is click Open in the publish success window. From there, double-click on the lms folder. If you’re using Rise 360, export your Rise 360 course as a cmi5, SCORM, or AICC package and save it to your computer. From there, extract the zip file containing your course and open the scormdriver folder. From there, no matter which app you’re using, you’ll want to find the scormdriver.js file. Step 2: Enable Debug Mode Open the scormdriver.js file in a text editor, such as Notepad, and locate the following line: var SHOW_DEBUG_ON_LAUNCH = false; Replace the word false with the word true, as shown in the screenshot below: Then, save and close the scormdriver.js file. Step 3: Zip Your Content and Upload It to Your LMS Next you’ll need to zip your file so you can upload it to your LMS. If you created your course in Storyline 360, Presenter 360, Quizmaker 360, or Engage 360, simply go back to the publish success window and click the Zip button. This creates a zipped file of the published output in the same location where you published your course. If you created your course in Rise 360, you’ll need to do this manually. To do that, go back to the top-level folder of the published output and zip the files. Make sure not to zip the folder that contains your course, just the course files. Once you’ve zipped your file, upload it to your LMS. Step 4: Launch Your Course and Save the Debug Log When you launch the content in your LMS, it’ll open in one window, and the debug log will open in another. After reproducing the issue you’re troubleshooting, copy and paste the text from the debug window into a document for further investigation. Step 5: Review the Debug Log Your LMS provider is most qualified to interpret the contents of your debug log, so we recommend opening a support case with them. However, if you’re familiar with AICC, SCORM, or cmi5, feel free to take a look at the log. Sometimes an issue is obvious and jumps off the page. If neither you nor your LMS provider is able to spot the cause of the problem, submit a case to our support team and we’ll take a look. Be sure to include a copy of your project file so we can try to reproduce the problem. Need more help troubleshooting your LMS? Check out these other resources: How to Troubleshoot Your LMS with SCORM Cloud Learning More About Your LMS: Suspend Data and Resume Behavior Want to avoid the hassle of course and LMS miscommunications? Try out Reach 360—our frictionless LMS. It’s integrated with Articulate 360 apps, so you can publish directly and be confident that everything will work as expected. It’s fast and hassle-free!Looking Back at the 70+ Articulate 360 Features We Released in 2021
It’s amazing the degree to which new features can empower you to create even better e-learning. That’s one thing I love about Articulate 360 subscriptions—you get access to additional features as soon as we release them. Did you know that in 2021 alone, we released over 70? This list highlights every feature we released or enhanced last year. Browse through each one to discover how much your favorite course creation apps have evolved in just 12 short months. Storyline 360 360° Images Create immersive learning experiences by including 360° images in your Storyline 360 courses. And engage learners as they explore these images by adding interactive elements, such as hotspots and markers. Hotspot Hints for 360° Images Assist learners with finding all the hotspots in your 360° image guided tour interactions by providing on-screen text instructions. Learn more. Tooltips for 360° Images Help learners know what to expect before they click bydisplaying tooltips when learners hover over markers and hotspots in 360° interactions. Translation for 360° Images Simplify your translation process by exporting the content from your 360° interactions alongside the rest of your course when you export text to XLIFF or Word for translation. Learn more. Additional Accessibility Features for 360° Images Enable all learners to have the same engaging experience with your 360° images with new and enhanced accessibility features. Modern Player Accessible Contrast Meet WCAG accessibility guidelines for visual contrast and color with the updated modern player. These enhancements make it easier for all learners to read the player text, decipher the icons, perceive the controls, and navigate accurately. Learn more. Additional Keyboard Shortcuts for Learners Include more ways for learners to interact with courses with additional keyboard shortcuts, including options for Play/Pause, Previous, Next, and Submit. Plus, learners can now use the ESC key to close the shortcuts screen. “Previous” Button Accessibility Improvements Improve the course experience for learners using screen reader or keyboard navigation with this update to the Previous button. Now the Previous button on the first slide of a course or a lightbox gets disabled and skipped during keyboard navigation. Improved Closed Captioning Button Active State Make the Closed Captioning button active state more noticeable in the modern player. When the Closed Captioning button is enabled in the modern player, it’s now underlined in your chosen accent color Option to Display Accessible Text by Default Ensure your course content is accessible by setting accessible text as the default text for a course. Learn more. Improved Seekbar Accessibility Create a better seekbar experience for learners using screen readers on mobile devices. They can now seek back and forth and the seekbar is visible in high-contrast mode. Two-Color Focus Indicator Make the accessibility focus indicator in the modern player more visible against any background in your course by selecting two colors—one light and one dark—for it. Customize Captions Font Size Improve closed caption readability in the modern player. You can now increase closed caption font sizeup to 200%. Logo Alt Text Make your course logo accessible to learners using screen readers and other assistive technologies by adding alternative (alt) text to it. Learn more. Custom xAPI Statements Enable advanced tracking options that give you additional data about learner activity by using triggers to define custom xAPI statements. LRS Support Expand your options for collecting learner data by publishing your Storyline 360 courses for a learning record store (LRS). Learn more. xAPI Debug Tool Troubleshoot xAPI statements quickly using the new debugger. Language Identification in xAPI (Tin Can API) Courses Simplify how you identify the language of anxAPI (Tin Can API) course with the Language Code field in the reporting and tracking options. Additional Question Bank Scoring Options Refine how question banks with branching are scored in a course using the new “Only Score Viewed Questions” box. Learn more. Improved Scoring for Combined Result Slides Avoid scoring conflicts when you require learners to pass each quiz in a Combined Result slide. This updated process prevents rare situations where learners could get a minimum passing score for each quiz and still fail the entire course. Learn more. Elapsed Time Variables Create timed interactions and conditional triggers using built-in variables that track the total time a learner spends on a slide, a scene, or an entire course. JavaScript Editor Improvements: Syntax Highlighting and Line Numbers Speed up your workflow in the Storyline 360 JavaScript editor with the help of syntax highlighting and line numbers. Word Translation Improvements Speed up the translation process for you and your translators. Word export options now provide more context for translators, preserve all text formatting, and use the modern DOCX format. Also, basic formatting changes made in the translated Word document are preserved during the Storyline 360 import process. Learn more. SVG Support Help images stay sharp when learners zoom in and out by importing scalable vector graphics (SVGs) to Storyline 360. Increased the Built-in Widescreen (16:9) Slide Size Get more room to work and avoid unexpected scroll bars in text objects with a larger built-in widescreen (16:9) slide size: 960x540. Define Default Slide Size Speed up the start of course development by setting a default slide size for new projects. Learn more. Modern Player Custom Color Customize the modern player to match your course color scheme by selecting your own background color. Course Cover Photo Improve branding and give learners a preview of the subject matter by adding a course cover photo in the modern player. Learn more. Text Overflow Autofit Improvements Refine how on-screen copy is displayed and improve accessibility with more ways to manage and fine-tune course text elements. This update also includes options for how to handle text that doesn’t fit its bounding box. Learn more. Turn on these improvements by simply upgrading your project text. Seekbar Display Improvements on Mobile Devices Improve how your course seekbar looks on mobile devices. In landscape mode, the seekbar now displays below the slide content and no longer overlaps the slide content. Upgraded Microsoft .NET Framework to Version 4.8 Keep everything up to date with this shift to the Microsoft .NET Framework dependency for Storyline 360 to version 4.8. Updates to the Embedded Version of Chromium Stay current with these updates to the embedded version of Chromium. In 2021 it was upgraded to 90.0.4430.93 and then 94.0.4606.81. Classic Trigger Workflow Retired Simplify your choices for working with triggers with this change: the new trigger workflow is now the only trigger workflow. End of Flash Importing and Publishing Modernize your options for importing content and publishing courses with this update. Since Adobe discontinued Flash at the end of 2020, we removed Flash features, including the options to import Flash movies and publish Flash output, from Storyline 360. Rise 360 Section 508 Accessibility Support Feel confident that Rise 360 courses reach all learners now that it supports Section 508 accessibility guidelines. See our conformance report for details. Accessible Block Management While Authoring Improve course navigation accessibility. Screen readers can now see and announce the Move Up, Move Down, and Duplicate buttons. Fully Accessible Labeled Graphic Blocks Enable all learners to access your graphic interactions with improved keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and a color selector for markers. New Image Alignment Options for Interactive Blocks Enjoy even more ways to lay out your images with multiple alignment options in accordion, tabs, timeline, and process blocks. Text Contrast on Cover Photos Set the text contrast on your cover photo to 0% to avoid Rise 360 darkening it further if your course photo is already dark enough to meet accessibility contrast standards. In-progress Audio/Video Playback Position Automatically Bookmarked Automatically bookmark the playback position of in-progress audio or video when learners navigate away from or close a lesson. Video Player Language Support Localize the video player automatically by choosing one of 16 supported languages. Learn more. “Continue” Button Style Options for Quiz Lessons Customize your quiz lesson user interface by choosing what kind of button displays at the end: the standard Next Lesson button or a Continue button. Learn more. New Course Template: Effective Workplace Presentations Use the latest course template to help learners deliver more effective presentations in a workplace setting. Review 360 Manually Upload Storyline 360 Courses Manually upload your courses to Review 360. This feature is helpful when publishing directly from Storyline 360 is blocked by a firewall or the published output needs to be edited before it’s shared with stakeholders. Manually Upload Video Versions Simplify your review process by creating new versions of videos that you’ve manually uploaded to Review 360. Version Management Control which versions of a project stakeholders see in Review 360 by using thehide and restore options. Unfurl Links in Collaboration Apps Make it easier for people to preview a Review 360 link when it’s shared in collaboration apps, like Slack. The link now expands to give your team a preview of the project’s title, author, and thumbnail image. Content Library 360 New Template Sets Synergy templates Vitality templates Essence templates New Characters Renita Craig Dante Pamela Charles Simone Jayla Eric Maya Jada Jamal Replay 360 Digitally Signed Executables Improve security with this update. All executables installed with Replay 360—such as lame.exe and encoder.exe—are digitally signed for better performance in highly secure environments. Studio 360 End of Flash Importing and Publishing Modernize your options for importing content and publishing courses with this update. Since Adobe discontinued Flash at the end of 2020, we removed Flash features, including the options to import Flash movies and publish Flash output, from Studio 360. Articulate 360 Teams Team Member Removal Options Avoid accidental content deletion with simplified options when removing a team member. Removal choices are now limited to transferring that member’s content or doing nothing. Manage Undelivered Invites Make identifying and resending invitation emails that bounce back easy with improvements to the team management console. Learn more. Articulate Training English Closed Captions View our on-demand videos and recorded training webinars with English closed captions. Articulate 360 Desktop App and Dashboard Browser-based Sign-in Experience Align with the latest security best practices by using your default web browser to sign in to the Articulate 360 desktop app. Learn more. Automatic Updates Get access to all the newest features and functions in Articulate 360 with automatic updates. Automatic updates are now enabled by default for all new and existing installations (unless your organization has disabled them). But you can always choose to opt out via your Articulate 360 desktop app preferences. Refreshed Articulate 360 Dashboard Discover helpful Articulate 360 resources—such as Rise 360 templates and Articulate 360 Training videos—with the new dashboard layout. That’s a lot of exciting ways to speed up your workflow and broaden what you can create! So be sure to check out any you might have missed when they launched and let us know in the comments which you’re enjoying most. Want to try out some of these features, but don’t have Articulate 360 just yet? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.3 Types of E-Learning Course Creation Apps
Understanding the basics of e-learning course creation apps—also called authoring apps—is just the beginning. If you’ve started researchingwhat course creation apps are and what they do, you know they help you build learning experiences that are viewed on a computer, tablet, and/or mobile device. But, if you aren’t a course creator or you don’t have much experience in the e-learning world, you might be surprised to find out how many different types of apps exist. E-learning course creation apps have one basic thing in common: they all help you build online training. The specific app you choose will determine what types of courses you can create and what that process looks like. Let’s take a look at the three main types of e-learning course creation apps and what differentiates them. Web Applications This type of e-learning course creation app is hosted on a server and accessed through the web, so there’s no need to install anything on your computer. One major advantage of using a web app is that you can develop your content anywhere, anytime. All you need is a web browser and an internet connection. Web applications often have streamlined user interfaces, making them easier to use than their desktop counterparts. If you’re new to e-learning and feel a little intimidated by all the complex apps out there, web apps are the perfect place to start! Some web apps, like Rise 360, allow you to create fully responsive e-learning—courses where the content automatically reflows depending on the screen size—without any extra effort. In today’s mobile world, not having to worry about how your courses will look across devices makes your life a lot easier. Desktop Applications Desktop e-learning course creation applications, like Storyline 360, are installed on your computer and typically work without an internet connection. They tend to be more robust than web apps, offering a wider range of features allowing you to create more advanced interactions—like interactive 360° images— and customize your courses more extensively. Desktop apps often allow you to import PowerPoint-based training materials to speed up development, but they really shine when you’re looking to build more immersive learning experiences. PowerPoint Plug-ins These e-learning course creation apps are add-ons to Microsoft PowerPoint that allow you to add functionality—such as narration and quizzes—to your presentations. PowerPoint Plug-ins, like Studio 360, can be a good option when you want to use the same PowerPoint deck for both your online and in-person training because they allow you to simply add interactivity on top of what you already have in PowerPoint without converting it to another format. That way, you don’t have to keep two sets of training materials up-to-date. Wrap-Up Knowing the types of e-learning courses you plan to create is key to understanding what type of e-learning course creation app you need. If you know that you and your team plan on creating e-learning courses in a variety of structures, then you’ll want to look for a solution—like Articulate 360—that offers all the course creation apps you’ll need in one simple subscription. But, to truly build the best learning experience you’ll need more than the right apps—you’ll also need the right resources. Check out some helpful resources below that will kickstart your e-learning course creation process! Basic E-Learning Workflow and Design Process Instructional Design Basics for E-Learning Development 3 Essential Visual Design Concepts for E-Learning Audio Basics for Online Course Design What to Consider When Choosing E-Learning Course Creation Apps All the Examples You Need to Sell Articulate 360 to Your Boss Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.Understanding WCAG: A Quickstart Guide for E-Learning Developers
If you go looking for e-learning accessibility standards, you’ll see a certain four-letter acronym over and over again: WCAG. In this post, we’ll cover what WCAG is, why it’s important, and how you can apply it to your e-learning. What Is WCAG? Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a set of standards for making web content, including e-learning courses published to the web, more accessible. Learn more about accessibility in this article: What Is Accessible E-Learning? Unlike Section 508, which is part of a U.S. law, WCAG standards are optional best practices maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an organization focused on developing open web standards. While not a requirement, WCAG is an important tool for e-learning developers who want to build accessible courses. That seems simple enough, right? But things can get tricky when you start digging into WCAG documentation.In addition to this lengthy document that lays out the WCAG 2.0 standards, there’s another, equally lengthy documentto help explain WCAG 2.1 standards! At a high level, WCAG has four sections: the principles of accessible design, the guidelines themselves, success criteria for levels of conformance, and specific implementation techniques. Let’s take a closer look. Accessibility Principles & Guidelines According to WCAG documentation, accessible web content follows four principles: it’s perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Twelve guidelines fall under these four principles—each with their own subguidelines. Here’s how each of these principles applies to e-learning, as well as a sample of some relevant guidelines that fall into each category. Perceivable Learners need to be able to access the information that’s presented. All parts of your course should be available to them regardless of their ability to see, hear, or touch. Guidelines for making your e-learning more perceivable include: adding alt-text to images, buttons, and other objects in your course making sure color is not the only visual means of communicating information providing learners with the ability to resize text Operable Learners need to be able to perform all of the actions required of them in the course. Guidelines for making your e-learning more operable include: providing keyboard-only navigation options giving learners the option to skip timed exercises making it possible to navigate your course in multiple ways avoiding course design elements that might cause seizures, such as flashing lights using section headings to organize content Understandable Learners need to be able to understand both the content of the course and how to navigate the user interface. Guidelines for making your e-learning more understandable include: making it possible for screen readers to determine the language used in your course providing learners with good instructions when requesting their input building consistent navigation and identification throughout your course Robust Course content must make sense to assistive technologies such as screen readers. Guidelines for making your e-learning more robust include: publishing courses to well-formatted HTML output assigning names, roles, and values to all elements in your course Conformance Levels Each of the WCAG guidelines, such as the ones listed above, is organized into one of three levels: A, AA, or AAA. It’s a common misunderstanding that Level A guidelines are “good,” Level AA guidelines are “better,” and Level AAA guidelines are “the best”; in reality, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. The WCAG level system accounts for all the factors one might consider when prioritizing the list of guidelines, including their goals and any logistical, technical, and resource limitations they might have. Here’s how to think about the guidelines at each level. Level A Guidelines This is the low-hanging fruit. As a best practice, all of your e-learning should meet Level A guidelines. These guidelines are easy to implement, and doing so makes your e-learning accessible to a broad range of folks in different demographics. It’s a win-win! Level AA Guidelines These are more specialized, and trickier to implement. Applying these guidelines affects a smaller group, but the changes have a big impact on those individuals. You should strive to make your e-learning meet Level AA guidelines as much as you’re able. Level AAA Guidelines These can be tough (and sometimes expensive!) to implement, and the changes impact a very specific group. Whether you decide to follow Level AAA guidelines really depends on the needs of your learners and organization. How Can I Build WCAG-Compliant E-Learning with Articulate 360 Apps? When you understand which guidelines are important to implement, it’s easy to make your Storyline 360 and Studio 360 courses WCAG compliant. And to make it even easier, we created these helpful resources that walk you through the some best practices: Storyline 360: How to Design an Accessible Course Rise 360: How to Design an Accessible Course And if you want to dig into the details of how our apps meet WCAG requirements at the A and AA levels, check out these resources: Storyline 360: Accessibility Conformance Report Rise 360: Accessibility Conformance Report All of these authoring apps are available with a subscription to Articulate 360. You can read our Articulate 360 accessibility FAQs for more details. More Resources Want to deepen your understanding of WCAG even further? Check out these helpful resources: W3.org: WCAG 4 Principles Karl Grove: Understanding WCAG Level Articulate: 6 Best Practices for Designing Accessible E-Learning And remember to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and come back to E-Learning Heroes for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.Presenter 360: Adding Content Library 360 Photos
Find the perfect media assets for your courses. Choose from 20+ million Content Library 360 photos, illustrations, icons, and videos that you can access right from Presenter 360. All assets are royalty-free with no attribution required. In this article, you’ll learn how to add gorgeous Content Library 360 photos to your courses. Go to the Articulate tab on the PowerPoint ribbon and click Photos. Type a search term in the field at the top of the media browser and press Enter. (Tip: The browser remembers your last search term during the current session.) Zoom in and out by using the zoom slider in the lower left corner or by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and scrolling your mouse wheel. If you want to find a different kind of media after opening the browser, use the drop-down list in the upper right corner to switch between Photos, Illustrations, and Icons. Select the photo you want to use and click Insert to add it your slide. You can select multiple photos at the same time using Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click, and then insert them all at once.Presenter 360: Adding Content Library 360 Illustrations
Illustrate your points with images from Content Library 360. Find the perfect pictures for your courses from 20+ million Content Library 360 assets that you can access right from PowerPoint. All assets are royalty-free with no attribution required. In this article, you’ll learn how to add beautiful Content Library 360 illustrations to your Presenter 360 courses. Go to the Articulate tab on the PowerPoint ribbon and click Illustrations. Type a search term in the field at the top of the media browser and press Enter. (Tip: The browser remembers your last search term during the current session.) Zoom in and out by using the zoom slider in the lower left corner or by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and scrolling your mouse wheel. If you want to find a different kind of media after opening the browser, use the drop-down list in the upper right corner to switch between Photos, Illustrations, and Icons. Select the illustration you want to use and click Insert to add it your slide. You can select multiple illustrations at the same time using Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click, then insert them all at once.
