What to Use and When? Deciding on the right artifact
With so many artifact types to choose from, it can be challenging to decide which to use. Each has its own strengths and best use cases. In this session, we'll talk through and demonstrate each artifact type, explain what they do well, and offer some possible applications.5 Mental Health Resources You Can Share With Your Learners Today
Did you know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month? Individuals aren’t the only ones impacted by mental health challenges—businesses can feel the effects, too. Polling from Gallup indicates that employees with mental health challenges miss four times more work than those who rate their mental health positively. This lost productivity costs the economy some $47.6 billion annually. As an e-learning designer, you can help employees feel supported by providing resources that raise awareness of the importance of mental health and outline helpful tips for improving it. If you’re an Articulate 360 subscriber or trialer, you can get the ball rolling quickly by using the ready-to-use mental health training materials in Rise 360—just in time for Mental Health Awareness Month. Curious what’s available? Check out some of the new releases below. You can learn how to customize these templates for your own company and training needs at the end of this article. 1. Stress Busters Microlearning Course Encourage employees to feel more relaxed with the 9 Simple Stress Busters You Can Do Today microlearning course. Moving through this quick learning exercise reveals proven strategies for relieving stress and activating feel-good endorphins. 2. Breathing Exercises Microlearning Course Anyone feeling tense can benefit from the Melt Away Stress With a 3-Minute Breathing Exercise microlearning course. With each successive swipe through a guided breathing exercise and accompanying graphics, learners will feel more peaceful and serene. 3. Feel Your Feelings Microlearning Course Reinforce the message that it’s OK not to be OK with the Feel Your Feelings microlearning course. This quick activity helps people process difficult emotions by prompting them to name and explore their feelings from a place of compassion and understanding. 4. Get Grounded Microlearning Course Support employees through worry spirals and mental fog with the Escape Anxiety With a 5-Minute Grounding Practice microlearning course. Moving through this 5-minute practice roots learners in the here and now as they engage their senses of taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. 5. Day-by-Day Challenge Course To offer access to a more in-depth daily challenge, check out the 5-Day Challenge To Improve Mental Health course. Each day, learners can refer to this course, explore a different facet of mental health, and follow simple exercises for putting concepts into practice. Wrap-Up Providing mental health resources as part of your business training is a win-win. Employees have access to support at work, and businesses benefit from employees who are less stressed and anxious. The examples above can help you get started, but the sky’s the limit for how you can use Articulate’s creator tools to achieve your business training objectives. Interested in sharing one of the supportive resources with your team? If you’re an Articulate 360 subscriber or trialer, you can access and edit all the examples linked throughout this post directly from your Rise 360 dashboard. Simply click Create New, choose Microlearning and select the template you want to use, as shown in the video below: Looking for even more ready-to-use, customizable mental health content? You'll find those in your Rise 360 dashboard too. Just click Create New, choose Course, and then select Mix & Match Lessons. Here are some relevant topic categories to check out: Stress Management: covers stress management fundamentals, stress and work performance, and strategies to relieve stress. Health and Wellness: includes dealing with difficult emotions and life events, exercise, forming healthy habits, mental health awareness in the workplace, positive psychology fundamentals, and positive psychology in the workplace. Resilience: features content on resilience fundamentals, building career resilience, leadership and resilience, emotional and physical resilience, and thriving through challenges. Be sure to also follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and come back to E-Learning Heroes for more advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.Articulate 360 AI Teams User Guide
New to Articulate 360 AI Teams? See Getting Started with Articulate 360 AI Teams Getting Started Starting a Free Trial and Buying a Subscription Naming, Renaming, and Switching Teams Managing Users & Content Managing People, Groups, and Invites Understanding Permissions and Tasks Authenticate Using Single Sign-On Understanding Content Ownership and Transfer Scenarios Managing Content When Users Leave Your Team Where to Find Transferred Content When Someone Leaves Your Team Managing Your Subscription Managing Subscription Settings Managing Credits and Monitoring Usage Managing AI Permissions Explore New Features with Labs Managing Your Team’s Brands Buying More Creator Seats as Your Team Grows Merging Subscriptions Reactivating or Replacing a Lapsed Subscription Reducing Creator Seats in a Subscription Managing Payments and Purchases Setting Up Integrations Importing Content from Google Drive Importing Content from OneDrive Using Articulate MCP Creating Content with AI Rise 360: Get Started with AI Assistant Storyline 360: Get Started with AI Assistant Collaborating with Your Team & Getting Help Collaborating on E-Learning Projects Getting Help Scaling & Distributing Your Training Articulate Localization: User Guide Reach 360: A Frictionless LMSYour One-Stop Shop for Storyline 360 Quiz-Building Tips
If there’s one thing most e-learning courses have in common, it’s that they have a quiz. Whether there are knowledge checks peppered throughout or an evaluation at the end, it’s rare to see a course without a quiz question or two. We’ve rounded up our most helpful quiz-related content on E-Learning Heroes so you can easily get up to speed on creating quizzes in Storyline 360, as well as learn more about designing effective quizzes. And how about getting off to a running start with some free downloads? Tutorials If you’re new to creating quizzes in Storyline, first things first! Start by taking a look at these helpful tutorials: Creating Quizzes with Form-Based Questions Creating Quizzes with Freeform Interactions Adding Quiz Result Slides Instructional Design Tips Once you’ve got the technical side of things down, check out these articles for tips on designing meaningful quizzes: How to Write Good E-Learning Quiz Questions Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Effective Multiple Choice Questions 20+ Tips for Writing Great Quiz Questions and Response Options 6 Common Quizzing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them How to Quiz Your Learners at the Right Time How to Write Effective Quiz Feedback How to Match Question Types with the Skills You’re Testing Creating Quizzes: Choose a Passing Score How to Write Plausible Incorrect Answer Options for Quiz Questions Downloads Whether you’re short on time or just looking for inspiration, these downloads are just the thing: Countdown Quiz Game Movie Trivia Game Question Bank Template Italian Drag and Drop Quiz Multiple Choice Quiz with Badge Awards Color Gradient Quiz Process Interaction Quiz Combination Lock Quiz Dog-Themed Jeopardy Template Wrap-Up These tutorials, articles, and downloads should be more than enough to get you ready to build your next quiz. But if you get stuck somewhere along the way, we’re always here to help! Feel free to reach out to us in the discussion forums with any technical- or design-related questions you may have. Did you find these resources helpful? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).How to Add a Timer to Your Storyline 360 Quiz
Sometimes it makes sense to limit the amount of time learners have to complete a quiz or survey. Perhaps you’re assessing time-critical tasks, or you want to create a sense of urgency similar to what they might experience on the job. In these cases and many more, a time limit can help keep learners accountable and ensure they complete an e-learning quiz or survey in a controlled amount of time. If you decide to add a timer, the good news is that it’s easy to add a time limit to your Storyline 360 projects. Let’s take a look! Step 1: Insert a Results slide The first thing you need to do is insert a Results slide into your project. Once you’ve added a Results slide, go to that slide, click the Design tab at the top, and then select Quiz Settings. Step 2: Add a time limit In the Quiz Settings window, look for the Quiz Timer. Select the checkbox and enter the total number of minutes you want to allow for the quiz. Step 3: Select Your Preferences Next, select the clock drop-down arrow and choose your preferences for starting and displaying the timer. Keep in mind, if you select Do Not Show Time, the timer will still function, it just won’t be visible to the learner. When you’re happy with your selection, click OK to close the Quiz Settings window. That’s all there is to it! When you publish your project, you’ll see the timer in the top right corner of the course player. What happens when time runs out? If a learner doesn’t finish the quiz in time, they’ll get a message telling them they’ve exceeded the time limit. Once they click OK, they’ll automatically be directed to the Results slide. Any unanswered questions will be marked Incorrect. Things to Consider Whenever you include a quiz timer, it’s only fair to prepare your learners. Add clear instructions so they know how the quiz will work and how much time they have to finish it. Keep in mind that while timers may be an effective motivational tool for some learners, for others they can cause stress and get in the way of learning. To be inclusive of all learners, it's a good idea to give them the possibility to opt-out. Summary Adding a timer to your Storyline course is super easy and can enhance the learning experience. Using a timer to assess time-critical tasks or to create a sense of urgency are just a few ways to use time in e-learning. Looking for some more quizzing tips and tricks? Check out these articles: How to Write Good E-Learning Quiz Questions Improve Your Quizzes with These Do’s And Don’ts How to Write Plausible Incorrect Answer Options for Quiz Questions What ways have you used a timer in your e-learning projects? Leave a comment and share your experience! Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Everything You Need to Know About Image Usage Rights
It’s tricky to find appropriate, usable images for e-learning projects. And sometimes after you’ve found the right photo, it’s unclear whether you can legally use it. Images are protected by copyright. So you can’t add any photo you find online to your e-learning project. But trying to do the right thing can raise more questions than answers: What if I just link to their website? Should I reach out to this person? Wait, I don’t see who owns this image! Usually images you’ll find on photo sites fall into one of a few categories. Here are some of the different usage terms you’ll find. Copyright Copyright law protects original works, including images. In most cases, you can’t copy or distribute a copyrighted image without permission from the person who created it. You should assume that any image you find online is protected by copyright. If possible, contact the copyright holder for permission to use their work. When you buy a stock photo, you’re buying the right to use that copyrighted image. Depending on which site you use, the image may be royalty-free or rights-managed. Royalty-free means that you’re not responsible for royalty payments. You’re usually able to use the image as you’d like. Rights-managed means there are restrictions on how you can use the image—so be sure to read your license agreement closely! Fair Use The fair use doctrine provides opportunities for using copyrighted images without permission. For instance, you can legally use a copyrighted image for personal and educational use, or for the public good. Most e-learning is commercial. As a course creator, you should assume that using copyrighted images in your work doesn’t qualify as fair use. But fair use also allows you to transform copyrighted images into something new. If you turn a copyrighted image into a completely new work, you can use that image freely. Creative Commons The Creative Commons non-profit provides free copyright licenses for creators. The copyright holder can determine several things with these licenses: Whether you need to credit them for their image Whether you can use their image for commercial purposes Whether you can modify their image What license you must use if you modify their image When using Creative Commons images, be sure to read the license carefully and use the image appropriately. Pro tip: Some photo sharing sites, such as Flickr, allow you to filter search results by specific Creative Commons licenses. Public Domain Typically an image becomes part of the public domain in one of two ways. The creator either gives up copyright willingly, or the copyright expires. These images aren’t protected by copyright, so you’re free to use them any way you’d like. Pro tip: WikiMedia Commons has a large database of images in the public domain. A Helpful Alternative Of course, the easiest way to source freely available images is by finding e-learning solutions that provide stock assets. Articulate 360 includes Content Library 360, an ever-growing library of visual assets that you can access right from within Rise and Storyline 360. These assets are made available through third parties, including Unsplash, Noun Project, Pexels, and Pixabay, and you can use them in your content without additional charge. However, as noted in our Terms of Service, the use of these images, including any attribution requirements, is subject to these third parties’ terms. See what’s available in Content Library 360 when you start a free, 30-day trial of Articulate 360. You’ll also get access to award-winning authoring apps Storyline 360 and Rise, a project review app, and access to live online training led by industry experts. New to e-learning? Sign up for our E-Learning 101 email course, a series of expertly-curated articles that'll get you up to speed with course development.The Difference between Screencasts and Software Simulations
If you’re new to creating software training—and even if you’re not!—you might use the terms screencast and software simulation interchangeably. But did you know they’re actually two different things? It can be easy to get these terms confused, so let’s walk through the nuances that differentiate these two methods and explore the use cases for each. Screencasts Screencasts are videos that show a recording of your computer screen. They’re often used to demonstrate the use of an application or software. They include all of your mouse movements and typically have audio narration that gives learners more contextual information about the process they’re seeing—such as the names of various software features or steps. Because screencasts are simply videos, they’re not interactive. When to use a screencast Screencasts are great for creating simple “how-to” videos. This kind of visual walkthrough is beneficial when you’re trying to explain a process that’s too complicated to explain with written text alone. And if the process isn’t something learners will be doing frequently, screencasts can be a helpful performance support resource that learners can easily reference in the future. How to create a screencast If you have Articulate 360, you already have access to not just one but TWO apps that are specifically designed for screencasts: Peek 360 and Replay 360. Learn more about when to use each app in this article: How to Decide Which Articulate 360 App to Use for Screen Recording. Want to see an example? Watch the “How to Add Comments in Review 360” screencast I created with Peek 360 below. This screencast provides a short overview of how to provide feedback on courses in the Review 360 web application. It’s perfect for an audience who may be comfortable with web-based technology and already have familiarity with Review 360. The screencast focuses on a simple process. It’s clear, concise, and to the point. So, how does a software simulation differ? Well, I’m glad you asked. Software Simulations While you also have to record your screen to create a software simulation, the major difference is that instead of simply showing the learners what to do, you give them the opportunity to try it out for themselves. They’re called simulations because you simulate the software’s interface by recording it and turning that recording into an interactive practice environment for learners. They can go through and click on all the buttons—like you did when you recorded it. It’s almost as if they’re using the software themselves. The advantage of doing it this way—versus simply having them use the actual software—is that you can build in on-screen explanations and feedback to guide them as they practice. Software simulations are usually the go-to for creating software training because they provide learners with a risk-free environment to help them learn a new app or process. Another thing that sets simulations apart from screencasts is that you can test your learners’ understanding by creating a simulation that’s graded. For every click in the right spot, learners can earn points. And for clicks in the wrong spots, points can be taken away. It’s a great way to ensure learners have understood how to complete specific processes within an app or software. When to use a software simulation Interactive software simulations are ideal when you want learners to physically practice using the software themselves—including entering data, interacting with drop-down menus, and identifying multiple steps in a more complex process. Software simulations give learners an opportunity to practice using the proper click-path of a specific process or software without fear of impacting the actual production environment or ruining any real-life data. With software simulations, you can put your learners in the driver’s seat so they can deepen their knowledge of a process, gain experience, and build confidence in using an app or piece of software. How to create a software simulation Articulate 360 subscribers can use Storyline 360 to create software simulations quickly and easily. Want to learn how? Here’s a tutorial that’ll help you get started: Creating Software Simulations in Storyline 360. Want to see an example? Explore the software simulation created with Storyline 360 below. In this example, users learn how to get started using the Review 360 web application. This simulation walks through four basic steps that you need to know how to do if you’ll be using Review 360. You’ll notice that because learners actually click through the software themselves, they must pay closer attention to each step in the process. This simulation is perfect for an audience who might not be as familiar with web-based technology or for users who are brand new to navigating Review 360. With simulations, learners can confidently navigate a new application because they’re practicing in the safety of a learning environment. View example More Resources Now you’re well on your way to identifying the nuances between screencasts and software simulations and you should be able to use these terms confidently when tackling your next project! To help you keep everything straight, I’ve outlined the differences in the handy table below. Screencasts Software Simulations Use case Demonstrate a simple, straightforward process. Train learners on a complex process through interactive practice and/or assessment opportunities. Interactive No Yes On-Screen Hints & Feedback No Yes Looking for more best practices around creating screencasts and software simulations? Check out these resources! And let us know in the comments what screencasts and software simulations you’ll be creating next. Follow This Process to Create Software Simulations and Systems Training Like a Pro 3 Methods for Recording Screencasts 4 Tips on Creating Software Tutorials in Rise 360 Tips for Using the Storyline 360 Screen Recorder Like a Pro 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.
