I am in the process of researching software to convert our training material, which we create primarily in PowerPoint, to a SCROM compliant format so that we can upload the course to EL. 

I have discovered that there are many choices of software, other than the two I have heard mentioned, namely Articulate and Lectora.  I am gathering information on features and pricing and have found similar features but a huge variety in prices for the different products.

I am curious to know if anyone else has been through this same process.  Or if you are using a conversion or authoring tool to assist you with creating or converting SCORM compliant courses, what product are you using and how do you like it?

By the way, I'm happy to share or discuss my findings with anyone that is interested.

I purchased Articulate and have created several courses...it is fairly simplistic in that it sets itself up in the Powerpoint Ribbon--whenever you access Powerpoint, Articulate isonly one click away.  It does publish in scorm compliant mode for LMS, and it zips the file, but the trouble is in layering any specific content that you may have created in Articulate on top of existing courses in EL--their troubleshooting team is working on it.  I've had no trouble loading freestanding courses created in Articulate into EL up to this point.

Before you purchase anything, I would recommend that you try out some free software, first.  I haven't had much time to experiment with these, but I just found out about them at the ASTD conference in Washington.  I wish I had known about these before I took the plunge--check them out.

1)  LCDS (Learning Content Development System) available from MS so you must use a PC with this package.  This is a client-side executable file so you may have to involve your IT department to get it loaded.  It will create a scorm compliant module. 

2)  Course lab--Didn't have a chance to look at this one, yet.

3)  UDUTU--this seemed to be a favorite among the training professionals at my roundtable--it is supposedly very simple, has multiple templates and specializes in branching questions--that is a pretty fancy specialty for a free software package. 

Hope this helps.

Ric, thank you for the fantasic suggestions!  I had been researching authoring software that came for a price and somehow managed to miss the fact that there are similar free versions available!  I hope to find time this week to look in to these more in depth, and try them out to compare them, but on the surface they sound like they may do the trick without having to buy a product. 

Cheers!

P.S. If you do eventually check the freebies out yourself, I would love to hear what you think about them in comparison to the Articulate product you purchased.

I would love to hear how these work for you.  One of the drawbacks of Articulate is purchasing the number of licenses I would need to cover the number of instructors that I have.

I'm hopeful that I will be able to use these internet products to stretch the resources a little further.

Hi Susanne,

Sorry about the late response to this post.

If you don't mind having your course be flash-based then I would recommend Articulate Presenter as the conversion tool. If you do not want your course to be flash-based, then you can go with another product such as Impatica.

Articulate is by far the most used for this kind of course development because it is all done in ppt and has some nice sophisticated features.

Feel free to email me directly, Susanne, and I can give you some more info about choosing authoring tools.

Good luck!

Michelle Reeder

Director of Instructional Technology, Essential Learning

Michelle, did Rick figure out a way to get around the roadblock that I have experienced with my Articulate courses?  At last report (a couple of days ago) EL Team was still working on this issue:  EL cannot read an Articulate-to-scorm produced course's completion status.  EL can't tell that you've finished your Articulate course. This is an issue if :

• you want to use the "control student pace" function in EL for your own course, or
• if you want to include an Articulate-to-scorm production as a component of an existing EL course.  Since EL proprietary courses default to "control student pace"--and users are not allowed to change that setting--whammo, your modified EL course is now officially stalled because EL cannot progress past your Articulate-to-scorm produced lesson.
• For Articulate lessons that I have created myself, I simply uncheck the "control student pace" and the course works...thats fine as a temporary fix.
• If my Articulate component is not an absolute necessity, then I probably would place it after the final exam of the course where it could not stall progress--unfortunately, I do not generally produce content in Articulate that can be considered "optional." 

If EL can get past this roadblock, then I really like Articulate and its ease of use. 

Ric, I talked to Rick Bruce and he will get back to you about this today. He is waiting to hear from Ben Johnson. I know this issue can be resolved - it is just a matter of time.

I know Articulate is a popular authoring tool, so we will make this a priority to fix.

Thanks.

Michelle

I'm wondering about the results of this as we just purchased Articulate too.

I haven't heard from them in a week--at last report, EL was working with Rustici to fix the problem. 

Hi Ric, that is the latest - we are working with Rustici to find a solution. As soon as the solution is available we will put it here in the forum as well as contact you.  Thank you for your patience.  Tricia

Hi Ric, we're getting closer.  As you know, we've been working closely with Rustici to find a solution to the problem.  Last night they suggested we try something out and we're currently testing with Articulate.  Once we have a solution we will let you know as well as post the solution here.

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to give an update on the Articulate SCORM issue that we've been working with.  The problem, as it exists, only manifests when the Control Student Pace is turned on.  That is generally the case with Essential Learning courses so if you add content to an EL course you're likely to run into the problem.  If you are creating your own course and do not need that feature they you shouldn't have any trouble with Articulate.

Articulate is not sending the lesson complete message to the LMS in the same way as the other SCORM authoring tools that we've tested.  In Lectora you can actually put a control in the course, if necessary, to tell the LMS that the lesson is complete.  I've never run into a case where Camtasia didn't complete the lesson.  After contacting Articulate Support they told us that they do not have any feature for putting lesson controls within the content itself.

At this point, we're leaning on Rustici (our SCORM engine experts) to come up with a solution.  They're working on it, but they point out that the problem is with how Articulate is sending the completion code.  I'm going to make another effort to reach out to Articulate and see if they can help.  There is a way to manually change the code that Articulate puts out to make the lesson work, but going in and changing xml code every time you publish a course isn't much of a solution.

If anyone is interested, I've just posted a blog entry that is sort of a primer on the topic of SCORM authoring tools.

As always - if you have any questions, let me know.  We're here to help.

Just a quick update.

I've just been chatting with one of Articulate's QA managers.  He is very helpful and interested in helping us figure this Course Completion issue.  He's digging into this situation now.  Since they also use Rustici code to communicate with the LMS I feel very confident that a solution will be forthcoming.  If EL needs to change something in our code, we're ready to do so but our discussions with Rustici indicate that probably won't be the case.  Time will tell.

That's great news.  I coudn't get very far when I was working with Articulate Support, directly--they kep saying that it was my LMS' issue.

I think that we've finally come to the end of the Articulate bug.  It took a combined effort on the part of Articulate, EL, and Rustici.  Rustici has sent an update which we're running through our QA department.  Once they've passed the overall functionality we'll take another look at the Articulate created SCORM in Control Learner Pace mode.