The Tool Of Content Experts
There have been several questions
about the approach that ReadyGo has taken with the Web Course Builder - WCB
- (an eLearning authoring tool designed for subject matter experts). ReadyGo
believes that the reason that so few web courses are being produced is that
the tools that are available are too difficult for the content expert. We
use "content expert" to denote a trainer, product manager, project manager,
or other employee who needs to transfer their experience and knowledge to
other employees, but who does not have a background in computer programming
or use of sophisticated computer software. Without tools designed for the
content expert, ReadyGo believes, that eLearning will become a specialty niche,
when it could become a core component of business.
Think back to what it was like
to create presentations in the 1980s. Only those organizations that could
afford to have professionally produced materials had presentations that were
more than word-processed transparencies. When tools like PowerPoint became
available, everyone had the ability to create presentations that looked professionally
produced. The same need exists in today's business world with respect to distance
training. Content experts need a tool that enables easy production of professional
looking eLearning courses. When ReadyGo decided to create the Web Course Builder,
we interviewed people from over 200 companies. Our goal was to clearly understand
how content experts work and to identify corporate trends for training and
web use. This information guides the architecture of WCB.
- Almost all content experts
we interviewed told us that they do not create their own graphics. Rather,
they rely on an artist. We decided not to include a graphic design tool
within the WCB, and instead focused on providing easy methods to import
and integrate any type of web-viewable graphics into courses.
- We found that if we gave content
experts a blank screen and asked them to create a course (especially with
something new like eLearning), they got stuck at the layout phase, and never
progressed to the content creation phase. Therefore, we decided to base
the tool on templates so that content experts can immediately start creating
courses.
- We found that Power Point is
the corporate education tool of choice for most companies. When PowerPoint
is saved for web use each page is saved as a graphic, making it inappropriate
for the web. Content experts want an easy way to migrate their existing
Power Point slides into an eLearning course. Our tool provides a copy-paste
mechanism to transfer titles and bullets from PowerPoint into a ReadyGo
course. Course developers told us that they wanted to expand on PowerPoint
to include features like FAQ, Glossary, Help, and Indexes. We provide straightforward
templates to create these services and incorporate these functions. Additionally
the ReadyGo Web Course Builder provides an easy way to rearranging chapters
and pages within a course.
- Our current release includes
copy-paste functions between courses; by course, chapter, page, sub-page,
FAQ, help page, or Glossary. This means content experts can create reusable
course modules and several developers can concurrently work on a single
course. For example, it is possible to create standard glossaries or chapters
and then share them between content experts in multiple courses.
- Another new feature is the ability
to create a printable text version of an entire course, a chapter, FAQs,
Glossary, etc. The main uses of this are for course handouts and editorial
copies of the content. (Printing out an entire course using a browser is
a slow and tedious process.)
Wysiwig or dialog box?
We had the choice to develop
a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface or a dialog box interface.
We decided to build a dialog box-based interface:
- With a WYSIWYG authoring
tool there is an expectation that the layout the created by the author
will be exactly how the student sees the content. This conflicts with
one of the main benefits of web browsers: Each person can control the
size, shape, and font the browser displays. Since students can modify
their environment, it is probable that the environment a course designer
uses during development is not the same as that on the student's desktop.
For course creators to be able to control the student desktop they will
either need to create a plug-in to display the course or they will need
to capture the page as a single image (GIF, JPEG) like PowerPoint does.
Use of a plug-in adds an additional level of technical complication
in serving a course. Creating an image to capture the page means a slow
downloads and negates many of the benefits of the web including the
ability to search documents for Knowledge Management. Our decision was
to implement dialog boxes instead of WYSIWYG. This provides the course
creator with a structure into which their content can be placed. The
ReadyGo Web Course Builder takes the content and produces standard HTML
that which the student's browser can optimally display.
- An additional benefit of
using a dialog box based authoring tool is that the advanced user can
easily drop in any HTML/ XML/JavaScript into the template. This extends
the ReadyGo WCB into an eLearning container. For advanced users, the
tool automates tedious tasks such as linking pages, building indexes,
moving pages, and making sure all the links work; while providing the
flexibility to use anything that is web readable wherever the course
creator sees fit.
- With a WYSIWYG tool, course
developers must hunt through multiple pull down menus to access desired
capabilities. Our research found that content experts who were not constantly
using the WYSIWYG tool, quickly forgot which features were available
and became confused by the naming structures found in the pull down
menus. Our solution was to include function buttons on the input dialog
boxes. This way content experts are always aware of which features are
available (and appropriate) for the particular page/task because they
have easy, intuitive access to those tools.
- There are a few limitations
to the approach, however. ReadyGo's dialog box-based input screens are
more constrained than WYSIWYG tools, but we feel that the ease of use
and speed of development compensate for this. With a dialog box based
solution course developers are given a standard, proven, structure to
create eLearning courses. They lose the ability to move any feature
to any location on the page, but this is a capability needed primarily
by advanced graphics designers. We do give course developers the ability
to move the layout of graphics, replace any of the stock navigation
graphics, change color schemes, modify automatically generated text
(e.g. score your test), and easily add any drill down features (e.g.
articles, tests, quizzes, exercises, links). These capabilities satisfy
most of the content experts.
The ReadyGo Web Course Builder
is a tool focused on the content expert, enabling them to create web-ready
tutorials and full eLearning courses. Because of the architectural decisions
incorporated in the tool, most content experts are able to produce multi-chapter
courses in less than one hour (from installation of the product.)