As eLearning managers, we’re all under pressure to speed up project delivery times and improve eLearning quality and engagement.
Unfortunately, our old faithful desktop-based eLearning authoring tools we have relied on for years are no longer suitable for the modern eLearning production process.
As the world changes around us, we also need to change the way we create and deliver eLearning.
There are three common challenges I see with traditional desktop-based eLearning tools:
- Elearning can only be authored by a small, dedicated eLearning authoring teams. Standard authoring tools are too complicated for the rest of the Learning and Development (L&D) team to use.
- Collaboration with colleagues is difficult to manage with different versions and comments all over the place.
- Testing, publishing and maintaining courses is time consuming. Making one small change to a course shouldn’t take half a day’s work.
At Elucidat, we recognized these challenges and set about building a tool that could help eLearning managers deliver eLearning faster. By cutting out unnecessary steps in the development process, adding inbuilt collaboration and making it super simple to use, Elucidat has won over industry leaders like Tesco and Comcast.
Let’s look at three ways Elucidat is helping eLearning teams deliver more effective eLearning faster.
1. Empowering whole L&D teams to create eLearning
Instead of being restricted to only having a few dedicated authors creating elearning, Elucidat’s simple and intuitive tool makes it easy for your whole team to be involved in the authoring process.
Trainers, team leaders and others with no previous experience of elearning can use Elucidat to quickly author elearning. By involving all members of your L&D team, you can create higher volumes of elearning.
To keep elearning quality high, use Elucidat’s pre-built themes and Master courses. These features help you enforce design standards so all your authors can produce great looking elearning that matches your brand and is consistent with your other elearning.
Tesco uses Elucidat to build eLearning for its Tesco Academy. Sam Taylor, Head of Learning, describes Elucidat as ridiculously easy to use.
“We’ve got people clamouring to use the tool which we never had before. We’ve doubled the amount of people making eLearning whilst reducing costs by 50%.”
2. Collaborating with colleagues and stakeholders
Instead of relying on email to collaborate on projects, Elucidat has an inbuilt review and commenting system. This enables all stakeholders to quickly make suggestions by highlighting the exact module or text that needs changing.
When changes are made, since you’re not sending files back and forth via email, Elucidat tracks the changes automatically inside the tool. You can easily see who made what changes.
Version control becomes easier to manage because now you only have one file with the different versions automatically tracked. You can quickly revert changes or restore files with just a few clicks.
Michelle Barton, Learning and Development Partner at Connect Group, recognizes the benefits of Elucidat’s inbuilt collaboration and communication tools. Her team spends less time collating feedback and more time authoring eLearning.
“Elucidat has enabled us to create high-quality interactive eLearning content in-house, saving us over 50% in production time and cost compared to using an external partner.”
3. Testing, publishing and maintaining courses
Testing and publishing eLearning can take hours with desktop-based tools. You can spend 30 minutes compiling it to SCORM format and another 30 minutes uploading it to your LMS.
Now what happens if you want to make a couple of small changes? You have to do the same thing all over again.
Modern technologies are now available to quickly speed up this process. Elucidat leverages cloud publishing to make it easy – and fast – to publish your eLearning. You can export LMS-ready files or use Elucidat’s built-in hosting to publish it instantly online.
Elucidat’s inbuilt responsive slider allows you to build and test at the same time. Use the slider to change the screen size so you can check how it looks on desktop, tablet and mobile devices.
When you’re ready to make changes, Elucidat’s Rapid Release technology lets you quickly update content in your LMS without having to re-upload SCORM files.
Utility Warehouse uses Elucidat to deliver learning to 46,000 of its learners. Paul Goundry, Head of Learning at Utility Warehouse, says with Elucidat they don’t compromise user experience on any device.
“We’ve tried other tools, but found that [getting] them to work across different platforms meant our content had to be incredibly limited. For example, we ended up having to lock things in landscape formats; the tools didn’t actually allow us to present our content how we wanted or how our learners expected.”
Deliver more effective eLearning, faster
eLearning professionals and instructional designers are always searching for new authoring tools and resources to help create their online courses. DigitalChalk loves Elucidat’s authoring tool because it simplifies the design process, saving time and money. You can easily create your courses using Elucidat and upload it directly into the DigitalChalk platform as SCORM content.
ELearning managers can realize three key benefits when they move to Elucidat’s authoring tool:
- Clear process: All the stages – design, build, test and iterate – are handled in one system.
- Holistic: No need to switch to other software for reviewing, commenting and tracking changes.
- Improved productivity: Teams can work simultaneously on projects whilst the software merges workflows and keeps everything current.
To see what’s possible with Elucidat, take a look at these four eLearning courses:
- Utility Warehouse: New Starter Training
- Medieval Swansea: Interactive eLearning Game
- Open University: To Lie Or Not To Lie
- Connect Group: The Golden Rules
Written by: Steve Penfold
Steve Penfold is Customer Success Director at Elucidat, the simple and intuitive authoring tool. He helps large companies use Elucidat to deliver more effective elearning 50% faster.