What is an eLearning Authoring Tool?
An eLearning authoring tool gives you the power to turn your elearning ideas into interactive, engaging, and effective training and educational content that increases your ROI.
A good eLearning authoring tool can help you save time, streamline your process, and create better products.
However, many eLearning authoring tools are on the market, so it can be difficult to know which one best fits your needs.
With that in mind, this article provides everything you need to know about an eLearning authoring tool. Keep reading.
What is an Authoring Tool?
An authoring tool is software that provides an effective way for creating online courses or eLearning modules.
Businesses often use Authoring tools to create training materials and eLearning programs for employees and their workers to keep them up-to-date on current trends, best practices, and technologies.
Some of these eLearning platforms enable one person or a group of people (usually more than one) to develop, organize, edit, test, publish and even deliver elearning content very efficiently.
Examples of such tools include TheLearning LAB powerful eLearning authoring tool.
How does an eLearning authoring tool work?
eLearning authoring tools work by simplifying several complicated processes involved in creating eLearning courses.
All functions such as eLearning content development, design, media creation, and management are performed with just one tool that is much easier to use than other authoring tools.
Features:
Text Editing
Layout builder
Image Background
Colour selector
Animation
Videos, podcasts, images holder
Quizzes librairy
Design Templates
Branding Design: logo, fonts, colours, icons…
In many cases, an eLearning authoring tool will offer collaboration for teams, marketing templates for sales and account managers, and analytics and reporting to track and measure progress toward your goal.
There are numerous options available on both web-based platforms (each user has their account) and enterprise solutions (all users work within a centralized infrastructure).
What are the top features of an eLearning authoring tool in a Learning Management System?
Here are the top 8 features of an eLearning authoring tool. These will help determine if the authoring tool you are opting for is a good fit for your needs.
Collaboration
One of the best features of an eLearning authoring tool is that it can help people work together on an eLearning development project.
For instance, with TheLearning LAB eLearning authoring tool, you and your team members can collaborate in real-time so that everyone knows what others are doing or planning.
This saves a lot of time finding out and getting up to date with each other. If working asynchronously, our eLearning authoring tool supports different work styles.
It enables you to work wherever and whenever because ours is a web-based platform that allows easy access from any device (laptop, mobile phone, or tablet). Whether at home, office, or on vacation, all team members can keep each other up-to-date with their progress anytime.
Advanced multimedia capability
TheLearning LAB eLearning authoring tool has a multimedia capability that allows for more advanced lesson development.
This means, for example, that it will provide tools for importing image files and creating interaction with those images.
Additionally, it has specific functionality for creating animations and interactive multimedia
Templates and shared document library
An eLearning authoring tool can make your life as an eLearning designer easier in many ways.
Templates and a shared document library that can be accessed in TheLearning LAB eLearning authoring tool can make eLearning course design easier and faster.
Templates get rid of that blank page feeling, letting you add content quickly while saving time on producing original artwork or code.
A shared document library is a convenient way for team members to store and share assets (such as images) during development.
In addition, some tools allow for quick previews so developers can see their changes without restarting or re-running their applications.
Content management
An Elearning authoring tool should support content management, including various robust ways to organize your course and manage teams.
It also supports flexible workflow processes that include checks and balances. With an eLearning authoring tool that supports content management, you can make sure your eLearning courses are easy for team members to work on collaboratively while maintaining high-quality control.
Customization and branding
One of the best features of TheLearning LAB eLearning authoring tools is the support for customization and branding within courses, including instructor fonts, logos, backgrounds, and other customizations that can be easily changed to support each client's particular vision.
In our authoring tools you can create custom animations or insert video into existing modules - an important feature if your company already has pre-produced media assets that could work well in training modules (instead of creating new ones from scratch).
Branding becomes an afterthought instead of a major concern with these capabilities when developing eLearning content.
Storyboarding
An eLearning authoring tool must give room for easy storyboarding. Storyboarding is a quick and easy way for writers to rough out ideas for their eLearning course.
This is especially true for writers who haven't spent much time in instructional design, as it allows them to get used to thinking about interactions and challenges from an instructional designer's perspective.
Getting familiar with storyboarding before diving into content creation can help ensure that writers create courses with strong structure and flow.
It's also good practice for working in teams, where other team members are responsible for specific parts of a project (such as developing interactivity).
Quizzes and assessment
Many eLearning authoring tools like TheLearning LAB allow you to add quizzes and assessment items within your course.
Adding these interactive elements allows learners to gauge their progress as they work through your content.
With a tool like TheLearning LAB, you can even import questions and create quizzes based on answers provided in each survey.
It integrates with an LMS (learning management system) for easy assessment of data reporting.
Adaptive Learning
An eLearning authoring tool that supports adaptive learning enables content developers to create courses that automatically adjust their difficulty level without requiring learners to take a quiz.
By leveraging various personalization options, adaptive elearning tools can also be used to create quizzes and assessments in which students are presented with content based on their knowledge.
For example, an adaptive elearning course could select new material if a student knows 80% of what's being taught in a particular section.
Authoring tools like TheLearning LAB that support adaptive learning typically have course-building capabilities and analytics dashboards that give authors and stakeholders insight into how learners are interacting with course materials.
Creative Learning Management Platform with a Powerful Authoring Tool.
TheLearning LAB
What does SCORM compliant eLearning authoring tool mean?
SCORM-compliant means an eLearning authoring tool is capable of delivering its content via SCORM.
SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. It's an XML file that can be transmitted from one LMS (Learning Management System) to another.
If you want your courseware to be transferrable—say, if it has been developed for multiple clients who will use it with different Learning Management Systems—you should look for an eLearning authoring tool that supports SCORM compliance just like TheLearning LAB.
Since SCORM was created to make content reusable across various elearning platforms, there are many advantages to using a SCORM-compliant eLearning authoring tool. First off, sharing courses with other organizations or groups can save you time by avoiding having to create duplicate courses for each organization.
Also, using a system compatible with other systems gives students access to more opportunities when they leave your training program and enter into others—for example, taking assessments from previous programs within their new company's Learning Management System.
Using such a system makes them feel more at home while easing some of their transition pains.
How to choose an authoring tool?
Many eLearning professionals have been using TheLearning LAB authoring tool to create eLearning courses.
However, now there are plenty of other eLearning authoring tools on the market. They offer various features to help create interactive and engaging learning experiences.
Therefore, choosing an authoring tool wisely according to your requirements is important. To choose a suitable authoring tool, you should consider several aspects such as its price, support offered by its developers and vendors, usability, etc.
Before starting with a particular tool, consider what type of eLearning course you want to develop. Is it performance-based training? Or is it a collaborative project?
Also, make sure that you understand what technology your selected software supports. Does it support multiple elearning platforms?
TheLearning LAB has the best and most-powerful eLearning authoring tool
With a vast array of built-in eLearning authoring tools, TheLearning LAB's user interface is the most intuitive in the industry.
It comes with libraries that are easy to navigate and designed to give learners a pleasant learning experience.
Learners will be happy because they won't have trouble navigating through courses.
However, these course building blocks are not only beautiful but also very powerful in shaping your training content and making it interactive. Choose TheLearning LAB eLearning Platform today.
