[ARCHIVED] Authoring Tool Options

[trinaadams]

Requesting input on experiences with different authoring tools and compatibility with Canvas. 

• Our overall goal is to create branching content to support student directed learning
• Highly desire cross platform function
• Ease of use with Canvas - SCORM, Importing Content, etc.

After investigating, our front runners are Adobe Captivate and Storyline 360. I have experience with Camtasia and SoftChalk. 

Please offer the characteristics of your authoring tool you find most beneficial. If comfortable, please share the biggest headache of your authoring tool and potential work around.

Thanks for your contribution!

[canvas18]

Here at Air University, we use SoftChalk Create 10 (not cloud), Storyline 2 and 3, and we are just getting started with Camtasia.  We have not (yet) used Captivate, though that is on our radar for testing next year.

SoftChalk, Storyline 3, and Camtasia seem to work fine.  Storyline 2 had troubles with custom triggers (as in they wouldn't work), which Storyline 3 seems to have resolved.  Our biggest headache was that we don't have a separate hosting platform for our non-SCORM content -- anything we want to host needs to be inside the course.  This drove us crazy until we figured out how to "directly link" to the index file in the content system and run content in a new window.  

We do extensive branching in exercises built in Storyline.  Branching is limited in Softchalk, but doable.  Haven't tried Camtasia yet.  Our platform of choice for all our in-house exercises going forward will be Storyline 3. 

We are just getting started with SCORM content. We are currently testing the Rustici SCORM cloud plugin with Storyline 3 content.  No issues with configuration and reporting back to the course.

v/r

 MJH  

[laurakgibbs]

Pinging snufer‌ because I know he has experience with these kinds of tools.

[DrNufer]

We use Storyline 2, iSpring, and Camtasia.  Storyline has had some bugs with Canvas.  These have been well documented and both platforms point to the other as the culprit.  Honestly, I'm thinking the shortcoming is actually with Instructure, but it sounds like the newer iterations of Storyline are much cleaner.  iSpring is a much more simple platform - similar to Articulate Presenter - and we rarely have bugs.  We just obtained a couple of licenses to the iSpring full service suite, which has a decent content library.  

Camtasia is more for video editing and such.  Panopto does similar things and more, but I like Camtasia.  You can add quizzing, but it's not really geared as a branching platform.  Also, we are generally getting away from SCORM and leaning more toward LTI.  The problem traditionally with SCORM is that it would only report scores to the gradebook.  We didn't know which questions the students got right/wrong, how much time they spent on questions, etc.  Perhaps tincan integrated those features, but ultimately it would be useful to know more details than simply that a student earned 60% on an assessment.  That's not altogether helpful.  

I like Storyline the best for anything branching.  Adobe Captivate is another option, but I think that Storyline is generally cleaner and easier to work with if your slide is complicated. 

Oh, and last thing is that if you are looking for a place to host external content (i.e. outside of Canvas), then you might consider using an amazon server with the cloudberry interface.  There is a good write up about how to do that: http://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/share-e-learning-courses-amazon-s3/  

[andrea_vibe]

Is Storyline 360 more compatible and less buggy with Canvas?