Do You Need an Authoring Tool to Create E-Learning?

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Do I need an authoring tool to create an eLearning program or online course? What is an authoring tool? What are the standalone and native authoring tools? In this video, we will answer these questions, tell you how it makes eLearning accessible, and also give you examples to illustrate in which cases you need an authoring tool. Let's dive in.
If you are looking for an LMS for your course, here are our favorites:
Kajabi bit.ly/ep-kajabi
LearnWorlds bit.ly/ep-learnworlds
TalentCards bit.ly/ep-talentcards
TalentLMS bit.ly/ep-talentlms
Tools we use and recommend:
VideoAsk bit.ly/ep-VideoAsk
VidIQ vidiq.com/elearningpartner
In this video, you will learn about such eLearning content:
00:00 Intro
1:30 What is an authoring tool?
2:15 Examples to illustrate what the authoring tool does
4:45 Do you need an authoring tool to create an eLearning or online course?
5:50 Two types of authoring tools
6:00 Standalone authoring tools (Adobe Captivate, Rise, Storyline, Articulate)
10:0 Native authoring tool (Kajabi, Thinkific, TalentLMS, TalentCards)
12:45 Invite to Free MasterClass
If you liked the video, please make sure to give it thumbs up and subscribe to our channel and ring the notification bell 🔔 so you won't miss our new videos. Don’t forget to share with your friends and family. We would love to hear your opinions, comment down below. Thanks for watching.
#elearning #elearningauthoringtools #authoringtools #elearningcontent

[@e-learningpartners]

►► Watch FREE MasterClass → How to Guarantee the Success of Your eLearning Program: bit.ly/es-free-masterclass

[@ehuddy9272]

Nothing like the ol whiteboard and dry erase marker. I love this lesson!

[@e-learningpartners]

Glad you enjoyed it! Sometimes the classics are unbeatable.

[@mojocat7675]

I landed on one of your videos with both of you - and the delivery style was not for me. I clicked on this video, and you have simplified so much for me. I have over 25 years in education - from middle school to higher education. I resigned from a tenured position nearly 6 years ago - COVID hit - there were very few positions in higher ed, and I have gotten older. I am a few days from my 55th birthday with all of this experience and debt, having not landed a college/university job in all of these years. I have signed up for free trials of most of these programs, but have just been overwhelmed with trying to learn them all and understanding what makes any of them different from the others. I run discussion groups online and have used some of these tools to create basic videos, infographics, posters, etc. for years. Currently unemployed, I am trying to find a way to use my experience, my desperation for employment (plus my fear that I am experiencing ageism), and the little understanding I have of these programs to become an expert instructional and learner designer. Before coming to YT to do some research, I was again looking at a long list of well-paying jobs for designers and feeling like I have missed out on so many opportunities just in these few years that eLearning and instruction have taken off the way they have. I am an excellent instructor and counselor who was incorporating so many pedagogical approaches to my instruction long before I knew what they were and before they became popular on the Internet. There is no reason why I should miss out on career - and possibly - entrepreneurship opportunities. I have to admit that I have also been quite afraid to try something so new - and find all of the software / platform choices so dizzying Thanks for this video. I will spend the next few days watching them all and taking a lot of notes.

[@e-learningpartners]

So good to hear! Yes, we have a lot of fun together in the studio and believe that eLearning can be a very boring subject which is why we go pretty over the top with a lot of our videos. Super excited for you and your entrepreneurship journey:)

[@elhamasadi3799]

could you please make a video on creating content with Adapt authoring/ framework tool? it would be great if we could learn about the relationship between SCORM and Adapt? anyways thank you so much for your great great work!!

[@e-learningpartners]

Thank you for your suggestion! We'll definitely consider making a video on that topic in the future.

[@rkghawgs]

Great video! Question for you all - when it comes to the big HCM solutions, like Workday, Oracle Cloud HCM, SAP Success Factors... do those have "native" authoring tools? I think most of them claim to, but the functionality seems much weaker as it pertains to true "Authoring" tools that are more niche providers. Thoughts?

[@e-learningpartners]

Kyle, great question. Yes, the big boys like Workday and Oracle have "native" authoring capabilities, however, as you said what they allow you to do can be limited. These larger tech solutions are more concerned with handling a large load of users (learners), collecting data, and integrating with other systems at your company instead of being a go to authoring solution as well. What kind of content and functionality are you specifically wanting an authoring tool to create?

[@andreykhirnyy7688]

Hello! Thank you for everything you do. I've watched a vast amount of your content and noticed one thing that slightly puzzles me: you don't mention ispring at all, as if it doesn't exist. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) Are there any personal reasons for this or do you believe this product isn't good enough? If it's the latter, it's strange since ispring ranks high in ratings like capterra and G2. I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering about this. Looking forward to your response and more amazing content. Thank you, guys!

[@e-learningpartners]

Thank you! We really appreciate it!

[@davidproost3444]

Hi Jonny! eLearning Partners have developed some great videos, and I find your information very helpful. I am a product manager for an educational/clinical assessment company, and I am charged with the responsibility of finding a LMS that can mirror/duplicate the experience of our new online digital assessments (which have traditionally been paper/pencil for our customers). What I am beginning to realize is that, for this particular goal, the authoring tool is probably the most important element. We need something that can duplicate the experience for the examiner and examinee by clicking/highlighting/manipulating shapes, timing subtests, and highlighting errors vs. correct answers. We want the experience to be as close to the actual assessment process as possible in order to minimize the difficulty in this transition for our customers. The "UI," the functionality, etc...we want to get it as close as possible in our training materials. Do you recommend a particular authoring tool for these kinds of features, or can the native tools available in systems like Absorb, Docebo, etc. handle this type of functionality? Much appreciated for any feedback you have. Keep up the excellent content!

[@e-learningpartners]

David, thank you for reaching out. Sounds like you have a good handle on what you need. A couple of questions for you. Do you already have an LMS picked out? If not, then it sounds like using an authoring tool like Adobe Captivate would allow you to create the functionality you want. The benefits of using Adobe captivate is it is easy to pickup and learn if you don’t know it already because it is kind of like building a power point but the power point is your course. The downside to Adobe captivate is it doesn’t author courses that are as pretty as something designed in the Articulate 360 suite. The upside though is it is significantly less expensive that using Articulate 360. Articulate 360 and particularly Storyline 360 would allow you to build what you are looking for as well. It is part of a suite of tools though so it is much more expensive and can be complex because of everything you can do with it. Now, Rise 360 is also part of that suite of tools and is super easy to pick up. It makes mobile friendly courses pretty seamlessly, but it is much less customizable. Both Adobe captivate and articulate have some sort of free trials though so we suggest you demo them.

[@e-learningpartners]

Now, while we know a lot about LMSs and authoring tools and are aware of absorb and docebo, we don’t know enough to give a proper opinion. With that being said, LearnWorlds and TalentLMS are less expensive than Docebo atleast and may be worth using if you can use Adobe captivate or Articulate 360 to author your course. Then it’s a simple export import function to get the course to live within those LMSs. We have playlists on our channel for both if you want to check them out. Hope that helps.

[@davidproost3444]

​@@e-learningpartners thank you so much for the replies and info! We haven't chosen one yet, so we are open to looking at/demoing others. We've had demos from Absorb, Docebo, 360Learning, and ExpertusOne. Our #1 priority is finding a tool that will allow us to build a course that mimics our online assessment down to the look, feel, and functionality. I've been struggling to understand where that functionality lives, and your videos have given me a much better understanding of what the authoring tools are/do. I just have no clue if any of them can achieve what we need, if a SCORM format can do this, if it involves wireframing, etc...all of that is a bit outside of my wheelhouse. We had some sticker shock from an initial quote by one of the LMS companies, so I will definitely take a look at your suggestions. We have some additional "wants" like advanced analytics, ecommerce, and possibly gamification, but those are all secondary to finding a solution that can provide a seamless training experience for this digital assessment. I appreciate your time!

[@e-learningpartners]

No problem David. Yeah definitely check out TalentLMS and LearnWorlds then. If you are looking to sell your courses we would lean towards LearnWorlds for your LMS. TalentLMS has more gamification functions but LearnWorlds is a much better e-commerce platform and has marketing and sales tools integrated as well. They are both inexpensive. We would then demo Adobe captivate and articulate 360 for actually authoring your course. We would start with a articulate 360 demo and try out Rise 360 and see if you can get what you need created that way.

[@e-learningpartners]

@David if you would like to show us some love, here are our affiliate links for TalentLMS: bit.ly/ep-talentlms and LearnWorlds: bit.ly/ep-learnworlds

[@fggrobler6269]

I watched the whole video and I still don't know if I need it.

[@e-learningpartners]

Thank you for watching our video. If you have questions, you can drop it here on the comments!