Those recognised include dozens of independent freelance editors, writers and publishing professionals, along with the content team of Weblink Software, which becomes the first Avallain Author Certified Team. All trainees have completed an extensive six-hour self-study course and a certification module, which assesses both acquired knowledge and practical skills. Certified professionals and teams are able to demonstrate and promote their Avallain Author skills to the wider industry, opening up opportunities to work on the hundreds of projects delivered on Avallain Author each year by clients such as Oxford University Press, Pearson, Cambridge University Press, Santillana and Cengage.
Avallain Author has become the central digital content creation tool in the education industry. The new Training & Certification Programme ensures that content professionals — whether in-house or out-of-house — have an excellent foundation in the many capabilities of Avallain Author and are able to demonstrate their skills to colleagues, publishers and institutions. In addition, by certifying at least 5 team members and retaining their own Author licence, content service providers and publishers can now achieve Avallain Author Certified Team status. Weblink Software is the first to be recognised with a team certification.
“As a key provider of content creation services to the educational publishing industry, Weblink Software is delighted to become the very first Avallain Author Certified Team,” said Gavan Tanham, Chairman of Weblink Software. “Given the important role that Avallain Author plays in the industry, our team’s certification will allow us to provide and promote our services more widely, and assure our clients that their digital projects are in excellent hands.”
Many of the first content professionals to become certified are English Language Teaching specialists and can be found via an accreditations search in the ELT Publishing Professionals directory, developed in collaboration with Avallain.
Ignatz Heinz, President and Co-Founder of Avallain said: “We have always wanted to make our Avallain Author training available to all professionals and teams – in-house or out-of-house – and to provide certification so that they can demonstrate their capabilities. These first certifications offer our clients and their providers exciting new opportunities to work together in Avallain Author, secure in the knowledge that they have all the skills needed to create groundbreaking, powerful educational content. Congratulations to all!”
Avallain is an award-winning Swiss EdTEch and eLearning solutions provider that works with leading premium brands worldwide. The company’s mission is to unlock human potential through innovative technology-enhanced education and to enable its clients to create highly interactive e-Learning content solutions.
Weblink Software is a complete content service provider for the ELT industry, transforming print-based content for delivery in online platforms. Trusted by the biggest publishers and the first team to be certified by Avallain, Weblink provides a hassle-free and constructive workflow to create high-quality digital outcomes.
ELT Publishing Professionals is a dynamic online directory specialised in helping ELT and educational publishers hire freelancers with the right skills, experience and accreditations for their outsourced projects. ELTpp’s CPD programme includes input from Avallain, and together they have developed a filter for publishers to find Avallain-accredited freelancers.
Avallain Author was created over 15 years ago with the intention of establishing the most powerful and flexible digital authoring tool available to educational content creators. Over the years, it has evolved to be the central technology used by the industry, benefitting from real-world-use with educational publishers throughout the world.
Avallain Author now provides unrivalled support for diverse content formats, use-cases, workflows and modes of learning, resulting in more than 8.5 million interactive content items – all of them developed by our clients. The more it has been used by real content creators and deployed at scale, the more sophisticated Avallain Author has become.
An essential skillset for publishers, freelancers, and content service providers
To keep pace with the many developments in Avallain Author, Avallain has evolved its customer support and training, ensuring that clients are able to make the best use of the tool and achieve truly unique, vibrant and impactful learning experiences.
Given the many collaborations that happen in content creation, this training should be available to everyone, from in-house editorial staff, to authors, freelancers, and content service providers. And they should have a reliable and recognised way to demonstrate their Avallain Author knowledge and skills.
Welcome to the Avallain Author Training and Certification Programme.
This brand-new programme combines a 6-hour video-led training course and a 2-hour certification module. Everything is delivered on Avallain’s powerful learning platform, AvallainMagnet, meaning that the course can be completed in the trainee’s own time and on any device. It includes sandboxed access to Avallain Author itself, so that trainees can practise all they have learned and establish a lasting set of skills.
Trainees and teams that complete the training and pass the final test receive a digital certificate and badge that can be easily displayed on profiles, directories, and websites. This ensures that Avallain Author and Avallain Magnet clients are able quickly to identify skilled Author professionals and companies to help with their content programmes.
Dozens of professionals and a number of content service providers are already on their way to becoming Avallain Author certified, and upcoming cohorts are already scheduled, with seats still available.
Those interested in joining this unique programme can visit the registration page to find more information about how to get certified on one of the most powerful and popular authoring tools in the world.
Online courses help businesses and educational institutions make teaching and training more accessible for every kind of learner. But how do you create an effective one?
Online courses are made for a variety of reasons. People use them to learn new skills. Businesses use them to train their employees and provide certifications. Educational institutions use them to create new and engaging curriculum.
Because eLearning is so pervasive in today’s world, you might find yourself having to create an online course for the first time. That can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t have a background in education or instructional design. And it’s even tougher if you don’t have the right tool on your side for it.
We put together these essential steps to help instructors and trainers get on the right path.
6 Essential Steps to Creating an Online Course
Creating an effective online course takes time and planning. Here’s how to do it.
#1. Pick Your Topic
What’s your course going to be about?
There are a few ways you can go about answering these questions, but in general, you want to pick a topic that fits an organisational need and has enough information to warrant the creation of an entire course. You’ll also want to pick a topic that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about.
Depending on your situation, and who you are creating the course for, ask yourself questions like…
Does this topic need an entire course or to be an activity within a course?
What skills do learners need to succeed?
Does it fill a gap in your curriculum?
Will learners benefit from this topic being an online course?
Questions like these will help guide your thinking as you go about the initial planning stages.
#2. Start with Learning Outcomes in Mind
Next, before you do anything else, you need to consider what the learning outcomes should be for this course.
What do you want your learners to get from it?
What value do you want to bring them?
What value does this course bring your organisation?
These are critical questions that help focus your content, narrow down your audience, and gives your online course a purpose.
For example, if you have a goal for your learners to become experts in a topic, then you will need to have expert-level content and modules to guide them to that ideal state.
This also ensures that the right learners are taking your course. You don’t want complete beginners taking an expert-level course and vice versa.
#3. Write Your Content
Now it’s time to start creating the course!
Start by creating an outline. This outline will act as your curriculum and your overall course structure. Make sure that you have enough lessons and activities outlined that will last the duration of the course. Give your topics a logical order, making sure each topic seamlessly transitions to the one after.
Then you can start filling in the blanks of your outline by either creating new content. Or if you have applicable content that already exists, feel free to repurpose that existing content. That can save you time and money.
When writing out your content make sure that it’s always focused on your learners and the learning outcomes you set out.
This can also be where you create your assignments, quizzes, and tests.
#4. Produce and Edit Your Content
With the meat of your course content and structure finished, it’s time to gather and produce the multimedia elements of the course. With the right authoring software, it’s easy.
Gather all the assets you have, and if you find some gaps, then consider producing new elements like images and video.
Find where each element fits in your course and consider your media mix. It’s best practice to keep content types varied. Add games and interactive activities that will grab your learners’ attention. Consider how those activities will be scored, whether it’s automatically or manually. These elements help your online course stand out, and they also drive engagement. So, get creative!
#5. Share Your Online Course
Now that the course is finalised, it’s time to send it out to your learners. There are a lot of eLearning software packages out there that can help you do this, but these days, a dedicated, all-in-one Learning Management System is the best way to get your courses to your learners.
Through an LMS, you can easily publish, manage and distribute your courses, communicate with your learners, and offer immersive learning experiences to keep people engaged.
#6. Track Metrics and Constantly Iterate
Last but certainly not least, you’ll want to track engagement metrics on your online course.
Track statistics like…
How many people complete the course
How long it took them to complete the course
How well they did on assessments and quizzes
How much of the content did the watch, listen to, or read
These metrics will show you where your course can improve. If people are tuning out in certain places, then you know where you can work to improve your course so that your learners or trainees achieve the desired learning outcome.
Conclusion
By taking the time to think through these steps, you’ll create an online course that fully covers a topic and serves the needs of your learners and your organisation. eLearning software gives you the tools to create beautiful and engaging online courses that get results.
Ready to create effective online courses? Avallain can help.Contact us today and tell us about your needs.
New to eLearning? You probably have some questions. With so many terms, concepts, and eLearning products floating around, it’s difficult to find the right solution for your organisation’s needs. This list of eLearning software FAQs should clear up some of the basics.
At Avallain, we get a lot of questions about eLearning software. And with the demand for eLearning increasing, organisations are searching for solutions to meet this demand. If you’re the person tasked with implementing an eLearning program, then you’ve come to the right place.
These FAQs will give a level of base knowledge to make an informed decision when looking for an eLearning software solution for your organisation.
eLearning Software: 15 Frequently Asked Questions
#1. What is eLearning?
eLearning is short for electronic learning. It’s a catch-all term for any learning content delivered electronically.
It’s a way of learning that enables publishers, businesses, and educational institutions to distribute engaging and effective courses that help people learn new skills, employees gain new certifications, and students succeed in their studies.
#2. What is eLearning software?
eLearning software is a term that can cover a wide swath of software applications. At a top-level, these are programs that create, administer, publish, and track any kind of eLearning course or activity.
Once delivered offline, these software solutions have taken on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, which offers a higher level of performance and flexibility.
#3. What are the different types of eLearning software?
There are four main categories of eLearning software. They all fulfill different functions, and they can be used separately or in any combination depending on your needs.
Online Authoring Tools – These are tools that are solely used to create eLearning content. They can deliver that content via an API or by publishing directly to a connected learning platform.
Learning Management System (LMS) – A software application made specifically for the administration and delivery of eLearning courses. An LMS helps you manage every stage of delivering learning to an audience.
Learning Experience Platform (LXP) – A newer application that’s making a splash in the online training industry, an LXP is essentially and LMS with higher level functions to foster a better user experience. These functions include gamification, personalised dashboards, reporting capabilities, and artificial intelligence.
Comprehensive or All-In-One Software – These programs deliver both authoring and distribution functions into one package. They allow you to create, deliver, and manage the learning experience from start to finish. Platforms like these have grown very popular because you can get the benefits of two platforms for the price of one. Avallain Magnet is a perfect example of these software packages. It’s a seamless and easy-to-use bespoke LMS and LXP with authoring capabilities built in.
#4. What are the different types of eLearning?
eLearning courses can come in many forms. Some of the most popular include lectures and seminars delivered in audio or video format. eLearning can even be delivered in eBooks and interactive games and quizzes.
#5. What features should you look for in an eLearning software?
Each business has its own goals, and a bespoke eLearning software can help businesses reach their goals. Some general qualities businesses should consider include the ease of use, user experience, level of interactivity, accessibility, security, and customisability.
#6. How do you create content with eLearning software?
Break It Up – It’s important to keep your learning content organised. Break your content up into courses and modules, that way it’s easily digestible for your audience. Plus, it’s easier to keep track of on the admin end.
Use Multimedia – Interactivity has a profound impact on learning outcomes. Make sure to incorporate a variety of media forms into your eLearning courses.
Prioritise Interactivity – Make sure to take the time and ask your learners to interact with the material. Whether through quizzes, games, or other tools, getting learners directly involved in their learning always leads to better results.
#7. What sort of media can eLearning software support?
Not all eLearning software can support all forms of online media. That’s why it’s important to find a software that can. Multimedia learning content is a key to keeping your learners engaged.
Whether you’re looking to create engaging infographics, PDFs, video, audio, or even fully functional games, the right eLearning authoring software can help.
#8. How interactive can eLearning be?
The quick answer is very interactive! And the more interactive, the better.
With the advancements in authoring software and LXP’s, eLearning is more interactive than ever before. Multimedia content creates plenty of opportunities for the learner to take complete control over their learning experience.
#9. Is eLearning accessible to people with different learning styles?
Definitely! The great thing about eLearning software is that they can support all forms of online media, allowing you to create a variety of learning content that resonates with all learning styles. Be sure to test your engagement to find out what works best for your learners.
#10. Can eLearning software publish content to all devices, including desktop and mobile?
Yes, and that should be something you look for. One of the best parts about eLearning is the flexibility it provides for the end user. And with the right software, they can learn on a tablet at the library. Then they can continue that module at their home office on a desktop computer. Later on, they can pick it back up on their morning commute through their phone.
#11. Can you integrate existing courses or in-person courses with eLearning software?
Yes! In fact, a blended learning environment can be highly effective, allowing you to get the full benefits of eLearning and in-person learning. The best eLearning software provide that flexibility.
#12. Can eLearning software create e-books?
Again, not all eLearning software is created equal. Some eLearning software packages have limited capabilities in this area. It’s important to verify what each software package you’re considering can and can’t do.
The right eLearning authoring tools (like Avallain Author) can help you compile and manage content into cohesive eBooks ready for publishing.
#13. Who can or should use eLearning software?
Anyone can use eLearning, and the right solution will vary, depending on their industry, their needs, and their objectives.
Traditionally, eLearning has been boosted by publishers, educational institutions, and publishers, but small, mid-sized and large businesses are also taking their piece of the cake, after seeing the advantages of online training, bespoke learning content,
#14. How does eLearning software benefit businesses?
The right eLearning solution can spark growth in your employees and, as a result, your entire business. eLearning benefits organisations by providing easy and comprehensive solutions to onboarding, professional development, compliance, culture, certifications, and change management. We cover these benefits in a lot more detail in this blog post.
#15. How does eLearning software benefit schools and universities?
eLearning solutions enable schools and universities of all sizes around the world to develop their own interactive digital education content. These assets can be courses unto themselves, or they can supplement existing courses. They allow universities to enroll students across the globe, expanding their offerings and reach.
Conclusion
There are a lot of eLearning software programs out there, so having a basic knowledge of what’s available and how it can be used to benefit your organisation will help you find the right solution.
Now that you know the basics, ready to find out more about how eLearning can benefit your organisation? Avallain can help.Contact us today and tell us about your needs.
Corporate training is more important now than ever. In today’s dynamic working environment, processes such as onboarding, upskilling, corporate compliance, and professional development can be highly optimised by implementing online employee training software. Here’s how.
Online employee training software enables organisations to train and share knowledge with their teams online. A solution specifically designed for the needs of the corporate sector, it makes it easy to build, deliver, and track training efforts through an all-in-one online platform.
In today’s highly remote work environment, this type of solution matters. Online training is independent of location, time, and schedules, which means an unlimited number of employees can be trained at once across different time zones at the click of a few buttons. It’s cost-effective for your business—saving you from travelling and training staff costs—while automating training in a consistent manner across your entire organisation.
The best online employee training software offers interactive training and personalised training paths for employees, boosting engagement and retention—and faster, clearer, and more manageable data on performance and outcomes for organisation leaders.
To see these benefits in action, let’s take a look at how corporates are using employee training software.
6 Ways Companies Use Online Employee Training Software
Online training software serves many purposes. There are solutions available that are suitable for the specific training requirements of the corporate sector.
Different companies across different industries will have their own reason (or reasons) for implementing online employee training software. Here are some of those purposes.
1. Onboarding
Companies use online training software to onboard new employees, ensuring a consistent and seamless transition for any new hire. It helps organisations deliver all pertinent information to newcomers and, at the same time, an acceptable level of understanding and learning about the company, specific processes and tasks related to each accountability, depending on the role of the new hire. Online training software prepares them for immediate success and allows new hires to show up on their first day with a firm grasp on the job and company policies.
2. Continuous Professional Development
Companies also use this type of solution after the initial onboarding process to continuously improve their employees.
With the support of online employee training software, companies of any size can upskill employees with no limitations of headcount or skills and easily, accurately, and efficiently train employees on specific areas of interest.
3. Compliance
Other organisations—namely those in tightly regulated industries like finance and healthcare — rely on online training to ensure compliance on a global scale on topics relevant to their business. Global compliance standards are vital for these industries and easily achievable with online training.
Regardless of industry, though, most organisations need to care about meeting IT security, work safety, legal, and ISO standards. With accurate data about employees’ performance, organisations can easily identify areas of improvement and quickly assure standardisation and compliance across all branches.
4. Corporate Culture
With an ever-increasing competitive hiring landscape, companies need to work on their corporate culture and level of engagement to attract and retain the best talent in the market.
That’s why more and more companies implement online employee training software, which enables trending benefits such as remote work and personal development.
Above all, companies can reinforce company values and other items that are essential to the corporate culture. Doing so maintains a strong company culture and keeps your employees engaged, dedicated to their work, and aware of their important role in the company.
5. Employee Certification
Since online training software allows companies to train an unlimited number of employees in topics and skills according to their needs, companies use it to speed up the process of employee certification.
This is especially beneficial to organisations that are part of industries where certifications are equal to compliance, or when potential clients base their final decision on the possibility of working with certified professionals.
6. React to Changes
Now more than ever, companies need to be able to react quickly and accurately to rapid changes. An online training platform allows you to quickly create modules or courses related to the latest industry changes.
Whether it’s new hygiene regulations as a part of COVID-19 or new data privacy regulations, training software provides your company with the flexibility to respond to changes in a timely and consistent manner.
Online Employee Training Software: 6 Essential Features
It’s clear that online employee training software plays an important role for a number of corporate purposes. But to have the benefits described above, you need a suitable and efficient solution that includes at least the following features:
Dedicated Roles: Companies need the power to divide users by roles, such as learner and trainer. This ensures their interaction with the platform is coherent with the company’s and the user’s objectives and hierarchies.
Multimedia Content: The use of videos, audio files, images, PDFs, PPT presentations, eBooks, and more is essential for organisations to deliver training that works and keeps your employees engaged.
Performance Tracking and Reports: To know what works and what doesn’t, companies need a high level of detail and accessibility on the performance of learning programs. Training software should easily and clearly keep track of metrics like content usage, employees’ learning process, and performance.
Secured Access and Storage: Considering how sensitive corporate information can be, the training solution must be secure. Your learning software should offer privacy and protection against any type of threat, including the ones that might even be in the office.
White Label: Branding is a very important element of organisations. As such, learning software should offer white label capabilities, allowing corporations to customise their dashboards with the intention of creating a personalised experience for their employees. This allows employees to fully interact and connect with the brand and the company’s identity.
Bespoke Content: It’s vital to be able to create bespoke and engaging training content in order to ensure inspiring and effective learning experiences tailored to the individual company.
Conclusion
With the right solution, online employee training software can help your organisation in a number of areas. Overall, it helps you reach all your training and business goals by making sure your employees are certified, compliant, knowledgeable, and in touch with your organisation’s culture and values.
Avallain Magnet, combined with Avallain Author, offers all the features you need to create custom content, deliver and manage top-notch digital training experiences, and fulfill the training purposes outlined above. Packed in a fully functional suite with no additional setup costs and no risks of lack of compatibility (two common issues many corporates face when implementing training software), Avallain ensures the best outcome for a corporate digital learning strategy.
Ready to meet and surpass all corporate training requirements? Avallain can help.Contact us today tell us about your needs.
eLearning authoring software is helping publishers, universities and corporations produce online courses and training programs at an unprecedented rate. In this post, we break down the top 4 reasons why.
eLearning authoring software is a creative tool used by instructional designers to create and deliver high-quality eLearning content.
There are two general types of authoring software:
Standalone software that offers advanced authoring capabilities. Standalone authoring tools also have publishing functionality, but they need a destination to deliver the content (learning platform, website, mobile or web application, etc). Standalone software can fully integrate with a learning management system as an all-in-one solution.
Prebuilt authoring tools with limited authoring and publishing capabilities, included in learning management systems or all-in-one solutions.
In this blog, we’re focusing more on standalone eLearning authoring software.
While each type has unique specialisations, having dedicated authoring tools for creating learning content offers a number of benefits for publishers, univeirsities and businesses.
Reason #1: Better Learning Outcomes
The main benefit of eLearning authoring software is how easy it makes the process of creating customised learning content. Using advanced features and multimedia functionality, course designers can rapidly create more engaging and interactive content. And that can have a profound impact on learning outcomes.
In online courses, interactivity is defined as requiring students to engage with content through different senses, tools or actions. Courses with higher levels of interactivity tend to provide greater learning outcomes.
For example, an exercise requiring students to read a passage, listen to audio and complete a question uses multiple touchpoints to reinforce a concept, producing a better learning result.
Reason #2: Content and Asset Management
To create better learning outcomes with more engaging and interactive content, you need more than just a way to create said content. You need a way to manage it all in one place. This is where online authoring tools excel.
eLearning authoring software provides full flexibility and overview of your assets when it comes to storing and structuring your content. This is helpful because you will likely reuse the same content for different learning products in order to stay as efficient as possible and get the most out of each created piece of content.
Another component of content and asset management is version visibility. This allows you to identify which piece is the latest version so you can quickly update content or even restore an older version as needed. This also provides full control over all your media and other assets. You know exactly when it was uploaded, by who, as part of what content and learning product. Then, you can update or replace the asset with just one click everywhere.
Lastly, content and asset management needs to be backed by high security and performance. Standalone authoring tools offer state-of-the-art shared or dedicated cloud-hosting solutions, providing instructional designers with the utmost security and performance of their data and assets.
Reason #3: Production & Project Management
Another benefit of authoring software is that it offers robust production and project management capabilities alongside content creation.
In the same way that marketing teams or video developers use project management software to track their deadlines and resources, authoring software can serve as a production management tool to help instructional design teams.
eLearning authoring software allows designers to work with different stages and workflows to match editorial workflows, such as “in progress,” “final draft,” “approved” and “published.” Also, you can work with different user roles and rights to seamlessly get your offline team processes and responsibilities mirrored online. If wished, you can easily and safely work with outsourced capacities.
This is particularly useful for design teams and publishers who have to work on concurrent projects, meet deadlines and track the performance of their work. With a more structured way to create and manage learning content, many teams find that their designers can work faster and more flexibly.
Reason #4: Integrations
A final benefit of authoring software is its ability to integrate with your learning management system (LMS) or learning experience platform (LXP) software or solution. Using industry standards such as xAPI or Scorm, most common authoring applications allow you to publish a course to a connected LMS or LXP for users to enjoy.
However, eLearning software integrations are most successful and beneficial to instructional designers when the standalone authoring tool integrates with an LMS or LXP from the same brand. To understand why, let’s look at all possible combinations:
Standalone Authoring Tool + Different Brand LMS/LXP
When you use a standalone authoring tool and an LMS or LXP from different vendors, complications may arise during publishing.
For example, content may not display precisely in the platform in the way it was initially authored, and publishing processes may require cumbersome manual import/export. Also, when it comes to updating your content, you may have to update the same content piece in each single course – instead of clicking once to update across everything.
Prebuilt Authoring Tool Within LMS/LXP
Alternatively, you can opt for a prebuilt authoring tool within an LMS or LXP, making the publishing and updating process much smoother. However, you miss out on the benefits of standalone eLearning software—including engaging content with a lot of variety, powerful content and asset management features, production, workflow and project management features, and more.
Standalone Authoring Tool + Same Brand LMS/LXP (All-In-One)
This leads us to an all-in-one solution that offers a standalone authoring tool and an LMS/LXP from the same brand, perfectly tuned to each other and seamlessly integrated. You get the benefits of both worlds: Full features of a standalone solution and smooth and quick publishing and updating processes.
Conclusion
Instructional designers are creating online courses and digital training experiences faster than ever thanks to eLearning authoring software. From better learning outcomes to project management functionality, authoring software offers a number of benefits for publishers, universities and businesses looking to level up their online courses.
Need eLearning tools for authoring, distributing and managing your content? Avallain can help. Tell us more about your needs today.
Demand for engaging and informative online courses has never been greater. But producing these types of content at scale is no easy task. In this post, we’ll break down what eLearning software is and how it helps organisations create better courses.
eLearning software is a digital tool that a company, organisation or individual uses to create learning content and experiences online. In some ways, eLearning software is an umbrella term that comprises numerous subcategories of specialised learning software.
While researching eLearning software, you’re likely to come across dozens of synonyms for the term. These include, to name a few:
Learning management system
Online training system
Content authoring tools
Digital instructional design
Digital learning software
Instructional design tools
Online training platform for business
Learning experience platforms
Each subcategory of eLearning software provides unique specialisations or features. But one thing they all have in common is their ability to create or distribute content and learning experiences online.
Traditionally, learning software was delivered offline, but this is becoming less common every day. Now the industry-standard for learning is the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, which offers a higher level of performance and flexibility.
How Does eLearning Software Work?
Producing an online course involves two steps: creation (or authoring) and distribution. eLearning software provides course designers a virtual environment for each.
The administration environment is where platform administrators will manage courses, products and the platform. The environment is also designed to provide the optimal user and learning management experience for the organisation operating the platform.
The frontend environment is where the end users, such as teachers, trainers, students and learners engage with the content and courses, as well as with each other. The design of this environment is focused on providing a positive user experience for the person taking – and the person grading – the course.
Types of eLearning Software
While there are dozens of providers of eLearning software – each with their own specialisation – they all fit into four general categories.
This allows you to create, deliver and manage the entire learning experience, from inception to engagement with end users.
All-in-one software has become popular because you get the benefits of two platforms for the price of one, without losing functionality.
Authoring functionality for all-in-one solutions is usually either built-in, which often limits their capabilities, or achieved through seamless integration with a more robust authoring tool that has better features and functionality.
Some providers also offer solutions that allow you to customise your learning platforms, such as adding your own branding. These solutions check all the boxes of comprehensive software, but allow for a greater degree of customisation and flexibility.
It’s worth noting that a cutting-edge all-in-one solution should offer the capabilities of both a learning management system (LMS) and a learning experience platform (LXP), depending on the individual requirements and demands of its users.
(More on that in a bit.)
Online Authoring Tools
Online authoring tools are solely dedicated to the creation of eLearning content. They cannot deliver the content to end users. However, they do have the capability to export content via API (such as xAPI and SCORM) or by publishing directly to a connected learning platform.
Authoring tools have three main use cases:
Publishers use them to both digitalise their educational content and create more interactive digital content
Corporates use them to create and maintain high quality training courses for their employees
Agencies use them to create content that they can then sell to publishers or corporates
Learning Management System
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, and delivery of educational courses and training programs. Put simply, an LMS helps you manage every stage of delivering a learning experience to an audience.
There are standalone learning management systems on the market, but in many ways LMS represents a range of functionality that other applications provide. For example, an all-in-one solution might provide LMS features.
Learning Experience Platforms
A learning experience platform (LXP) is a new type of application that’s having a huge impact on the way the industry thinks about learning content. An LXP is essentially all-in-one publishing software but with a higher level of features and functionality that fosters a better user experience.
LXPs help you create personalised learning experiences through a number of innovative features, including:
Gamification
Personalised dashboards
Advanced reporting capabilities
Artificial intelligence
Conclusion
Engaging online learning experiences don’t happen by accident. eLearning software makes it easier than ever to create and deliver courses to users anywhere.
Need eLearning tools for authoring, distributing and managing your content? Tell us more about your needs today.
With Avallain Author Release 30, we focus our attention on enhancing the user experience for content creators, administrators, teachers and trainers so they can, in turn, create the best interactive content for learners.
Creating comprehensive eBooks straight from PDF files? Check! More information in Project Reports? Check! More intuitive experience for the Media Library and user management functions? Check! With our latest update, creating learning materials with Avallain Author becomes even more streamlined and more intuitive in many different ways.
New eBook feature: Create eBooks from PDF files
One of the most frequently requested features for Avallain Author is the ability to import PDF files into the program and convert them directly into eBooks. With Avallain Author Release 30, this has become a reality. When creating eBooks, content creators now get to choose between three distinct methods:
Creating an eBook out of image files
Converting a PDF file into an eBook
Compiling multiple PDF files into a single eBook
Compared to the image-based eBook creation method, using PDF files as a basis has one significant advantage: Since PDF files can store text elements independently from image files, the resulting eBook also treats both as distinct elements. This means that teachers, trainers and learners can select, copy and paste the text from the eBook just like they would with a PDF file. In addition, the text scales much better when zooming in.
Most importantly, creating eBooks from PDF files is a great way of making learning materials more accessible to learners with visual impairments. Since text elements are stored separately from image information, standard screen reader programs can easily detect the text and read it aloud.
Backend enhancement: Getting a better overview of the Media Library
The Avallain Author Media Library can store a wide range of media, allowing content creators to quickly find whatever images, videos or audio files they need. However, once the number of media assets stored in the Media Library becomes large enough, going through search results might still take some time.
This is why Avallain Author Release 30 introduces the option of displaying pieces of media as large tiles, small tiles or as a list. Together with the new functionality which automatically adapts the number of media elements shown per row to the width of the screen, this makes it much easier to find the asset you’re looking for.
We have also added additional filters to the Media Library search function. Available filters now include “Embedded media type” and “Thumbnail media type”. And to make it easier to not only find media but also import it directly into your Learning Objects (LOs), we have added the functions “Copy Reference ID” and “Copy URL” to the dot actions menu for easy access. And when bulk uploading media assets to LOs, content creators can now de-select individual assets from the list.
New backend function for Administrators: Assign Activity Type Options
With Avallain Author version 30, Admins now have the ability to decide which Activity Type Options Project Managers can use on each Master Activity Type. This increases the control Admins have over the Master Activity Types and prevents Project Managers from accidentally using Activity Type Options which are to be avoided for the specific Project.
This change brings this particular aspect of the backend in line with how other interactions between Admins and Project Managers work in Avallain Author. Thus, it also makes working within the backend more intuitive for everyone involved.
Re-designed user management
The User Profile window has been re-designed according to user feedback. It now provides a smoother and more intuitive user experience, including a new option to change passwords directly from the same window.
This makes changing your password much more convenient, which should also lead to increased overall security, as changing your security information on a regular basis takes much less time and effort now.
More efficient comments feature
The comments function in Avallain Author now enables users to edit and delete existing comments using the dot menu on the left side of the respective comment. This allows them to clarify their comments or delete them once an issue has been resolved, improving in-team communication and speeding up problem-solving and feedback processes.
Additional information in Reports
The Project Report and Full Project Report functions have been upgraded to feature additional information which gives users on the content creation side more information than ever:
Project Reports can now include the Work Package name, screen number and Activity title
Full Project Reports can now include Work Package name, screen number, Activity title, LO options, Global options, Specific options, LO Comments and Activity Comments
Note: This information is displayed in separate columns for a clear overview. Full Project Report lists will only include Global options, Specific options and LO options if they deviate from the default options.
New function: Copy Product types
With Avallain Author Release 30, it is possible to copy product types more efficiently and quickly. Simply copy them directly on the Products types screen, as you would copy projects.
New feature: Copy-and-paste plain text only
Rich text is a text format which includes formatting information such as tags which identify bold or italicised text elements. When copying rich text, these formatting tags are also copied, often without the user realising it, and they might interfere with the proper functionality of Avallain Author Learning Objects.
Thus, we have changed the copy-and-paste functionality of Avallain Author to automatically convert rich text into plain text. This means you will need to re-apply formatting information when copying text into Avallain Author – but it also allows you to completely avoid any functionality problems which would otherwise be caused by accidentally copying incompatible tags into your Learning Objects.
New syntax tags allow content creators to chain together free writing exercises
The syntax tags #textinput# and #richtextinput# now allow content creators to define their initial content by using #showtext#.
In effect, this allows content creators to chain together free writing exercises based on the initial text written by the learner. This makes it possible to have exercises where, for example, learners first write a text and then add new information to modify the text in the following exercises.
Dialogue Recording Avatars: Syntax simplification
In Dialogue Recording Activities, content creators can have the LO show an Avatar for specific persons interacting with the learner. For example, a learner may be asked to have a conversation with a fictional counterpart represented by a picture of the fictional Avatar. Previously, this was handled by including a picture of the Avatar within the syntax of the Learning Object.
With Avallain Author Release 30, this process is now much easier. Simply associate a specific character with an image as well as a Substyle in the Design Pack and the Learning Object can be set to automatically display that image whenever the Substyle is used. Thus, individual parts of a text can easily be assigned to different characters without the need to implement a new picture into the syntax every time.
Simple recording features support for apps
The integrated Product Builder can now create apps which support the Recording Audio and Playback Recorded Audio features of Avallain Author.
LOs that use such features are now fully compatible with any app created with the Product Builder, potentially increasing the target audience for your learning materials.
AvallainBase now fully translated into German
With Avallain Author Release 30, AvallainBase and all associated Design Packs are now available in German. Simply go to the Language Attributes setting and choose “DE” from the available options to turn all elements, including the UI, into a German-language user experience.
Continuously improving your user experience – with Avallain Author release 30
The latest version of Avallain Author concentrates on creating a streamlined content creation process. But, as Max Bondi, Product Manager Avallain Author, points out: “In the end, making the content creation process more intuitive is not just beneficial to content creators, Admins and Project Managers; it also increases the quality of the learning materials which are created.”
The rollout of Avallain Author Release 30 has already begun. Feel free to share your experience with us, so we can improve the software even further with Avallain Author Release 31, due to be launched in three months.
With new visuals and a more intuitive user experience for managing resources as well as new functionalities, additional options and ground-breaking new Activity Types, Avallain Author Release 29 brings a series of highly exciting updates to our already powerful authoring tool.
Create and manage new Activities more easily, organise your Media Library and try out new ways to make full use of the integrated voice recognition technology. All of this serves to make the process of creating learning materials even smoother and increase your opportunities to provide your learners with highly individualised and engaging learning experiences.
Enhanced backend design and functionality
Avallain Author Release 29 greets content creators with several new features aimed at making the content creation experience even more intuitive than before:
New user interface design: Avallain Author Release 29 features a redesigned main menu layout which makes it easier to perform global actions while remaining familiar to experienced Avallain Author users. At the same time, we have separated the project toolbar from the header, leaving all project editing functions available under the project name.
New Media Library design: Managing media resources is now even smoother, with a more intuitive design that will be further enhanced in upcoming Avallain Author releases.
Improved Product Builder: Avallain Author Release 29 makes working on complex builds and content packages much more convenient, with significantly enhanced performance across the board, resulting in a much more stable working experience. The enhanced Product Builder also comes with new Building Platforms for Android and iOS, ensuring full compatibility with all common operating systems.
New user interface design: Switching between projects, managing profile access and sessions, and separated Project toolbar from the header with all project editing functions.
New projects and asset management features and functionality
Our powerful online authoring tool has always excelled at incorporating a wide variety of media in learning materials while ensuring full compatibility between different versions of the software and the learning materials created with it. In Avallain Author Release 29, we further enhance this vision:
Improved Learning Object import: To ensure compatibility when importing Learning Objects across multiple installations of Avallain Author, the new release provides content creators with a detailed report on the differences between the configuration of the Learning Object and the target project. If the differences are significant, Avallain Author Release 29 can be set to replace missing but indispensable properties and options with the closest available alternatives.
Enhanced Header Media Option: In this newest release of Avallain Author, we have exchanged the Header Audio Option for a new Header Media Option that allows either audio or video assets to be displayed in the header of a Learning Object. This enhancement also assures that video files displayed in the header run smoothly and continuously, even when learners switch between Activities.
HLS video support: To optimise video playback on unreliable internet connections, Avallain Author Release 29 can automatically adapt (or be manually set to adapt) video players to the bandwidth available. This ensures stable video playback even when connectivity is weak, provided that Design Pack support is available and certain changes have been made to the video conversion setting of Avallain Author.
Enhanced Design Pack support: Design Packs can now customise the design of Learning Objects to a greater extent, offering new options for end-result syntax, button mark-up, placement and much more. At the same time, users gain more language support options, such as choosing a default language or setting a specific language as the default for a specific Learning Object.
Header Media LO Option
New authoring options and syntax
In addition to new features aimed at enhancing the workflow of content creators, Avallain Author Release 29 also offers several new settings for creating even more individualised Learning Objects:
New Reveal Object functionality: On Present activities, that are currently using the Reveal Object functionality, content creators can now set Show Forward to “After all answers” or “After one answer”. This ensures greater control over when users can use the Forward button when engaging with Reveal Object tasks.
Info text: New dialogue display: In any given Learning Object, info text can now be displayed as either a tool tip or a dialogue, provided the Design Pack used allows for it. The new “Dialog” value can be set in the Global Option “Show Info Text”.
New option: End Results Button: Content creators can now use the Global Option “End Results Button” to decide on which screens the button will appear: “Every Screen” allows students to be able to switch to the End Results screen whenever they finished a screen or “Last screen” if you prefer learners to complete all screens before they are shown their results.
New End Results – screen syntax: The new End Results screen can be customised to display results based on specific categories defined by metadata. Content creators can also use Design Packs to create visual representations of these scores, e.g. pie charts etc.
Brand-new Activity Types using voice recognition technology
We are excited to roll out new Activity Types that make full use of the groundbreaking voice recognition technology that is available through Avallain Author.
The first one is called Input:Match:Voice and enables you to create voice recording activities that evaluate the pronunciation of complete sentences by artificial intelligence. Thus, learners can get immediate feedback on specifically which words and expressions they have pronounced correctly or not.
Pronunciation evaluation with a new voice recognition Activity Type
The other new Activity Type which benefits from it is called Identify:Select:Radiobutton Voice. With this new Activity Type you can create Radiobutton Activities in which the selection is made orally. The learners record their selection and the voice recognition technology transcribes the recorded audio and gives instant feedback whether their recording matches the answer.
Workflow optimisation and more diverse content creation – with Avallain Author Release 29
The newest build of our leading authoring tool takes a big step in redesigning and improving existing content creation features while providing brand-new functions. As Max Bondi, Product Manager Avallain Author, puts it: “At Avallain, we seek to not only enhance our product with every new release but to expand its capabilities with proven, cutting-edge technology at the same time. Avallain Author’s new voice recognition Activity Types are proof that this concept works. We can’t wait to see how our customers will implement the new features in their learning materials in the future.”
The rollout of Avallain Author Release 29 has already begun, with the next regular update to be released in three months time.
The latest update to Avallain Author is all about making the content creation process more accessible and giving our customers more tools to create the best learning environments they can: Quickly build entirely new products, comfortably navigate the Media Library to find exactly what you were looking for and allow users to login using their Google accounts. As always, we have also added some great new ways to further individualise learning objects within the authoring tool. Get ready for the most convenient and most comprehensive Avallain Author experience ever.
New major feature: Product Builder
Avallain Author is a flexible and powerful authoring tool for creating professional learning materials and publishing it instantly to learning platforms powered by Avallain Magnet or Avallain Unity. Now, it can even be used to create entirely new software products with only a few clicks. The new Product Builder feature allows our customers to create and publish products as applications (Windows, Mac, Linux or web-based) with all necessary files included.
The Product Builder is fully compatible with all content created in Avallain Author. This allows creators to quickly assign or update content from the authoring tool and organise it using the Structure Tool. Naturally, our customers can also manage different versions of their applications using the Product Builder’s intuitive user interface. Create different versions of your applications for different markets or target audiences and then decide which content updates are assigned to which version.
Note: This feature requires a separate license agreement and in some cases integration effort.
Enhanced feature: Next-generation Media Library
Avallain Author has several powerful features to implement media such as images, video or audio within learning materials. With the new and enhanced Media Library, finding the right piece of media for any Learning Object is easier than ever. Media assets are now more convenient to sort and filter, while extra-large thumbnails make sure that you know exactly what you’re going to get from each of your search results.
Adding to and maintaining the Media Library has also become more accessible than ever. The importing process has been simplified, and metadata can now be kept up-to-date thanks to the new bulk editing feature. To make things even easier, content administrators can now round-trip metadata with CSV.
New login option: Google authentication
The “sign in with Google” feature has been a popular option for various tools and websites in recent years. Avallain Author Release 28 now supports this method of authentication as well, allowing your content creators with Google authenticated email addresses to use the tool without the need to create specific user accounts (which only add to the long lists of passwords that need to be kept secure).
Tweak: Improved user administration
With Avallain Author, administrators have always had a wide range of roles and privileges to assign to specific users. This helps organise usage of the authoring tool, especially in large companies and publishing houses. One such role – the support user – is now set to “invisible” for admin users. This improves usability, as admins no longer need to contend with user accounts created solely to support content creators when using Avallain Author.
In addition, the Users Overview now notifies administrators if the allotted number of Avallain Author user accounts has been reached. Once the maximum number of accounts has been reached, Avallain Author sends out an e-mail notification.
New feature: Project-wide application of Specific Options
When creating or editing large numbers of Learning Objects within a project, bulk editing has been an extremely popular feature added to Avallain Author over the years. No wonder! It makes editing more straightforward, quicker and more efficient. With Avallain Author 28, bulk editing can now be used to apply Specific Options to any of the Learning Objects within a project. Simply add any Learning Object to the queue and hit the “Apply” button – Avallain Author does the rest.
New option for content creators: Two new hotspot types for eBooks
Interactive eBooks are a great way for students to revise. To facilitate this, Avallain Author now allows content creators to set two new types of hotspots which will be especially useful for solutions pages:
Using the single-solution hotspot type, users can click on a hotspot to reveal and hide a solution. Using the solutions-group hotspot, multiple single-solution hotspots can be revealed in order and hidden again once all have been revealed. This allows learners much greater control over which solutions they want to reveal during revision.
New syntax: Arbitrary hint characters for Text Gap activities
When using the Text Gap Activity Type, content creators can now choose to have specific letters in a text gap revealed to the learner. This is particularly useful for steering struggling learners in the right direction or simply to change the difficulty of a Text Gap Activity.
Avallain Author 28 – more convenient for content creators, more options for learners
“Avallain Author is a flexible and powerful authoring tool that fits smaller companies just as well as giant publishing houses,” says Max Bondi, Product Manager Avallain Author. “Thus, streamlining the content creation process and helping our customers with administering even extensive user bases is very important to us. Avallain Author 28 has taken a huge step in that direction. We’re very eager to hear our customers’ thoughts on the new features so we can use that feedback to make Avallain Author 29 even more accessible and efficient.”
Avallain Author Release 29 will be rolled out within the next three months, while the implementation of Avallain Author 28 has already begun.
