What’s New: Analyzing the Top 3 eLearning Authoring Tools of 2017

Can you believe it! Starting from version 1.0 (2008) that had no codename to version 7.0-7.1.2 (2016) popularly known as Nougat and 8.0 that is yet to be released, Android operating system has come a really long way. Each new version comes with bug fixes, and advanced features. Something similar has been happening in the L&D sector with the multi device boom and increased demand for fast content creation- the advancement of authoring tool. In the last few years we have been testing and trying out new tools that have come in the market, analyzed the outputs and picked our favorites.

Almost every authoring tool has come with a new release for 2017, of those we decided pick three top tools and discuss the new features that these provide.

Articulate 360

Why does this tool come first? The reason is quite simple- because it includes Storyline 360 that allows to develop custom, interactive, multi device eLearning without manual tweaking, and Rise that allows to build fully responsive courses and a few other tools too.  Let’s look at the newest features it offers. Not getting into the details as the official website describes it pretty well.

• Articulate 360 offers content library integration and comes with a content library media. For easy authoring, it has Articulate Review Integration and Quick font replacement option too.
• It makes animations easier by orienting objects to Motion Paths.
• Creating interactions have never been easier, with presets that trigger action when objects intersect and when object intersection ends, or when object enters slide and leaves slide, and for adding interactive dials too.
• It comes with a responsive player, provides responsive preview and playback restrictions and HTML5 Gestures like swiping, dragging, and pinch‑to‑
• Publishing can be done either to Articulate 360 or directly to the chosen formats. It also allows to publish selected scenes or slides.
• Articulate 360 offers advanced accessibility features like tables to structure slide text, importing closed captions that too with custom fonts, triggers for toggling closed captions on/off.

For those curious to explore Articulate 360 offers free trial too. Knowzies being the leader in Authoring tool based eLearning development have found this tool highly user-friendly and would surely recommend for the collaborative eLearning development and review.

Lectora Inspire 17

Yet another tool for creating mobile friendly courses Lectora Inspire 17 comes with long list of new and advanced features. As claimed by the parent company of this tool Trivantis, it gives a complete responsive output.

The features that assist in of Responsive Course design are:

• One click conversion of existing non-responsive titles to responsive and responsive themes
• Content auto-fit on any screen size
• Responsive page layouts and a trickle-down model of device inheritance
• Reset overrides, Cross-Device Object Moving and Resizing, Enhanced Preview in Browser etc. a few to be mentioned.

Some general features that are noteworthy are:

• Publishing using Seamless Play option creates media files that Auto-Start selection on mobile devices.
• Background audio files continue to play and can be controlled with play, pause, and stop options.
• Buttons can be customized and automatically set on disabled state initially. Anchor positions of objects can be easily set, shapes can be rendered in SVG.
• Comes with updated Snagit and Camtasia versions.
• Has an improved question importing and exporting features.

Trivantis too allows us to test out the features of Lectora 17 before actual purchase.

Elucidat (April 2017 release)

As the creators of Elucidat put it, the feedbacks have assisted adding features that can now help in completely streamlining the process of course creation.

Here are a few as mentioned:

• Easily Undo the last edit; easily copy Layout Designer section and then move it to a different location and easily insert new pages too.
• An enhanced asset library for better control and management of audio, video and image files, all assets in general.
• Variations Manager for creation of mini/child courses directly from within a Master Course, and one click Multi language translation and release a feature termed as Multi-language export.
• Choose the orientation of device preview.
• Create Control Documents to easily share the content of courses for complianceupdates and approvals.

Elucidat has the option of Free Trial for all those who wish to see before they buy/create courses!

The new and advanced features that authoring tools offer make creation of rapid eLearning easier than before. However, any eLearning is only as good as the instructional design and the content, so don’t ignore the crucial steps even if you have the best eLearning authoring tool.

If you have mlearning or mobile learning as your L&D agenda do not hesitate to send your queries related to eLearning content creations to info@knowzies.com, our authoring tool learning experts will assist you at the earliest.