Road map EasyGenerator

At EasyGenerator we are working at producing a road map for our product development. I want to give you some global insight in the directions we are taking. We have defined several phases for the product development. I will give a brief description for each phase. Intermediate phase. We are in the middle of this phase, it will last until march. It’s to add some key functionality like version control and task management to the product.

Dynamic publication. We want to change the way we deliver the content to the end learner, make it more dynamic, more adaptive, easier to maintain and capture user generated content and feed back from the learner.

SME release. We will make our product even easier than it already is. So this phase is all about user interface, terminology, help, best practices, better templates and so on.

Pro release. Additional functionality for the professional e-Learning author. There will be an interface for changing and creating the master pages, a new way to create adaptive learning, extra import facilities, translations facilities et cetera.

Collaborative release. This release will all about working together, creating and maintaining knowledge and courses with professional authors, SME’s and learners.

This is of course a very global overview. In January we will decide on what will be the next release and what will be in it. So now it’s time for your input. If you are not using easyGenerator you can still give us input. We love to give you a free demo account, all we want in return for it is constructive criticism. Tell us and we will take it into account. You can respond to this blog or mail me at K.Spiro@EasyGenerator.com.

Introducing Kasper Spiro

This blog is to introduce myself as the new CEO of EasyGenerator. I officially started at the first of December, but thanks to a smooth transfer process from my previous job, we already made an early start.

First I will go into my background a little. My previous position was Vice President Learning Technology at Stoas Learning in The Netherlands. Stoas is de largest e-Learning company of the Netherlands and represents learning technology solutions like Questionmark Perception , Moodle, Mahara and Exact Learning.  Before that I worked at several other companies as a consultant and manager, always working in the field of e-Learning and EPSS systems. In between I was CEO of locatienet.nl; a Dutch mapping service like Google earth and I worked as an independent consultant for a few years. I have a history in e-Learning and EPSS authoring systems, I have been the founding father of two of them (Seven Steps and Writeplace). You can read my complete bio on Linkedin.

We have big plans with EasyGenerator. We will work from a specific vision on e-Learning and content development. We believe that we are on the verge of great new developments. In the heart of our vision stands that we believe that e-Learning content should be more dynamic:

• Present the learners with accurate and current information instead of rigid Scorm packages. Just enough, just in time; Make content more adaptive to meet the learners needs.
• Make learning a two-way street, not only pushing learning content, but pull knowledge from the learners
• Integrate learning into the day-to-day workplace, bridge the gap between formal and informal learning.

In other words dynamic content will be king. See my personal blog for more detailed information on this vision.

Based on this vision we developed a mission. Our goal is the create the best e-Learning authoring platform in the world and be one of the leading platforms. We believe we can help change e-Learning as we know it and take it to the next level.  And we believe that creating e-Learning must be a collaborative effort of subject matter experts, e-Learning professionals and learners. And above all it must be simple to create and maintain. Our slogan will be: We simplify e-Learning development. You can read my blog on our mission for more details.

So I am all fired up and ready to go. We are finalizing the road map for our product development so there will be more to read soon.

Let your work flow! (Part II)

In this second and final part of our quest we try to answer the question What makes an authoring tool an LCMS . In this post we look more closely at the concept of workflow and collaboration.  

Workflow is a slippery slope. Most people expect a system in which each part of your content can have a status, depending on which different people can perform different tasks with the content, interspersed with a flood of e-mails. In most implementations I have seen this works contra productive and irritating, causing the features to remain unused. EasyGenerator offers the possibility to move or copy (parts of) the content to another Workspace, where (depending the permissions) other users can continue working on it.

Let’s look at another aspect of collaboration, interacting with your client. More specific, facilitating and handling content reviews. Can you recognize the following situation? Your e-Learning course is ready to be reviewed by the client. You publish the product to SCORM, upload it to your LMS, create account(s) for the reviewer(s) and assign them the course.

Your client will now look at your content and, of course, has comments about the used media, text and questions. These comments reach you in the form of a large Word document, filled with print-screens. If you have had more than one reviewer, you soon have a stack of such documents.

The upcoming EasyGenerator 7.2 enhances this process greatly by introducing the 1-2-3  review system:
1. Invite reviewers by just entering their e-mail addresses
2. The reviewers launch the course by a link in the e-mail and can leave comments on each page
3. Their comments appear live in the EasyGenerator editor – in the context of the content!

During the review period, the course developers can continue their work, they can even react on the comments, providing direct feedback to the reviewer(s).

So yes, in our vision, EasyGenerator can be called an LCMS – with alternative and refreshing approaches to solving the industy’s problems.

Is your authoring tool an LCMS? (Part I)

Many e-Learning authoring tools exist on the market. There is also a great share of systems being marketed as LCMS. An interesting discussion arises: At what point does an authoring tool qualify as an LCMS? You might expect features like extended permission systems, versioning, workflow and collaboration.

As an example, let’s look at our own authoring tool, EasyGenerator. It originated as an Authorware based, stand-alone desktop application. Two years ago, we accepted the challenge to make it into a web based, multi user system – while being true to the values which made EasyGenerator great. By the end of 2009, new EasyGenerator LCMS was released to the market.

But aren’t the features that would make it qualify as an LCMS undermining the Easy-concept of our tool? Let’s see!

Instead of implementing a system where users, groups and roles each can be assigned Read, Write, Create, Use and Delete permissions, with inheritance and the option to Deny, we choose to start with a simple variant, in which we have users and roles, that can get access to a certain Workspace or File repository. No access means it remains hidden, Access means you can enter and start working with the contents. Surprisingly Easy, and even more surprising, so far it suffices for all our users.

Another one is versioning. Can you roll back to previous versions of your content indefinitely using EasyGenerator? No. But you can mark a certain version of your content simply by copying it. Hyperlinks are maintained, and the CMS remembers the origin so it is very easy to compare versions in a later stage.

Be sure to bookmark this blog, as next time we will dig a little deeper into the concept of workflow - another hot feature as expected in an LCMS!

The easygenerator blog has been moved to easygenerator.com/blogs. Please visit our site for our latest posts.

What if e-Learning becomes REALLY pluggable?

The field of e-Learning authoring is one of extremes. There are the easy to use WYSIWYG slide editors on one side (Lectora, Articulate). They offer low-threshold solutions for companies whose core business is not e-Learning.

There are template/XML based LCMSes (Outstart, Xyleme). They offer centrally managed content storage, advanced re-use and enforce company look and feel. These tools are most often used in publishing environments.

Then there are also companies that produce engaging e-Learning all day. For them, none of the tools as identified above suffice. None of the existing interactions (simulations, games or question types) are good enough. They need to be as flexible as possible and tend to create the whole e-Learning course from scratch using Flash, Silverlight or Unity 3D. Using ADL documentation and some standard scripts, SCORM support is added in the final stage.

A few years ago we identified a trend in the e-Learning world. The creation of e-Learning is no longer the domain of one or two professionals, but becomes a collaborative process. Companies that used to outsource e-Learning development to a professional company are forced by economic recession to look at alternatives.

This trend prompted us to start with the development of the all-new EasyGenerator, one of the first authoring tools that combines the features of the three extremes mentioned above: Easy to use, WYSIWYG, web based, intelligent re-use of existing content and full integration with Flash, Silverlight or Unity. These plug-ins can be configured using XML and Flashvars and the Sana Course API allows them to communicate scores and interaction data back to the system.

Recently, one of our partners has created a valuable addition to this system. They developed a plug-in system that allows a (Flash) developer to create not only a Flash object, but also a matching property dialog program that helps the author to configure the plug-in – without having to code XML! The Flash object and the property dialog program can just be uploaded to the repository and are ready to go, without any recompilation. The possibilities of this are virtually endless and offers tremendous value for those companies that rely strongly on Flash for interaction design – but have customers that want to be able to maintain the content themselves too.

If you want to know more about this system, or want to be in contact with this partner, let us know!

Pearson saves Ning for educators

A small update in our continuing saga about the Google based LMS.

Just last month I wrote about ning.com turning their service in a paid one. Today they issued a press release, stating that it will remain free for educational purposes. Pearson will sponsor the service in this case.

This is a very good example of how a Web 2.0 service is not only adopted by educators all over the world, but is also saved by a large multinational with world-leading businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing.

Of course, you should not mind the occasional banner or advertisement

Generic custom courseware

e-Learning is not as efficient as it could be. It is interesting to see that more companies realize that it is a waste of time and money to keep reinventing wheels that already exist. But take subjects as compliance or maybe new upcoming financial ethics that are being pushed by governments. They are mandatory for every financial institution in the world, e-Learning would be great to train this, but generic courses are not the answer.

They don’t get the real attention of the learner and cultural differences are not to be generalized. But fully tailormade courses are almost unaffordable especially for companies with less than 1000 employees. Nevertheless, deep inside they all have the same outcome, they have to train the learner in the same regulations.

Why let every bank copy-paste standard regulatory material in courses, make them look for stock photo’s, applicable video’s and animations etc.? Or even worse, let them outsource this to external companies that build compliancy courses on day one and retail courses on day two. This also brings the risk to miss nuances in the rules and regulations.

Why not put together a team of compliancy specialists within e-Learning? Let them create a generic e-Learning course, state/set very clearly what can be changed to one’s own taste, and deliver all this in a tool that allows these customizations. Everything will be in the look-and-feel of the company and most elements can be changed to fit the local needs, but the message itself will stay intact.

This will very much improve the efficiency and it will standardize the regulations even more. It is strange that the EU/USA or the geographical responsible institution for the regulations does not demand some sort of certification for the courses. Maybe they do, but here in the Netherlands, it seems to be the case that every bank can do whatever they think is best, and we know where that led to…

Of course this model is also suitable for other sectors, like safety on construction sites, CPR, first aid etc.. And one company will customize more than the other, but at least the starting point is correct, and the smaller companies will have a fair chance to benefit from the efficiency as well.