The Blackboard Users Group (BUG) provides an open forum for all instructors to exchange ideas and share practical experiences  in using Purdue’s course management system, Blackboard Vista.  BUG typically meets monthly.

The first BUG meeting is scheduled for 1:30-2:30 P.M., on Monday, Sept. 13 in Rawls Hall, Room 1071.  To learn more about BUG, click here.

Thought Ark is a free web application and collaborative space that utilize the search behaviors of the users to determine the value of various bibliographic resources. Users can identify people with similar interests and interact with them and their resources. Finally, the sources once identified can be collated and cited (APA Citation format) in papers written and published through Thought Ark. Thus, Thought Ark combines a number of facilities, such as social bookmarking, social editing, online publishing and social networking, all in the context of higher education. The program offers professors and students the opportunity to work side by side sharing resources, to collaborate and edit papers and to determine through ordinary usage which resources are more valuable and which are less.

Thought Ark was developed in conjunction with Dr. Sorin Matei and TLT student developers Kevin Mohr, Andrew Prasetyo Jo, Jillian Traycoff, and Brian Snyder. The application was developed with Ruby on Rails, an Object Oriented Programming language built around Ruby syntax. For more information about Thought Ark, contact Dr. Sorin Matei at Purdue University.

Related links:

• 2010-2011 Instructional Technology Grants Program Cancelled!
• Purdue University TLT Instructional Technology Grants Program
• Grants Showcase
• Instructional Technology Grants Showcase: Cropview

Over the years, we have seen many content authoring tools come and go. Every tool offers specific features promising to expedite authoring while delivering a certain degree of interactivity enhancing the student’s learning experience.  Whether the final product is to be delivered online to the course management system or via CD, the challenges are still the same as they have always been:

• Collecting content and compatible media to integrate.
• Finding resources such as graphic designers, voice talent, videographers, programmers, etc.
• Instructional design support to help build a pedagogically sound course structure with the interactive content.
• Packaging content for delivery inside or outside learning management systems.
• SCORM and Section 108 compliance.

Other considerations such as a robust evaluation strategy of the learning content and on-going updates support are always associated with content development needs.  Perhaps the greatest challenge to manufacture an engaging e-learning experience is to bring all these people together to perform their specific roles.  To address this need, we are seeing software companies adopt Software-as-a-service models or SaaS for e-learning content development.  Let’s take a look at a few options:

Unison

Unison

Unison is a product of Rapid Intake Inc.  This web-based solution allows the “rapid” content authoring of e-learning in a collaborative environment. An entire team composed of Subject Matter Experts, graphic artists, animators and instructional design support can build a course in a very short period of time. The integrated workflow management for the course review is one of the most impressive features of the system.  Unison provides templates for most common interactive type activities or “games” to help the learner retain information. This tool has had a wide adoption among government agencies, non-profits and corporate enterprises.

An advantage of using Unison is their adaptable model. E-learning courses built with this tool can be as simple or as complex as the users would like them to be. A robust architecture paired with expanded customization options for additional programming and API integration, makes Unison a very strong contender.

Udutu

Udutu

Udutu is another online course authoring tool that allows its users to create a course free of charge until it is time for deployment.  Template based myUdutu allows for easy WYSIWYG authoring.  In my opinion, Udutu’s branching scenarios startup templates are their most useful feature. The interface is very easy to use and their course assets library is very helpful when assembling content.  The claim that there is no technical knowledge required when using Udutu is evident when using the system for the first time.  Even the customization options are simple. The Udutu system allows for seamless collaboration. If Subject Matter Experts and Instructional Designer are working with graphics designers or videographers, the course is easily shared and content can be delivered to the library for later integration into the course.

Content Point

Atlantic Link – Content Point

Content Point from Atlantic Link is not exactly a web based application. The company describes its application as a ‘smart’ Windows client. The client connects to a remote server where all the magic happens. Authors can add assets to compose e-learning using a drag and drop type of functionality and the final result is a flash based course that can be deployed anywhere.  Their flash asset library contains customizable flash objects such as flow charts, quizzes, glossaries and games.  The most impressive feature of this system is its ability to deploy multi-resolution content which allows for courses to be viewed on the web, CD-ROM, HD TV, Sony PSP and mobile devices.  Content Point also has an interaction tracking feature that allows for results reporting of learner’s activity with the material.

SaaS Solutions are not the answer to all when it comes to content authoring (See comparison table). We can consider them a pretty reasonable “packaged” solution for fast, efficient and flexible deployment.