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Absorb LMSCourse Authoring Guide

Adobe Captivate 6Reporting

PublishingImporting Into Absorb

Articulate StorylinePublishingReporting

TrackingOutput

VideoImporting Into Absorb

H.264Progressive Download

Frame RateMultiple Video Sourcing

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This guide will be focused mostly on the reporting and publishing settings in Captivate and is not designed to teach the use of the program itself. If you need assistance with the program please go to Captivate’s help page here: http://helpx.adobe.com/captivate.html. There is one authoring tip you should be aware of though; Captivate does not yet fully support HTML 5. To ensure that your course will be HTML 5 compatible you will need to use the HTML 5 Tracker window to see which functions are not supported in HTML 5 output. This window can be accessed from the Window menu and looks like this:

Adobe Captivate 6

Any items listed in this view will need to be changed or removed before the course can be published.

As part of our move to an HTML 5 based interface we are updating our course authoring guides. These guides only apply to the latest version of our interface, Ninja, and should not be used for either our 1.0 or 2.0 interfaces.

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Reporting

• SCORM: SCORM 1.2.

• Status Representation: Incomplete/Complete. Our LMS does not track pass/fail at the course level so you must ensure that your course is reporting completion instead.

• Success/Completion Criteria:

• Courses containing a quiz/exam: You will want to report based on the quiz results, although the exact threshold you use for passing is up to you. Just make sure that you do set one before publishing the course as you cannot adjust it via the Absorb admin interface.

• Courses not containing a quiz/exam: You will want to report on slide views in this case. We recommend using a requirement of less than 100% as the viewed percentage can be unforgiving of learners accidentally skipping some content. The exact percentage to use will depend on the design of your course but somewhere between 80% and 95% would likely be appropriate.

• Quiz Score Reporting: Percentage

• Interaction Data: Checked. This option allows your learners’ answers to be saved in our reports.

• Advanced: Never Send Resume Data: Checked. Absorb’s course resuming functionality works better than Captivate’s.

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Importing Into Absorb

• IfyouusethebuiltinImportCoursetoolintheAbsorbAdmininterfacethenthesourcefilewillautomatically be chosen for you. However, if you are manually uploading the course content and creating the course/lesson yourself, you will need to make sure that you select the multiscreen.html fileasthelessonsource.

• Output Format Options: SWF & HTML 5. Captivate authored courses can combine both SWF and HTML 5 course content into a single course. The course will automatically fallback to the otherfilesiflearnersareusinganon-HTML5compatiblebrowseroranon-Flashsupportingdevice.

• Output Options: Zip Files

• Advanced Options: Scalable HTML Content

Publishing

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Publishing

• Publishing for HTML 5 and mobile devices: Include HTML 5 output. This option will create a course containing both Flash and HTML 5 compatible content and will intelligently select one or the other depending on the device. Do not select the option to use the Articulate Mobile Player.

• LMS: SCORM 1.2. Note that although both Articulate and Absorb support the SCORM Tin Can API it’s best to use 1.2 for now until the new API matures.

This guide will be focused mostly on the reporting and publishing settings in Storyline and is not designed to teach the use of the program itself. If you need assistance with the program please go to Articulate’s support page here: http://www.articulate.com/support.php.

Articulate Storyline

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Reporting

• LMS Reporting: Completed/Incomplete

• Player Size: Scaleplayertofillbrowserwindow.Thisoptionallowsyourcoursestoscalefordifferentscreensizesandisessentialformobiledevicesupport.

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Tracking

• Courses containing a quiz/exam: You will want to report based on the quiz results, although the exact threshold you use for passing is up to you. Just make sure that you do set one before publishing the course as you cannot adjust it via the Absorb admin interface.

• Courses not containing a quiz/exam: You will want to report on slide views in this case.

• SelecttheZipoptiontoautomaticallycreateaZIPfilethatcanbeimportedintoAbsorb.

Output

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H.264

Importing Into Absorb

• IfyouusethebuiltinImportCoursetoolintheAbsorbAdmininterfacethenthesourcefilewill automatically be chosen for you. However, if you are manually uploading the course content and creating the course/lesson yourself, you will need to make sure that you select the index_lms.htmlfileasthelessonsource.

WerecommendusingMP4videofilesencodedwiththeH.264codecasyourprimaryvideoformat.By choosing these two options and leaving any other video publishing settings alone you will probably be able to create a video that will play on most devices and browsers. However, if you run into video display issues and/or want to create HD video then there are some other aspects of video publishing that you need to be aware of.

Video

The H.264 codec is not actually a single codec but is instead a group of codecs. These codecs are definedbytwoaspectsknownasProfileandLevel.The3mostcommonlyusedProfilesare:

1. Baseline: Offers the greatest compatibility with mobile devices but also has the lowest level of compression (larger file sizes).• e.g.iPhone3Gs

2. Main: Compatible with many mobile devices and tablets and offers a medium level of compression.• e.g. iPad 1, iPhone 4

3. High: Compatible with the latest mobile devices and tablets and offers the highest level of compression. Also the recommended profile for laptops and desktops.• e.g.iPad2,iPhone4s,SamsungGalaxyS2,Nexus7

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Progressive Download

There are a number of levels ranging from 1 to 5.2 with higher levels allowing for greater video bitratesandresolutions.AcombinationofProfileandLevelwilldeterminetheoverallmaximumresolution, frame rate, and bitrate allowed.

Now that you know a little more about H.264 let’s see how it applies to video course authoring. If you create a video in an HD resolution and try and publish it with Baseline and level 1 it’s likely thatitwon’tplay,oratleastnotproperly.Alsodifferentdevicessupportdifferentprofileandlevelcombinations,sotryingtoplayavideoencodedinHighwithlevel3.1onaniPhone3Gswillnotwork. You will need to determine exactly which devices you intend to support and then choose the profileandlevelsupportedbytheslowestdevice.Unfortunatelyitcanbedifficulttodetermineexactly what H.264 codecs each device supports so we also highly recommend that you test your content on the devices you intend to support.

IfyouarenotintendingtosupportmobiledevicesthenasettingofHighwith3.1(orhigher)wouldbethebestwaytogointermsofreducingfilesizeandincreasingquality.

Progressive downloading allows the video to begin playing before it has been fully downloaded. Your learners will expect this functionality from your videos so it’s very important to ensure that thissettingisenabled.Itmaybecalledsomethingdifferentinyoursoftware(e.g.faststart,moovatomatbeginning,etc.)butyoushouldbeabletoconfirmthatitisenabledbyquicklyuploadingavideo to the LMS and checking its playback.

Frame RateThereisnospecificframeratesuggestedforourLMSbutitisimportanttoensurethatyoupublishyourvideointhesameframerateitwasrecordedin.Attemptingtochangeitwillhaveasignificantnegative impact on your video quality.

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Multiple Video SourcingAlthough the MP4 video format is still the best choice for cross platform compatibility, you can now add a second source to your video lessons to accommodate a WebM formatted video. WebM is a competing video format that is currently only supported by the Chrome and Firefox desktop browsers. However, it may become more popular over time as it is both license and royalty free, something that MP4 is not.

Once a lesson it setup with a WebM video as a secondary source, our video player will automatically select the best format during playback. WebM will be the default for Chrome and Firefox, with MP4 still being used on the other platforms. One other feature that you can take advantage of with multiple video sourcing is the ability to add a poster to your video. A poster is a static image that will display before the video plays which will make for a smoother experience for the learner when playing a video lesson. This is how sites like YouTube do it when you see a snapshot of what the video looks like before actually playing it.

To set this up all you need to do is set the lesson type to Video and then use the + icon to add additional sources. The order in which you add the sources doesn’t matter but you may want to keep it consistent between lessons. One source will be the MP4, one source will be the WebM, and the last source will be a poster in a supportedimageformat(PNG,JPG,GIF).

Please note that this feature cannot be used with other video formats as MP4 and WebM are the only HTML5 video formats supported at this time.