Recent years have seen a shift from in-person learning to online, often prioritising speed over quality. Moving forwards, organisations are taking more deliberate approach to online learning – whether that's in self-paced programs or as part of a blended learning journey.
Choosing the right eLearning authoring tool will ensure you create the most engaging, effective training while balancing time and resources.
Different organisations will have very different requirements for their authoring tools. However, these five areas are often consistent across industries and can help to guide your search.
Ease of Use
Most organisations don’t have the luxury of time for learning designers to upskill in eLearning authoring tools. Instead, they’re looking for a product where they can jump right in and start building. Some organisations may even be looking to decentralise the eLearning creation, so novice designers may also be using the tool. Selecting an easy-to-use eLearning authoring tool guarantees that anyone across the organisation can be empowered to build their own eLearning, helping scale learning offerings faster.
Consistency
Authoring tools in which you can add and customise multiple ‘themes’ allow you to apply consistent branding throughout your learning suite while still maintaining creativity and engagement. Using templates and libraries is another way to ensure your learning is consistent – look for tools which have inbuilt libraries, and those that allow you to add your own assets for reuse.
Collaboration
More and more, learning designers aren’t working in isolation, but collaborating across the organisation. If this is the case, cloud-based software is probably the best fit. Features like project management tools, commenting and reviewing, team asset libraries, and the ability to have multiple people working on one project at a time can help your team be as effective as possible.
Templates and Libraries
The popularity of rapid authoring tools indicates how important it is for organisations to be able to build eLearning as quickly as possible. A good way to achieve this is by using templates. Some tools offer entire pre-built modules (for example, compliance modules) that you can apply themes to and recontextualise to your own organisation. Other tools will offer screen or interaction templates that mean you can create beautiful learning quickly and keep everything on brand.
Publishing Options
As you look for the authoring tool for your organisation, consider how your learning will be delivered. Most of the options we’ve covered here will publish to web objects, SCORM or xAPI, but it’s worth exploring the ease of publishing and compatibility with your own LMS.
Guroo Pro helps you quickly create professional interactive eLearning courses, consistently and at scale. PRODUCER supports you and your team throughout the entire learning design process, from learning needs analysis to designing and building engaging digital and blended learning that delivers results. It also encourages collaboration with project management and commenting/review tools.
Guroo Pro has a suite of prebuilt learning modules that you can easily adapt for your own organisation. Screen templates and themes make it simple to create beautiful and consistent learning. You can use the inbuilt asset library, or add your own assets for use across one or multiple projects.
The latest version of Guroo Pro also includes more in-depth support for learning data and analytics, letting you track and measure the performance of your learning and ensure that its results are aligned to the outcomes that matter most to your business.
Pros:
Simple to learn
Inbuilt adaptive learning logic
Truly mobile responsive
Agile project management
Scoping tools and collaborative design
Thousands of templates and assets, including pre-built learning you can make your own
Themes to keep learning on brand and consistent visually
WYSIWYG editor
Cons:
Limited ability to customise layouts
No software simulation capability
No inbuilt video capture/editing functionality
Suitable for:
Scaling quickly
Creating consistent, reusable learning assets
Customising prebuilt learning for your organisation
Storyline 360 is part of the Articulate 360 suite and is the company’s flagship authoring tool. In this article, we’ll also take a look at Rise 360. Articulate is the more traditional eLearning tool, whereas Rise is focused on quick, simple development.
Articulate uses a PowerPoint-style interface, with an advanced feature set that excites experienced eLearning authors but may overwhelm novices. It enables greater customisation than some competitors though this may slow down development.
Pros:
Design is flexible and customisable
Allows for PPT import
Advanced feature set
Cons:
Steep learning curve
Requires complex, custom logic
Not truly mobile responsive
Not available on Mac (unless using an emulator)
Desktop based, therefore collaboration is challenging
Suitable for:
Experienced eLearning authors
Complex learning or custom interactions
One of the first tools in the eLearning authoring space, Captivate is a desktop authoring tool, which unlike Articulate Storyline, is available for Windows and Mac. Captivate is a powerful eLearning tool for experienced authors to create complex interactive content and simulations, but is less suited to those new to eLearning authoring.
There are a wide range of prebuilt interactions and an asset library. Captivate 2019 also includes the ability to create VR projects and interactive videos.
Pros:
Skilled authors can develop high quality interactive learning
Convert PPT to eLearning
Develop VR content
Large range of third party templates available
Cons:
Steep learning curve
Requires complex custom logic
Mobile responsive learning is limited to specific templates or fluid boxes
Desktop based, therefore collaboration is challenging
Suitable for:
Experienced learning authors looking to develop highly interactive content and simulations
Users looking for quality over speed
Rise was released by Articulate as part of the 360 suite in 2016, and compared to Storyline, is targeted at novice users or those looking to put learning together quickly. It uses prebuilt interactions and drag and drop content blocks to build out your learning, making it easy to create high quality interactions. However, there isn’t much flexibility when compared to Storyline 360 or many of the other authoring tools available.
Pros:
Designed for easy course creation
Access to Articulate Content Library 360
Allows multiple authors to collaborate on learning
Cons:
All courses end up feeling the same
Cannot create complex interactions (however, you can import through Storyline 360)
Mobile responsive
Suitable for:
Those new to eLearning development
Simple programs that need to be developed quickly
Lectora Online is the cloud-based version of Lectora, one of the early eLearning authoring tools. Like Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate, its rich feature set comes at the cost of a steeper learning curve – to create truly great eLearning with Lectora Online, you need to be an experienced eLearning designer.
While Lectora Online can export device-responsive HTML5 content, the layout for each view needs to be done manually, adding significant development time. Lectora Online includes access to eLearning Brothers AssetLibrary with templates and stock assets.
Pros:
Cloud-based
Access to eLearning Brothers AssetLibrary
Fully customisable
Cons:
Steep learning curve
Not truly mobile responsive (you need to create new views for each device)
Complex user interface
Suitable for:
Experienced learning designers
Customised, highly interactive content and simulations
Gomo produces mobile-first device responsive learning. Pre-built templates and the quick-start wizard help you get up and running quickly, and there are a range of interactive templates you can use. Gomo offers a range of themes that can be configured to suit your brand or project. Shared libraries and a team-based approach support collaboration.
Pros:
Interactive templates
Easy to learn
Truly mobile-responsive
Cons:
No WYSIWYG interface
Fewer customisation options than some competitors
Suitable for:
Organisations looking to build mobile-first content
As the name suggests, EasyGenerator focuses on creating learning easily and quickly. It is suitable for those without experience in eLearning authoring. In fact, the company encourages employee-generated content, enabling learners to create content themselves. You can drag and drop content blocks for questions, video and audio.
While EasyGenerator doesn’t have an asset library like some of the other authoring tools, it does have a range of course templates you can customise for your own organisation.
Pros:
Easy to learn
Ability to import PowerPoint
Cons:
No inbuilt asset library
Limited interaction types
Suitable for:
Novice authors
Organisations create a small number of courses
Elucidat makes it easy to develop digital learning at scale. It is cloud-based and has a strong focus on collaboration, with role-based permissions, multiple authors, and a central asset library. The library of prebuilt templates makes creating high quality learning easy, but more advanced users can use the ‘layout designer’ to build their own pages.
Elucidat’s interaction types include social polling, gamification, flexible rules and branding options. The user interface is intuitive and you can build a course quickly using templates, content blocks and through adding style elements.
Pros:
Great collaboration features
Intuitive user interface
Truly mobile responsive
Cons:
Expensive unless you’re developing programs at scale
No custom interactions
Suitable for:
Large organisations developing learning at scale
Dispersed teams
iSpring works as a PowerPoint plugin, making for a familiar interface and allowing you to use a PPT as a starting point for the course. It includes a quizmaker, video and audio editor and conversation simulation tool.
Ready-made templates and the extensive asset library make it easy to build high quality learning. iSpring Space, included with the iSpring suite, is an online space for collaboration and review.
Pros:
Extensive template and asset library
Video and screencast recorder and editor
Cons:
Only works in Windows
Need PowerPoint installed to be able to use
Suitable for:
Experienced PowerPoint users looking to develop eLearning
Creating learning from existing presentations
With H5P, you can create mobile-friendly eLearning content such as presentations, interactive videos, or interactive books, or share content through games such as flashcards, or matching games.
H5P can be used as a free, open-source plug-in on Moodle, Drupal and Wordpress. Alternatively, there is a subscription version available with hosting and reporting included.
It isn’t designed to be exported to SCORM but this can be done through a plugin. H5P has an active user community where users share knowledge, content and interactions.
Pros:
Free option available
Simple to use
Encourages anyone to create learning
Cons:
Limited interactions (though this is growing)
Cannot combine multiple interactions to create a course
Not as versatile as the paid authoring tools
Suitable for:
Subject matter experts with no eLearning experience
Adding interactions to other pages such as Moodle