four Causes To Use A Cloud-Based mostly Authoring Device
How can cloud-based authoring change the game?
If you oppose the adoption of cloud-based eLearning authoring tools, you undoubtedly have your reasons. However, if you haven’t kept up with the growing advances and features you may not realize what you are missing out on. Today’s fully-featured cloud-based tools can rival the best desktops in terms of performance and creativity, so you don’t have to lose functionality in exchange for the benefits of moving your team’s eLearning development to the cloud.
Here are the 4 biggest improvements you will see when you move to a cloud-based tool in 2021, as well as the features to look out for in order to have the greatest impact on your bottom line.
1. Cloud-based authoring tools provide consistency and flexibility for WFH
The pandemic has changed many things, many of them badly. One of the good guys? Economic forecasters agree that being able to work from home (WFH) will remain an important benefit that you can offer your employees for years to come.
WFH isn’t just a benefit, however. It provides an opportunity for productivity in inclement weather, teacher duty days, and a case of runny nose.
While desktop tools raise barriers to WFH flexibility on the left and right, cloud-based software ensures a smooth move. You don’t have to worry about licenses, security, remote file access or anything else. Everyone simply logs into the same interface as usual and gets to work.
And when your authoring tool has the right capabilities, teamwork stays easy no matter where you are. Look for a cloud-based tool with robust native collaboration / communication capabilities like DominKnow | ONE, and your workflow remains consistent, regardless of whether your team is mainly in the office or completely away due to another variant of COVID.
2. Cloud-based authoring tools remove important technical difficulties
When your eLearning authoring tool is cloud-based, many minor headaches – and some major ones – will be a thing of the past.
For example, everyone will be using the same software all the time. You don’t have to worry about Mac versus PC, “full” desktop versus limited web app, or whether Dave has postponed his software update indefinitely so that he’s three versions back. Access to the tool via a browser enables platform-neutral and installation-free access to the tool, making remote access or access via multiple devices child’s play. And since the software lives on cloud servers, updates are automatic and invisible.
File storage is another. Cloud-based software automatically saves your progress frequently, securely and in one central location. That means you can’t lose your progress (or an entire file) to a crash, splash of coffee, or the dreaded fall of your desktop app letting you know your project is corrupt … for no apparent reason and you don’t have to waste time transferring files or backing up your hard drive. It also eliminates version confusion; Everyone has access to the latest version of a project at all times.
Cloud-based software used to lead to its own technical frustrations related to speed and internet access, but as infrastructure and technical advances have advanced, these have diminished over time. For the best performance, look for cloud-based tools that offer CDN support for better global access, and that make efficient use of caching and state-based changes to minimize traffic and bandwidth requirements when authoring.
3. Cloud-based authoring tools make e-learning development more efficient
Due to the central storage of assets, cloud-based eLearning authoring tools offer many possibilities to improve the efficiency of your development process.
All of your projects and assets are stored in one place for easy organization, backup, anywhere access and filtering, making it easy to find, update and reuse existing eLearnings.
Then there are templates. While almost all solutions provide templates, cloud-based authoring tools let you centralize templates, designs, and layouts so that your entire team can easily benefit from your collaborative work. In some cases, you can even do a full text and metadata search across all projects your team has ever developed to easily find and copy or reuse a previously developed page or set of pages. All of this results in your team being able to scale content and create a consistent, brand-specific look and feel across all authors and projects.
Reusing content can also bring huge benefits, especially if you do a lot of localization, audience targeting, or multimodal e-learning. And don’t let creative marketing fool you, the real reuse is updated once, with the changes reflected in all instances. The reuse capabilities can also vary widely between eLearning authoring tools. Make sure you understand exactly what a tool can do before you commit.
Special functions to improve the efficiency of niche processes like translation or screencasting / software simulations can also be invaluable for eLearning teams who need them and in the not too distant past were only available in desktop solutions.
The savings that result from these efficiency gains are neither trivial nor theoretical; Companies report that the right cloud-based features have given them tangible and significant benefits, such as costs through a simplified translation process.
Some cloud-based authoring software can also provide the tools for continuous improvement. Example: DominKnow | ONE facilitates the analysis of project development by offering the possibility to track your progress based on user-defined lifecycles and your degree of reuse. This provides critical data that you can use to improve your process over time and provide tangible evidence of your efforts.
4. Cloud-based authoring tools protect your intellectual property and aid in better oversight
Protecting your intellectual property can become a logistical nightmare when using desktop software to create e-learning. Cloud-based solutions, on the other hand, automatically offer secure access, protection against file damage or loss and centralized control of authorizations by administrators. For larger teams, you should also use SSO to not only meet your internal security requirements, but also to make it easier for your authors to access.
The sophistication that a tool offers with its authorization control can depend on the tool. So, consider your team’s needs and look for tools that offer the right level of granularity. If you oversee a large number of eLearning developers, you need a cloud-based authoring tool with the ability to manage multiple teams and assign permissions and projects en masse.
In addition to protecting intellectual property, cloud-based authoring can provide transparency and aid your oversight efforts. Some cloud-based authoring tools allow administrators to see exactly what individuals have achieved and who has done what in a given period of time. This improves accountability and credit allocation regardless of geography or attendance time.
In addition, certain features can keep a project running smoothly without the need for top-down micromanagement. Look for a cloud-based authoring tool with sophisticated check-in / check-out mechanisms, lifecycle tracking, quick project-level insights, publication of checklists and similar measures to keep the entire team on the same page and avoid confusion or errors.
Look for the cloud (-based authoring tool) with the greatest silver lining
Most cloud-based authoring tools offer similar functionality at a glance, but the breadth and depth of their software’s performance can vary dramatically.
It is important to understand the limitations and capabilities of a particular tool’s claims when taking the plunge into something new. Take into account your greatest challenges and which features are critical to mastering them. These are the functional areas where you should be asking the most questions so you can find out exactly how far the tool can get you.
Would you like to learn more about the possibilities of DominKnow | ONE can help you improve your writing experience? Contact me or leave a comment below.
DominKnow | ONE
DominKnow | ONE is a full featured collaborative course authoring solution with responsive, traditional and software based simulation creation and an adaptive interface that makes it simple enough for SMB but powerful for advanced designers, all in one central system
