Rapid E-learning Authoring Tool
Comparison and mapping to E-standards
E-standards for Training
June 2015 v1.0
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools
.
Disclaimer
The Australian Government, through the Department of Education and Training, does not accept any
liability to any person for the information or advice (or the use of such information or advice) which is
provided in this material or incorporated into it by reference. The information is provided on the basis
that all persons accessing this material undertake responsibility for assessing the relevance and
accuracy of its content. No liability is accepted for any information or services which may appear in any
other format. No responsibility is taken for any information or services which may appear on any linked
websites.
With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, the Department’s logo, any material protected
by a trade mark and where otherwise noted all material presented in this document is provided under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/) licence.
E-standards for Training
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools
Table of Contents
1 Purpose ..................................................................................................................1
2 Method ...................................................................................................................1
3 Findings .................................................................................................................2
3.1 Adobe Captivate v8 ....................................................................................................... 2
Observations common to all desktop browsers ............................................................................. 2
Firefox v38 ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Chrome v43 ................................................................................................................................... 3
Internet Explorer v11 ..................................................................................................................... 3
Safari v7 (OSX).............................................................................................................................. 3
Safari (iOS8 iPad) .......................................................................................................................... 3
Chrome (Android Lollipop Phablet) ................................................................................................ 4
3.2 Lectora Inspire v11 ....................................................................................................... 4
Observations common to all desktop browsers ............................................................................. 4
Firefox v38 ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Chrome v43 ................................................................................................................................... 5
Internet Explorer v11 ..................................................................................................................... 5
Safari v7 (OSX) .............................................................................................................................. 5
Safari (iOS8 iPad) .......................................................................................................................... 5
Chrome (Android Lollipop Phablet) ................................................................................................ 6
3.3 Articulate Storyline v2 ................................................................................................... 6
Observations common to all desktop browsers ............................................................................. 6
Firefox v38 ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Chrome v43 ................................................................................................................................... 7
Internet Explorer v11 ..................................................................................................................... 7
Safari v7 (OSX).............................................................................................................................. 7
Safari (iOS8 iPad) .......................................................................................................................... 7
Chrome (Android Lollipop Phablet) ................................................................................................ 7
More Information ......................................................................................................8
E-standards for Training
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools
1 Purpose
The E-standards for Training business activity sought to compare commercial or
open source authoring environments commonly used to developing e-learning
content for use in VET (Vocational Education and Training) in Australia, to determine
their output e-learning modules’ conformance to the E-standards for Training.
Included in scope were inclusion of QTI (Questions and Test Interoperability) simple
question types, and analysis of how outputs worked on mobile devices.
2 Method
Under the supervision of the E-standards Expert Group1, a storyboard and mock-up
interface were developed with the intention of developing the same module in several
environments.
Three environments were selected as representative, namely:



Adobe Captivate v8
Articulate Storyline v2
Lectora Inspire v11
Initially, the intention had been to include LOCO, an open source authoring tool
purpose-built at TAFE NSW for use by their trainers and teachers. In 2011 it won a
Learning Impact award, and was awarded some Emerging Technology Trial funding
to help with embedding its use at TAFE NSW. Unfortunately the department that
developed it (eLearning Hub) has been disbanded, and while TAFE NSW still uses
LOCO, there is no ongoing development or support. That rendered it unsuitable for
wider use in the sector.
Several of the QTI “simple items” are functionally very close, so it was decided that it
would not be useful to produce an example of each of the 19 simple items in the
standard.
Screens developed were:





Single column text
Click and reveal
Two column text
Video
Quiz:
• True/False
• Multiple choice
• Cloze (text entry)
• Pairing choices from a source to a target (dropdowns)
1The
EEG is the VET sector's national forum for collaboratively reviewing and recommending
technical standards to support e-learning. The group comprises representatives appointed by
each State and Territory, as well as a number of observers from key stakeholder
organisations.
E-standards for Training
Page 1
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools
•
•
Essay (with generic feedback)
Final feedback
Sample WHS (Workplace Health and Safety) content was used to provide
meaningful content.
Each output was tested for accessibility, conformance to E-standards file formats and
platforms, and tested for valid HTML output via W3C HTML validation. Screen
readers employed were NVDA on Windows, and VoiceOver on OSX and iOS8. No
screen reader was installed on the Android tablet available.
3 Findings
All three environments output to Flash, and to varying degrees HTML5.
E-standards for Training ceased its recommendation of Flash when Adobe
announced in 2011 that it was ceasing development of the mobile version of
the plugin, so it was the HTML output that was tested..
All three environments could only output fixed size modules.
Findings are listed below by environment.
3.1 Adobe Captivate v8
No non-standard file formats were included in the output. There were two validation
errors generated:
1. Page title missing
2. Error in a meta element
Both errors are trivial to correct. The developer mentioned that the quiz section had
extremely limited customisation.
Observations common to all desktop browsers
For:

CSS rendering in the browser was as expected.
Intermediate:

The module was exposed to the screen reader, but read order was very poor.
Against:





The module was not keyboard accessible.
User is not able to change quiz selections once they had been made (even
when revisiting the module.
User had to select “Next” twice after submitting a quiz answer (feedback had
to be deselected, but there is no indication that has to be done).
It was not possible to generate feedback for the essay question.
Continue button on final page did not work.
E-standards for Training
Page 2
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools


Text is not selectable.
Buttons do not have a disabled state.
View Captivate version of module
Firefox v38
The Captivate output would not run in Firefox. An error message is generated as
follows:
This browser does not support some of the content in the file you are trying
to view. Use one of the following browsers:



Internet Explorer 9 or later
Safari 5.1 or later
Google Chrome 17 or later
This is apparently due to Firefox not natively supporting the .mp3 audio/mpeg format.
(Note that the only .mp3 in the project was a mouse click sound effect. Removing it
from the structure did not remove the error.)
Chrome v43
For:

Closed captions in the video (embedded YouTube) were available and
exposed to screen reader.
Internet Explorer v11
Intermediate:

Closed captions in the video (embedded YouTube) were available but not
exposed to screen reader.
Safari v7 (OSX)
For:

Oddly, in contrast, user could alter quiz questions after submission.
Intermediate:

The module was keyboard accessible, but tab order was very poor.
Safari (iOS8 iPad)
For:

The module was exposed to the screen reader, but read order was very poor.
E-standards for Training
Page 3
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools
Against:



Non-responsive – text boxes did not resize to fit content.
Video (Youtube) did not play.
The quiz did not render properly at all. If in portrait mode the question did not
display, if in landscape mode the buttons disappeared from the bottom of the
screen (pushed off screen?) The Submit button rendered incorrectly and
obscured the navigation – could not complete the quiz.
Chrome (Android Lollipop Phablet)
No screen reader installed, so could not test.
Against:



Non-responsive – text boxes did not resize to fit content.
Video (Youtube) played, but player controls did not work (had to use device
controls to control the video), and there were no captions or other
accessibility support.
The quiz did not render properly at all. If in portrait mode the question did not
display, if in landscape mode the buttons disappeared from the bottom of the
screen (pushed off screen?) The Submit button rendered incorrectly and
obscured the navigation – could not complete the quiz.
3.2 Lectora Inspire v11
No non-standards file formats were included in the output. There were 26 validation
errors generated. The doctype was declared as HTML4.0 transitional. (Note that
directory structure was very poor with loose JavaScript, CSS and images at the root
level of the module.)
Observations common to all desktop browsers
For:



CSS rendered as expected.
Text is selectable
Quiz worked well
Against:

Video (JW Player) had no option for closed captions or other accessibility
support.
View Lectora version of module
Firefox v38
Intermediate:
E-standards for Training
Page 4
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools

The module was exposed to the screen reader, but read order was very poor.
Against:

No keyboard accessibility (except for video, but the JW Player created a
keyboard trap).
Chrome v43
Intermediate:

The module was exposed to the screen reader, but read order was very poor.
Screen reader worked only after clicking into the module.
Against:

No keyboard accessibility.
Internet Explorer v11
Intermediate:

Keyboard accessible (mostly), but tab order was poor. (No keyboard trap in
video player.)
Against:

Quiz controls could not be activated with keyboard.
Safari v7 (OSX)
Intermediate:

The module was exposed to the screen reader, but read order was very poor.
Against:

The module was not keyboard accessible
Safari (iOS8 iPad)
For:


Exposed to screen reader (Voice Over) which worked reasonably well.
CSS rendered quite well
Intermediate:

Worked better with Voice Over off
Against:
E-standards for Training
Page 5
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools


Video (Youtube) did not work (did not display at all – JW Player is Flash
based).
Quiz did not work well. Had to tap label before tapping control (eg radio
button)
Chrome (Android Lollipop Phablet)
No screen reader installed, so could not test.
For:

Quiz worked in portrait mode.
Intermediate:

When tapping buttons, the first tap magnified the button to make it more
legible, then the second tap activated the control. This behaviour was
inconsistent
Against:


Non-responsive – text boxes did not resize to fit content. Content shrank to fit
screen, rendering text illegible particularly when on-screen keyboard
deployed
Video did not play (plug in not supported)
3.3 Articulate Storyline v2
The output included multiple (non E-standards compliant) Flash (swf) files and
unnecessary zip (gz) files. As with Lectora, the directory structure was very confused.
The W3C HTML validator returned one error (but that was anomalous, incorrectly
saying a <script> element was wrongly formed). Developer chose to use built-in
navigation buttons.
Observations common to all desktop browsers
For:



Buttons could be disabled
Rendered well
Quiz worked well
Against:





There was no keyboard accessibility.
Video had no option for closed captions or other accessibility support.
No screen reader exposure.
Text is not selectable
Quiz answers could not be changed even after restarting module.
E-standards for Training
Page 6
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools
View Storyline version of module
Firefox v38
Intermediate:

Did not render as well as other browsers (font handling)
Chrome v43
No comments other than those common to all desktop browsers.
Internet Explorer v11
Intermediate:

Drop down menus on “Pairing Choices” quiz page were difficult to use. Had to
select down arrow rather than anywhere on the drop down.
Safari v7 (OSX)
No comments other than those common to all desktop browsers
Safari (iOS8 iPad)
Against:

Had to download Storyline player for iPad, but course did not play.
Chrome (Android Lollipop Phablet)
No screen reader installed, so could not test.
Intermediate:

Quiz worked, but had to be in portrait mode, or onscreen keyboard
deployment shrank the controls too small to be legible
Against:


Course not responsive to device – module shrank to fit (including text).
Video played, but the only controls were play/pause (no volume control,
captions or other accessibility.
E-standards for Training
Page 7
2015 – Comparison of Rapid Authoring Tools
More Information
E-standards for Training
Email: e-standards@flexiblelearning.net.au
Website:
E-standards for Training: e-standards.flexiblelearning.net.au
E-standards for Training
Page 8