Many organizations need to develop their own courseware.
WBT Manager's™ open architecture and compliance
with the AICC
specification and SCORM 1.2 specification allows
a variety of authoring tools to be used for the production
of courseware. The following table lists the popular
software titles that can produce lessons compatible
with WBT Manager™. If you would like further help
in deciding what authoring tool to use, or with developing
your eLearning content please visit our Custom
Services section for more information.
| Product |
Description |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
Sample Code |
Authorware
by Adobe |
Full-featured authoring
environment capable of producing lessons with complex
interactivity, animation, and multimedia content. |
| • |
Powerful and flexible |
| • |
Designed specifically for courseware
development |
| • |
Supports all types of interactivity
|
| • |
Supports complex navigation
structures |
| • |
Can receive and use any data
sent by WBT Manager |
| • |
Can track and send any desired
AICC and/or SCORM 1.2 data |
| • |
Exceptional community support
available via newsgroup, mailing list, and
third party web sites |
|
| • |
Requires a plug-in
for use on the web |
| • |
Relatively expensive |
| • |
Relatively steep learning curve |
|
Email Us |
Captivate
by Adobe |
Adobe® Captivate™ 2 software enables anyone to rapidly create powerful and engaging simulations, software demonstrations, and scenario-based training without programming knowledge or multimedia skills. |
| • |
Rapid elearning development |
| • |
Easy to learn |
| |
Ideal for software simualtion |
| • |
Supports a variety of types of interactivity |
| • |
Supports complex navigation structures |
| • |
Uses standard Flash plug-in |
| • |
Supports AICC, SCORM 1.2, and SCORM 2004 specifications |
| • |
Very good community support available via newsgroup, mailing list, and third party web sites |
|
| • |
Limited interaction types |
| • |
Limted control over format of quiz questions |
| • |
Limited control over data exchanged with LMS |
|
Email Us |
Dreamweaver
CourseBuilder
by Adobe
|
Dreamweaver is the leading graphical web development
tool available today. CourseBuilder for Dreamweaveris
a Macromedia add-on that adds special-purpose
extensions to Dreamweaver.
Together, they provide a graphical interface
for developing interactive lessons in HTML. These
lessons can track and send status, score, and
time-in-lesson data to WBT Manager.
|
| • |
No plug-ins required |
| • |
Relatively easy to learn |
| • |
Lesson content is easy to
update |
| • |
Good community support available
via newsgroup, third party websites |
|
| • |
Limited interaction types,
especially if older browsers must be supported
|
| • |
Cannot receive data from WBT
Manager, thereby losing some of WBT Manager's
features. |
| • |
Answers to quiz questions are
not completely secure from web-savvy students |
| • |
Frames must be used to implement
data tracking |
|
Email Us |
Flash
by Adobe
|
Flash is a powerful tool for developing animated
and interactive web-based content. Fluency in
ActionScript is necessary to build the data tracking
and communication required for use with WBT Manager.
Flash 5 introduces pre-made learning interaction
objects (quiz question templates.)
|
| • |
Very small plug-in that most
users already have |
| • |
Powerful and flexible |
| • |
Allows complex interactivity
and rich media content |
| • |
Produces small, fast-loading
files |
| • |
Can receive and use any data
sent by WBT Manager |
| • |
Can track and send any desired
AICC or SCORM 1.2 data |
| • |
Exceptional community support
available via newsgroup and third party web
sites |
|
| • |
Software was not made for courseware
development. |
| • |
Steep learning curve |
| • |
Requires complex scripting
|
|
Email Us |
ToolBook
Instructor
by SumTotal
|
Full-featured courseware authoring tool. Provides a comprehensive authoring solution to create effective software
application simulations, tests, assessments, quiz and interactive e-learning
content.
|
| • |
No plug-in required |
| • |
Supports AICC, SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 specifications |
| • |
Exceptional community support
available via newsgroup and third party web
sites |
|
| • |
Relatively expensive |
| • |
Fairly steep learning curve
|
| • |
Good online/community support |
|
Email Us |
Perception
by QuestionMark
|
Perception is a
AICC-certified tool for developing and presenting
online quizzes and surveys. It is designed for ease
of use by non-programmers and comes with a broad
range of question templates. It maintains its own
database of questions on the web server. However,
it can be integrated with WBT Manager. For more
information on using Perception with WBT Manager,
go here. |
| • |
Easy to use |
| • |
Specifically designed for testing
and score tracking |
| • |
Can be used to present simple
content along with test items |
| • |
Can be used to provide tests
to accompany content developed in a different
tool |
|
| • |
Does not support complex content
delivery |
|
No |
| |
|
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