Market Trends Update 2010
- Content Authoring tools that offer their own LMS – albeit it is a lite version, which only accepts their content authoring tool courses
- Many vendors hyping PowerPoint to Flash angle as key feature
- Courses appearing in the market in a linear fashion, a result of people entering the space from a ILT background, it fits under this category, because vendors are not explaining the non-linear nor the true essence of WBT of courses
- 57% offer a trial at various length, this is significantly higher than any other e-learning tool with over 40 vendors in the market
- Low percentile that include a multi-lingual feature
- Low percentile that offer advanced features for advanced developers who want to push the RCAT to the next level, but who do not want to use 100% Flash
- Greater usage of open source content authoring tools, across all sectors, not just education and regardless of tech skill set or instructional developer background
Moving Forward in 2011
These should be considered standards for vendors in this space in 2011 or at least those who want a competitive edge
- SAAS based
- Collaborative feature – Review by multiple stakeholders, Q/A
- CSS
- Offer a trial, minimum 30 days – people have lots on their plate but still register or download at the time they see the product, and the trial should be the full version, how else can someone really get a sense of what the product can do
- Offer an option for people who do not want to be contacted by your company/sales person, trust me, people like this, and if they like your product they still will buy it
- Spell checker, multi-lingual capability
- Scenario based or sim feature beyond the standard few branching that many come with
- Provide the code to course authors/developers without having them go into the individual objects themselves
- Embed features such as Widgets, Mashups – that people can find on the web or create themselves or that you offer, or that other end users can create and an exchange for people to share – exchanges in 2011 are going to grow in all e-learning spaces
- M-Learning capability for tablets, thus the ability to use with OSs including Android – the Galaxy tablet sold 1M units in less than 4 weeks, projected total number of units by end of 2011 for all tablets close to 60M; and they are finding out that end users still have laptops too
- iPad feature, the iPad 2 is coming out in Feb. 2011, the iPad accounts for 95% share of the market
- Support for Office 2010
- API capability, so courses can be deployed into social media sites that accept APIs, Facebook is one, there are others out there. In social networking alone, over 385 sites. Granted not all will accept courses – per their standards. At a minimum create a plug-in for WordPress
Any you particularly recommend?
Depends on what you are looking for – do you want it to be SaaS or desktop? Do you want it to be like an Articulate product or something more robust?
Do you want mobile learning capabilities?
I like Rapid Intake’s Unison product which is SaaS because has a nice set of features and they were the first ones to have the collaboration capability, i.e. multi-reviewers or SMEs without being at the main location.
Their new m-learning studio is good. I admit I was one of the beta testers early on, but watched it as the build was taking place – it can output with HTML5 and Flash, and they have a native app for the iPad, not a universal one, which can play on the iPad, but is really geared for smartphones.
I lot of people love Articulate but I find it – at the end of the day- to be nothing more than a PPT to Flash output with additional tools – which are separate but come together within their studio solution. That said, I have used it and once you figure out its tool, it is solid, but it has a ceiling, so if you are wanting to push power on your course, forget it. It can only go so far, so for true e-learning developers, I wouldn’t recommend.