Primarily the service is designed for subject matter experts or lecturers who are busy people who do not want to learn about the authoring system or do not have the time. Alternatively, if the material is in a suitable form it can be used by an eLearning technician who is more technically aware of the software tools available.

However, the service could be used by developers who want to create online material quickly and efficiently. The templates could be used to enter the ‘standard’ content, then extra more interactive pages could be added.

Skills Required

The person entering content will need to know how the information is to be displayed, for instance:

• Will it be a simple text graphic page, or will the information be revealed in steps.


• If there are subtopics then a “rollover” screen could be useful. Each subtopic heading would be a bullet.
  

The course creator must define how the material is to be presented.

Note: It is not a good idea to have large blocks of text.

How will the course content be assessed?
There are standard questions such as:

• Multiple choice (text), True or false, Fill in the blank (text), Fill in the blank (numeric), and drag & drop.

The lecturer will need to have some basic skills or will have to have access to someone who has them.

More complex assessment can be created by combining the standard questions.

The course creator must define how the material is to be assessed.

An important part of online learning is the graphics. If the script is just text, can illustrations be added that will make the content more suitable for online viewing. The illustrations could be photographs, drawing or diagrams. The authoring package (Toolbook) will resize the graphic as seen online but it is best if the graphic is the correct size before it is added. This is especially true if text is added to the diagram or photograph. Simple packages such as “Paintshop Pro” allow the manipulation of images.

Summary

The lecturer will need to have some basic skills or will have to have access to someone who has them.
He or she will:

• Need to know how to present material and how the students are to be assessed.
• Need to be able to create or have access to suitable graphics.
• Have a basic knowledge of how to store and retrieve information on a PC.
• Be able to zip up content and send the resulting files over the internet.