Rapid Authoring Tools: Everything You Need To Know

The business landscape, regardless of industry, has been rapidly evolving, especially for the past few decades. As a result, adaptability has emerged as a mandatory quality for businesses and professionals that want to stay ahead of the curve. 

While some aspects of doing business have been able to adapt pretty easily to the developments in their respective industries, the training aspect has been falling behind. Particularly, because developing traditional eLearning or compliance training material requires a significant amount of time and effort to create.

Moreover, once the material is created, it immediately starts becoming more and more obsolete as new developments influence the way industries work.

With rapid authoring tools, businesses can now save time and money when it comes to creating and/or updating their training material. Before we get into the “how”, let us understand what rapid authoring tools are.

What are Rapid Authoring Tools?

Rapid authoring tools, as the name suggests, are design platforms that enable instructional designers and businesses to create meaningful elearning experiences. 

With a range of advanced features such as inbuilt templates, media elements, and backgrounds that can be customised based on project needs, these tools can accelerate the pace of creating and delivering course materials to the learners. 

However, the benefits of rapid authoring tools are not limited to their inbuilt features. 

Benefits of Rapid Authoring Tools

• Rapid authoring tools enable easy repurposing of digital learning content

Instead of having to create images, videos, or even new interactive scenarios, organisations can simply repurpose their existing material and upload it to a particular learning platform.

• Reduces learning development time and cost

Thanks to the in-built tools offered by most rapid authoring tools, the time to create course materials is reduced significantly. Instead of having to create everything from scratch, rapid authoring tools enable designers to simply drag and drop elements like pre-built elearning templates themes and objects.

Reduced man hours dedicated to creating course directly translate to reduced costs of creating course material.

• Enables easy updation of course material

The drag and drop features included in rapid authoring tools make it easy for organisations and designers to update their course material. Traditionally, an update would mean complete redesign of the course material.

Now that we know about the advantages of rapid authoring tools, let us look at the different types of authoring tools.

Types of Rapid Authoring Tools

There are three types of rapid authoring tools that are available nowadays:

• PowerPoint Add-ins

These tools are essentially a plug-in to Microsoft Powerpoint that has been traditionally used to create course materials. While PowerPoint add-ins are easy to install and work with, they offer minimal functionality and customisation options.

This means, such authoring tools are great for those looking to develop basic learning material. However, if you plan to create interactive learning environments, PowerPoint add-ins will not be of much help.

• Installation-based Authoring Tools

As the name suggests, these tools are installed on your computer. Unlike their PowerPoint-dependent counterparts, they are standalone products that can function independently.

As a result, they offer a collection of great features and customisation options. There are, however, a couple of drawbacks of using installation-based authoring tools. To begin with, since they live in a specific computer, collaborating with different designers becomes very difficult. Moreover, the learning curve on these tools is pretty steep, which can potentially take a toll on your productivity.

• Cloud-based Authoring Tools

The latest addition to authoring tools, cloud-based authoring tools have overcome all the drawbacks mentioned about the previous authoring tools. 

Since these are cloud based, anyone can access the course designs and materials from a computer with an internet connection. The best part is, most cloud based authoring tools are extremely user friendly and don’t involve a steep learning curve.

Conclusion

It is clear that rapid authoring tools offer significant advantages. However, it is important to first assess your unique elearning needs before you compare elearning authoring tools. When you know your unique needs, you can choose the one that offers features and functionality that aligns with them.