Overview:

Akuter Author is a MS Windows application allowing the design and the customization of interactive and multi-media on-line courses by employing the familiar MS Word environment as user interface. Pre-configured storyboard templates are provided to easily and visually insert contents and media. After uploading onto the Akuter Management System platform, learners' activity is recorded and examinations are scored, updating in real time the progression of the users in their compliance, certification and training programs until completion.

Benefits:

• The power to produce
• Content Driven System
• New approach
• Easy to use
• Publish
• Three easy steps!

The power to produce: Akuter Author is designed for subject matter experts who want to build courses to develop company assets for training, learning and communication materials. Akuter Author allows individuals to design, develop, preview, package and publish courses and presentation over the Internet-Intranet.

Content Driven System: The subject matter expert does not need programming or technical skills. Akuter Author is designed as a content driven system, which means it automates processes based on pre-designed templates. A choice of pre-defined look and feel styles or a predefined selection of multimedia smart pages, quizzes, or examination pages are available.

New approach: Akuter Author is a feature rich application designed totally with a new approach to empower the subject matter expert. It makes use of Microsoft Word for authoring content. Upon installation, Akuter Author adds plug-in icons and extensions to Word. Anyone who already knows how to use MS Word is ready to develop content in hours, rather than months. Storyboard templates are provided to drag and drop learning materials visually.

Easy to use: The subject matter expert or the course developer starts by using MS Word to define a storyboard for the course. It is the normal process for writing any document in today's work environment. Before a person starts writing he or she will develop a content outline and the sequence of learning, survey or communication assets. Akuter Author provides Word templates to guide the author through the type of page that he or she is developing. A template is provided for smart pages, others are provided for quizzes and examination pages. Any time during content development the author can select the browser icon to view the results, as they would appear to the learner, which eliminates the need for a staging system.

Publish: The subject matter expert will need to select the package icon to generate the content ready for web usage. Akuter Author generates all the necessary web programming needed to handle the display of the course pages in HTML, Java script and XML. Options are provided with the system to publish the content through Akuter Management System for distribution.

Three easy steps!

1/ Sketch your Storyboard

Each screen is represented by a pre-configured template whose contents will govern the display of the learner's screen. You just need to know MS Word to fill in the fields prepared in each screen's template. An element of the page (button, text, graph etc.) corresponds to each field. Fields not used are ignored in the corresponding screen, which is automatically organized according to the fields used.

2/ Pick up a style

The styles of AA manage the organization of the learners' screens. A style provides consistency among the screens using the same style. AA comes with a gallery of styles. You can create, import or publish a style. Choose a style and associate it with an entire training module or a subject. It is easy to customize a style by using the style editor or to create your own style with your own visuals or those provided with the media library.

3/ Preview and publish

At anytime while you develop your storyboard, create a style or add your contents, you can preview from your workstation what the learner will really see. When the training or certification module is ready, the integrated packager of Akuter Author organizes and converts the contents, generates the codes and the files necessary for delivery on the Web via the AMS platform. The integrity of the contents is controlled before uploading

Features:

Akuter Author system is rich in easy to use features that are familiar to content experts. It uses an innovative approach to simplify the process or authoring by exploiting familiar tools like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. The features below are designed to accelerate the productivity of the content author by reducing the need for learning new tools.

• Storyboard
• Chapter & Exam
• Smart pages
• Quiz pages
• Multiple choice assessment pages
• Essay assessment pages
• Automatic page advance & timeout
• Auto-media play
• Display of media option
• Background Sound
• Style gallery author
• Glossary author
• Packaging and distribution wizard

Storyboard

The storyboard is to a subject matter expert what a blueprint is to an architect. A content author starts by defining a project then uses Microsoft Word templates to enter storyboard information in the pre-designed fields. After completion, he or she replaces the storyboard by the final multimedia and interactive components. Content authors can distribute an original storyboard to other members of their team to have the project edited or converted to different languages.

Chapter & Exam

A content author uses chapter and exam features with fill-in-the-blank templates, based on Microsoft word, to define the content chapters and prepare assessment examinations. This technique allows building multimedia web pages incredibly fast without any programming or technical skills. Each field is pre-designed; media can be previewed and selected with a mouse click. Akuter Author builds on the fly Hyperlinks for branching, media launch, glossary terms and URL. A content author can preview at anytime the results though the attached web browser. Akuter Author will automatically adjust the content to the size and format of the final screens' lay out. Screen templates are designed with all possible options, but the content driven Akuter Author will automatically display the options that it needs from the template.

Smart pages

A content author uses smart pages to display multimedia information with different setup options. Among these options are the ability to combine expandable text with hyperlinks, graphic windows, media and navigation buttons with different initialization options. An auto media can also be associated with each feedback i.e. a sound, video, picture or any application that can run on the learner's computer.

Quiz pages

A content author uses quiz pages to enhance the understanding of the content and keep the learner engaged during the learning process. Basically, test pages serve to test a user's understanding of the subject and provide feedback to the learner using several media options, or through branching to the location of the correct answer. It combines expandable question windows with hyperlinks, up to five choices, an expandable graphic window and expandable feedback window with hyperlinks, media and navigation buttons. An auto media can also be associated with each feedback i.e. a sound, video, picture or any application that can run on the learner's computer. These pages can be used as pre-assessment and post assessments as well as self review.

Multiple-choice assessment pages

Different levels of assessments are available to the content author through the use of multiple-choice or essay pages. A content author builds assessment pages to evaluate the user's understanding of the subject through multiple-choice pages. Assessment pages combine expandable question windows with hyperlinks, up to five choices, an expandable graphic window, media and navigation buttons. A content author can design Kirkpatrick assessment levels using this feature in addition to using the essay pages.

Essay assessment pages

A content author can utilize this feature to get a written feedback from the learner. It allows a learner to write in answers to questions for assessment or feedback survey.
There are two methods for scoring an essay page:
- Automated scoring: The learner's answer is compared to weighted correct answers and the score given automatically.
- Manual scoring: The answers are reported to a scorer through the Akuter's tracking and scoring system.

Automatic page advance & time out

A content author can choose each page to be interactive and controlled by the end user or set to automatically advance to the next page after a preset period. A feature necessary to the content author when he or she wants to enforce a scheduled set time for completing a specific page.

Auto-media

A content author can use this feature to start a selected media automatically when the page starts.

Display Media options

A content author uses this feature to launch videos and pictures from an auto media, buttons or hyperlinks on the media server. Videos can be played in full screen or into the graphic window area defined at the screen template. A content author can also display or hide the VCR control panel.

Background Sound

Feature available to a content author with each page to play a background sound with a preset volume level.

Style Gallery Editor

This is an Akuter Author function used to create fully customized screen styles for any or all pages of a project. An author can build a screen style using a pre-designed interface. Tools are available to customize glossary, table of contents, smart and quiz pages as well as exams. A content author gets hundreds of different combinations to build a unique style presentation. Each newly created style can be added to the style gallery and re-used for other projects as an authoring object.

Glossary Author

A learner will need a glossary to find a definition of certain terms while taking a course. Akuter Author includes a glossary-building feature that a content author uses to build or import a glossary of terms. At anytime a user taking a course or looking at a presentation, can display a glossary to look up terms definition, address book, etc.

Packaging and distribution wizard

The packaging and distribution wizard guides a content author through simple steps and options to package the content for distribution over the Internet/Intranet. The content author has an option of format, destination target and distribution platform.

System Requirements: