New CourseBuilder Now Available

We are pleased to announce the official release of our new CourseBuilder system! This is a major update that adds dozens of requested functions, while striving to make CourseBuilder even easier to use. It's active now for all MediaLab users. You can use CourseBuilder to build your own online courses and customize MediaLab's courses for your own needs.

New Features and Functionality!

We've made many major improvements to the CourseBuilder system, including:

New and improved question types

New Drag-and-drop questions ask users to drag text or images into appropriate boxes.

New Put-in-order questions ask users to reorder listed items into the correct order; these are excellent for "procedure" questions.

Fill-in-the-Blank questions now allow for up to 3 "also acceptable" answers.

Questions, page content, feedback, and answer choices can now be as long as necessary.

New multimedia options

Upload audio files to individual course pages, or upload an audio track for full-course narration.

Upload video files, with automatic encoding and resizing.

Large images are automatically resized appropriately when uploading.

Swap out an image or file without having to reselect it on all the pages where it's used.

Better handling of PowerPoint content

New courses can be created by uploading a PowerPoint.

PowerPoint content can be added to existing courses inside CourseBuilder.

Replace PowerPoint slides inside CourseBuilder by re-uploading your PowerPoint file. Other edits that you've made, like adding more content pages or exam questions, are preserved.

Subadministrators can add new courses

Site administrators can now grant subadministrators the ability to create new courses from scratch. Under the Users tab, select "Edit Subadministrator Roles," then choose "CourseBuilder Subadministrator" and "Ability to add new courses."

Checklists are easier to edit

ChecklistBuilder is now integrated into CourseBuilder, so that checklists can be built more quickly.

Add tasks, subtasks, benchmarks, descriptions, and resources (downloadable files, links, and references).

Logging and history

All important edits to courses are now logged, including the date, time, and responsible party.

See who added, edited, and deleted course content, pages, tasks, exam questions, and more.

More help available

More explanatory text is available inside CourseBuilder, including a "Get Started" guide and answers to frequenly asked questions.

Download the updated CourseBuilder User's Guide (PDF) for more information.

New Look!

The most noticeable change in this update is the overall interface of CourseBuilder. We have added a new header that contains many of the major functions of the course, a revamped, collapsible course outline, and an upgraded page / question viewing pane.

The new, easier to use interface.

The new button menu separates course-wide functionality from specific page / question functions. This includes previewing the course, selecting course options, viewing the course update history, the ability to print a PDF copy of the course from inside CourseBuilder, a link to the individual multimedia galleries (images, files, audio, video), a link to the course glossary, the help button, and the button to exit CourseBuilder.

CourseBuilder's new button menu.

The course outline has been reworked for functionality and usability. The collapsing feature is now more apparent and has a sleek, smooth transition. Certain pages from the previous version of CourseBuilder have been moved to more visible places within the new course outline. Another new feature of the new course outline is the ability to show / hide the entire outline.

The updated, collapsible course outline.

Questions?

Have any questions about the new CourseBuilder upgrades? Please contact us at support@medialabinc.net.

Published on 10/5/2011 1:56:44 PM.
Permalink: http://www.medialabinc.net/newspost40-new_coursebuilder_now_available.aspx

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