Publishing

Everything starts in the Publish view, Publishing tab. The Publish course page lists the Destinations: Review (see online reviews), On the web and SCORM 1.2 package. Tick what you want to send: the big blue button takes the name of what goes out (Publish package, Publish on the web, Publish for several destinations at once).

A SCORM 1.2 package for your client’s LMS

1. Choose the LMS. Next to SCORM 1.2 package, Choose LMS opens Course settings, Delivery section, Client’s LMS. Elabora knows SuccessFactors, Workday, Cornerstone, Docebo, Moodle, Totara, 360Learning, Rise Up, SCORM Cloud and Teach Up: it then checks the size that LMS accepts. With no LMS chosen, it points out the ones that would reject the package.
2. Choose the media quality: Standard, the normal choice, already optimized for the web; Lighter, for an LMS that limits package size; Lightest, for a slow connection. On the right, the course’s weight at that quality (see below).
3. Look at what is left to fix. Under Before publishing, the items under Must fix: publishing stops and Needs attention, with Open checks for the rest. See checks.
4. Publish: Publish package builds the ZIP. Elabora says “The package is ready”, with its size, and Show in Finder (on Windows, Show in folder). The package is in the course’s dist folder; then upload it to your client’s LMS.

If the package is too heavy for the LMS, Elabora says so in one sentence, with the figures (“The package size is 130.2 MB, too large for Teach Up (up to 100 MB)”), then offers what to do: choose the LMS if it is not chosen, publish at the quality that fits (with its estimated size), see the Largest files (each opens the screen where it is shown) and, when no quality is enough, shorten the video or host it elsewhere.

Each published package leaves a named version in the course history; the left column of Publish lists them too.

The weight of media

On the right of the quality, Elabora gives the course’s weight at that quality, before anything is published. A click on it opens the list of its media: the heaviest first, each with its screen, its duration or size, and its weight; the others under a fold, then the player, fonts and texts. A click on a media file opens its screen; a right click also shows it in the Finder.

What Elabora can lighten on its own, it lightens, at every quality, Standard included. A photo saved as PNG, a video exported at too high a bitrate for its size, or a media file outside the web’s formats (a HEIC photo, a ProRes video) goes into the package as an optimized copy, made once; your files do not change. A screenshot or a diagram in PNG goes as it is: it is already light, and photo compression would blur its text.

The weight turns orange when a media file seems heavier than it needs to be for what it is and Elabora cannot lighten it on its own: an animated image, which would weigh several times less as a video. It comes first in the list, with the reason. Once the list has been opened, the weight is grey again; it turns orange again only for a new case. A long video is never at fault: twenty minutes of video naturally weigh hundreds of megabytes.

What the LMS receives

These settings are in Course settings, Course tab:

• Success: What the LMS receives (Completed or incomplete, Passed or incomplete, Passed or failed, Completed or failed) and, except for the first, the Passing score, as a percentage.
• Tracking: Once completed, Keep progress or Close the attempt (the next time the course opens, it starts from the beginning); Answers: Send answers to the LMS, linked to objectives.
• At the top of the tab: the Course title and Course description for the LMS catalogue, the Duration in minutes, and the Version (three numbers, like 1.0.0): increase it with each delivery to signal the update to the LMS.

The technical details are in SCORM 1.2 delivery and LMS profiles.

Publishing on the web

To show a course without an LMS (a demo course, an open training), publish it in your Elabora space. You need to be signed in (see online reviews).

1. Tick On the web. The address shows: your-space.elabora.page/course-name, public but out of search engines.
2. Settings, next to it, offers:
   • Address: the course’s name in the address, fixed at the first publication;
   • Progress: Kept in the browser (learners resume where they left off, in that browser) or None (the course starts over at each visit);
   • Navigation: As in the course, or Free;
   • Sharing image (the first screen’s thumbnail) and Search engines (Out of search engines for now).
3. Publish on the web. Elabora builds, sends, then puts it online (only changed files are sent); you can keep working meanwhile. Each new publication replaces the previous one, at the same address.

Red checks stop the web publication, as they stop the package. Your account allows a limited number of courses on the web; Settings › Account shows where you stand and offers Remove from the web…: learners who started it will not be able to resume, and you can publish it again later at the same address. The technical details: Web delivery.