The selection of eLearning tools is seemingly a never-ending process for Instructional Designers, as the capabilities available change rapidly. In practice, these decisions are based in part on the amount of money already invested, so it is particularly important to make informed decisions before spending large sums of money on tools. Knowledge, experience, and good judgment are all critical in the selection of eLearning tools.

Complicating the decision is the need to consider not only authoring tools, but the relationship of the outputs to the delivery mechanism. In the corporate world, eLearning is usually delivered through a learning Management System (LMS). It is important that the LMS is compatible with the eLearning content.

Another major decision is whether or not to invest in a Learning Content Management System (LCMS). An LCMS is used to support collaborative development and reuse of content. A simple example is a case where a particular diagram will frequently be used in multiple courses, and the diagram is subject to frequent revisions. An LCMS will generally allow you to replace an image in a central location and have it automatically update in all relevant presentations (the same applies to blocks of text), and support role-based permissions for access to content for editing.

“Traditional" eLearning development, which flourished in the early 90s, uses relatively labor-intensive development tools, in particular the Adobe products Flash and Dreamweaver. This type of development can result in development times on the order of 300 hours for each hour of content. The trend is towards tools and authoring systems that require less coding, and thus allow for the possibility of reducing development time ratios by 50 percent or more. State-of-the-art authoring tools, when used in conjunction with an LMS and/or an LCMS, can allow you to incorporate the following features while keeping development time under control.

• Content that tracks the progress of learners (what has been completed, test scores, and bookmarks), and passes this information to an LMS.

• Content that is divided into sections, which may be called lessons, chapters, modules, etc., and which may force the student to complete the course in a specific order.

• Test items presented in various formats in addition to standard multiple choice, e.g., drag and drop, fill in the blank.

• Flash-based animations and video.

• Interactive software simulations (the user performs the actions in a simulated environment).

We recommend using authoring tools that provide a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) development interface, allowing authors to arrange items on the screen by dragging them into place.