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The Course Builder (formerly called "Knowledge Builder") is a stand-alone software that help you create Online Courses. It enables Subject Matter Experts (SME's) and Courseware Creators to author online courses without extensive previous knowledge of software and/or instructional design? How does it do it? Simply by (a) offering an intuitive graphical interface, with NO requirement for programming or scripting expertise and (b) allowing to aggregate existing content and following basic instructional design best practices provided within the software itself. The software allows inclusion of content created by other education content creation tools such as MS PowerPoint, Wanadu (iCreate), MS Producer, Macromedia Flash, eStudio-Live, AcuLearn, Fluition Show, Sonicfoundry MEDIASITE, HTML Authoring tools, Quicktime and a host of other products. This can significantly reduces the time and costs of creating eLearning courses and allows you to gain a return on investment quicker than most other software. Yes, you can create courses and distribute them on a CD or upload the courses to a ADL/SCORM conforming LMS.

Simple and Powerful Tool For Creating Online Courseware...... The Course Builder offers one-of-a-kind features that make the development of content for E-learning  faster and more efficient.

VU Course Builder and Content Creation

The result of a presentation-creation exercise in the VU Course Builder is the generation of one or more Project files (XML files) that contain links to rich media content files in their native format. The Course Builder project file format not only enables the multiplexed containment of media streams of different types, it also encapsulates meta information and has the ability to encapsulate code, thereby reducing the number of assets to be managed. The VU Course Builder is designed to be more of an "assembly tool" rather than one that would create and manipulate basic media types. For this reason, it will henceforth be referred to as the 'Content Assembly Tool'. The emphasis is on ease and simplicity of the creation process. The accent is also on providing simple interfaces to the content creator to link media presentation contexts with effects and actions, many of which lie outside the scope of the media in question.

The assembly tool also facilitates the easy inclusion of new media types into the Course Builder through a simple scheme that automatically recognizes third-party media components. Currently available content creation tools include GUI-based Windows and Macintosh applications.

Easy of Use

The VU Course Builder offers an intuitive graphical interface, with NO requirement for programming or scripting expertise, so anyone can dive right in and create E-Learning content. The program is a quick, easy, and inexpensive e-learning software tool that allows novice users to create sophisticated web-based training (WBT) courses within minutes. Importing existing content, creating questions, scoring, tracking, and reporting are all automated to allow you to focus on courseware development. If you can use word processing software, you are ready to start building your very own courses with the “VU Knowledge Builder”.

Interactive Learning on the Web

The Course Builder is a 'Knowledge Building' tool. It helps you assemble and create Web-based Interactive learning content. Interactive Web-based learning encourages students to learn by  interaction through the use of rich media (multimedia) Learning Objects deployed over the Internet.  Web-based Courseware is a  collection of this type of 'Rich-Media' Learning Objects. Web-based courseware can use any combination of text, graphics, animation, sound, video or external data repositories to present a course of instruction. 

The mixture of rich media is used to help students better understand concepts and to simulate a task required to perform hands-on training. Students navigate through the material at their own pace using a keyboard, mouse, or touch-screen device. Course Builder interactive learning materials are accessed using a Web browser on an intranet or the World Wide Web. 

CourseMate Course Builder software has an easy-to-use graphical interface and is designed for creating and publishing online courses. It gives you the tools you need to organize your online course, create content with rich media, preview the finished product, then publish the course to the CourseMate Learning Management System (LMS) or any other third-party LMS that conforms to ADL/SCORM standards.

System Components & Interoperability

The Course Builder is a java-based software tool and uses XML for the aggregation, development and publishing of learning content. Organizations just starting out in e-learning will appreciate its simplicity, while experienced course developers and development teams will find that CourseMate Course Builder offers ways to streamline their course creation process and substantially reduce development costs.

The Course Builder is included as an integrated component of the VU Enterprise LMS platform, providing seamless content connectivity, security, session management and integrated reporting.  The Course Builder offers one-of-a-kind features that make the development of content for e-learning faster and more efficient. 

Create Sharable Learning Content

ADL Co-Lab defines Sharable Courseware Object Reference Model (SCORM 1.2)  which includes a Content Aggregation Model (CAM) and a Run-time Environment (RTE). The Sharable Courseware Object Reference Model (SCORM) and other instructional technology specifications are designed to facilitate interoperability and reuse of courseware across learning management systems (LMSs). Toward this end, CourseMate Course Builder course authoring software fully supports the creation of mandatory SCORM meta-data for discovery, use of SCORM data model elements for tracking the progress of learners at run-time, and the creation of SCORM-conformant manifests for exchanging content between repositories and Learning Management Systems (LMS).

SCORM Metadata Generation

The Metadata Generator in the Course Builder helps users create SCORM-compliant Metadata files for the Course-Aggregation Model, SCO Metadata, and Asset Metadata based on the SCORM 1.2 specification.

SCORM Manifest Generation

The Manifest Generator in CourseMate Course Builder helps users create SCORM-compliant manifest files based on the SCORM 1.2 specification.

>>> Click here to see a list of the Academic ADL Co-Lab partners.

Key features

The Course Builder offers several competitive advantages: 

• Simple, easy-to-use interface

• All content references stored in an XML format (Lessons, Pages etc..)

• Rapid creation & aggregation of E-Learning content

• Create courses from anywhere and anytime (not bound to any specific web server)

• Integrated Course Navigation and Collaboration Features

• Rich-Media Support (Audio, Video, Images, PowerPoint, Flash, Adobe and other Documents) 

• Built-in Instructional Design Best Practices (Sequencing, Quiz/Tests, Course Hierarchy & Navigation)

• Support for Reusable Learning Objects 

• Superior Testing and Assessment Capabilities 

• Use existing pages developed in Dreamweaver™, FrontPage™ or any other HTML development tool and use them in CourseMate

• Use existing graphics, audio and video files

• Use existing Microsoft© Word or PowerPoint content

• True/False, Multiple Choice single answer, Multiple Choice multiple answers, Matching and Fill-in-the-Blank question types

• Linear learning and Competency-based learning support

• User-defined glossary and Frequently Asked Questions

• Flexible access levels

• Unlimited free upgrades with your subscription

New features

• Import complete courses created by others

• Import Lessons from other courses

• Improved Quiz wizard

• Publish to a Local Drive (Distribute Courses on a CD)

• Support for HTML Pages in a Local Directory

• Specify your own Chat Server and Chat Room

• Specify your own Threaded Discussions Server and Discussion Room