Today at the Learning Solutions 2010 Conference & Expo in Orlando, Rapid Intake released REVIEW™, a Web-based tool that supports collaborative review of courses authored in Articulate, Captivate, Lectora, and Rapid Intake ProForm. ( http://www.rapidintake.com/REVIEW ) At the same time, the company enabled the same capabilities in its Unison product.
REVIEW supports course review and testing using an approach called "microcycle testing", inspired by Agile programming methodology. Microcycle testing suggests, among other things, compressing the typical review and revision cycle into single-day events where feedback collection, management, and revisions are all completed before the next tester begins. Done correctly, this can speed up development time and simplify the project manager's job while it facilitates Quality Assurance (QA). Rapid Intake offers a white paper that explains the microcycle testing concept, and this may be helpful to you in understanding how to set up the process. (Download the white paper from http://www.rapidintake.com/resources/white-paper/elearning-white-papers/ – note that registration is required to download.)
How it works
REVIEW is a hosted application. Users upload their courses to their REVIEW account. Once this is done, reviewers can log in, run the course in a viewer, and leave feedback. (See Figure 1.) Reviewers can be anyone the project manager designates: Subject Matter Experts, prospective users of the e-Learning, managers, designated QA testers, and so on. The reviewer and the project manager can attach files (including graphics, video, and various kinds of text documents) to the feedback.
Figure 1 Reviewers run a course in the viewer and leave their feedback.
REVIEW tracks the feedback notes and threads all comments. It also captures information such as the identity of the reviewer, where the reviewer was in the course when the feedback was submitted, and Web browser and other system information. The project manager sets the Priority and Category, and makes the assignments to correct issues that reviewers identify. The project manager can also append comments to the issue description provided by the reviewer. The project manager can filter the reviewer comments and the issues in a number of ways. (See Figure 2.)
Figure 2 The project manager can filter issues by a number of criteria for use in tracking.
There is no limit on the amount of storage space, or to the number of reviewers. REVIEW has been tested and functions correctly using Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows machines, and Firefox and Safari on Macs. REVIEW accounts and uploaded courses are secure and cannot be accessed by unauthorized persons.
REVIEW is available for a 30-day free trial (up to five active projects). After the trial period, there are three pricing levels for the product: $19 per project per month for one to four active projects, $49 per month for five active projects, and $99 per month for unlimited active projects.
Summary
REVIEW is simple to use, and provides good support for collaborative review of e-Learning applications during development. This is an interesting solution to the challenges project managers face in organizations that use a variety of e-Learning authoring tools. Rapid Intake REVIEW should greatly facilitate QA work, simplify the project manager's job, and speed up development time.
