SmartBuilder strengths
There are several other features in SmartBuilder that I consider very strong, besides those I've already indicated.
- It has an elegant and intuitive interface.
I found myself creating lessons in SmartBuilder rather quickly because everything seems to be logical and well-placed.
- It has a Master Page.
While a master page is familiar to anyone who uses PowerPoint, it is a bit of a rarity among authoring tools. I really appreciated having the ability to set up master elements that are active on every page.
- It comes with unlimited support.
This is a rarity among software providers. Really, SmartBuilder comes with unlimited support? Yes, it does. When I interviewed SmartBuilder customers, this is the feature they loved the most. The support is not only unlimited, it actually is there when you need it.
- It is standards compliant.
Many features allow you to create accessible content for learners with disabilities. SmartBuilder also generates SCORM- and AICC-compliant learning.
- Audio and video can be used in a variety of ways.
You can use audio and video in standard ways, playing them when you reach a page or as feedback to an interaction. However, you can also tie audio and video to a timeline so that you can synchronize text, images, questions, or more to specific points. You can even have events trigger when the audio or video is finished.
- There are collaboration and content management features.
Besides the content library that we discussed earlier, SmartBuilder has content check-in and check-out features to enable version control. A review tool is integrated so that reviewers can add comments and status. You have the ability to create templates and link template elements for single source updating. Other tools are built in to help you work more easily with other team members.
- SmartBuilder gives you translation options.
Those who create e-Learning often have to translate lessons to other languages. For instance, we recently created a course for a client that had to be delivered in 14 different languages. SmartBuilder contains tools to help you enter translated text in one area rather than to have to hunt for each text item, image, audio, or other element. This is a huge timesaver. You can also output text as MS Excel or XML files so that they can be translated separately, and then re-import them.
SmartBuilder limitations
As much as I like SmartBuilder, every software application has limitations and SmartBuilder is no exception. Here are a couple of limitations.
- You have to be connected to the Internet.
As much as an advantage as it is to be able to access the development environment in the browser from anywhere in the world, sometimes it's just nice to be able to work on a lesson without having to be connected. This is becoming less of a problem every day, so it will likely be a moot point in the near future.
- With great power comes great responsibility.
SmartBuilder has power and it's flexible. That means it's important that new users take a few days to be trained and to practice before jumping into building an e-Learning course. It is too easy to miss features or misuse features if you don't know they're there or you don't know all of their options. That's more an admonition to new users and not a limitation of SmartBuilder, but perhaps if it contained wizards to help new users it would be easier to jump in and build e-Learning more quickly. Then again, I'm not a big fan of wizards because they tend to limit what you can do.
Conclusion
SmartBuilder certainly impressed me as a tool that combines a great deal of power in a very nice intuitive interface. While you will need a couple of days of training, it doesn't take long to start developing e-Learning. While some tools limit your instructional design approach, SmartBuilder allows you to be very creative with your design and does not impose unreasonable limits on what you deliver to your learners. Following this paragraph, you will find three case studies from real organizations that are using SmartBuilder to great advantage.
| Case Study – Ingenix Consulting | Case Study – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | Case Study – Large Healthcare Provider |
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Dawn Dickinson is an Instructional Design Manager in Ingenix Consulting's Interactive Marketing and Design Group. The Group delivers interactive marketing, personalized communications, and instructional design services to health care audiences. Learn more at interactivehealthcaredesign.com Dawn states that they design all of their e-Learning in-house, but they do work with a developer vendor for some of their course development needs. They also use Flash, Captivate, and Articulate and use Captivate directly with SmartBuilder. She considers it very easy to integrate SmartBuilder with other tools. 1. Describe the ways in which you use SmartBuilder. We build interactive, scenario based, e Learning courseware for the Health Care Industry. We also use SmartBuilder as a course prototyping tool so our clients can experience what we want to build to meet their learning need, instead of reading about it on paper. 2. How many copies of SmartBuilder do you use in-house? Five author licenses and one reviewer license 3. How long have you been using SmartBuilder? A little over one year 4. Which features do you use on a regular basis? We use the majority of the features within SmartBuilder. 5. Which features do you consider indispensable or very important? Question sets, SCORM, SWF objects, menus. It's all very important, depending on the project. 6. What do you consider SmartBuilder's strengths? Its ability to easily develop interactive, engaging e-Learning without knowing Flash or programming languages. 7. What do you consider SmartBuilder's weaknesses? There has been only one concern for us related to SmartBuilder and that is related to file sizes. We've been able to find workarounds for this issue. 8. Do you consider SmartBuilder's pricing fair, too high, or should it be higher for its value? Its pricing is fair. 9. What has been your experience with SmartBuilder's technical support? SmartBuilder's technical support is incredible! They are knowledgeable and responsive. They understand e-Learning, and they always seem happy to help with whatever need we have. 10. What other thoughts would you like to include? The whole experience with the SmartBuilder team, from our initial training on the product to our continued use and need for their support, has been outstanding. The tool is very powerful and user friendly in a way that allows people who aren't developers to become developers. It's a truly incredible product! |
James Basore is a Training Specialist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a research laboratory funded by the Department of Energy. For more information visit www.lbl.gov. They design and develop all of their e-Learning in house. 1. What tools beside SmartBuilder do you use in your organization? Flash, Captivate, video production tools 2. Of these, which do you use directly with SmartBuilder? Flash and video 3. How easy to you think it is to integrate SmartBuilder with other tools? It is very easy to integrate video, and it is very easy to integrate Flash content. 4. How many copies of SmartBuilder do you use in-house? Currently we only have one copy in house. 5. How long have you been using SmartBuilder? I have been using SmartBuilder for approximately six months. 6. Describe the ways in which you use SmartBuilder. I use SmartBuilder at a government research laboratory to develop interactive decision-based e-Learning for safety training. Some of the training involves simulations that are developed in Flash and brought into SmartBuilder. In other cases the training involves scenarios (and often videos) and the learner is faced with making decisions based on what they observe. 7. Which features do you use on a regular basis? I use most all of the features in the courses I develop. 8. Which features do you consider indispensable or very important? I'm not sure if this is a feature, but it is the overall paradigm that offers flexibility. I come from a background of developing custom-made courses using Flash exclusively. SmartBuilder allows me to accomplish most of what I used to accomplish using Flash without the need to write ActionScript for everything. 9. What do you consider SmartBuilder's strengths? It allows me to develop very rich decision-based training that incorporates video and animation, something that is not possible in most of all the "Rapid Development" tools. If you are just converting PowerPoint to Flash, it's not the right tool for you. However, if you are in the business of developing very rich, engaging training and fluid interactivity that positions a learner to think through situations, then Smart Builder is a must. 10. What do you consider SmartBuilder's weaknesses? I would like to be able to change the frame rate, and it would be very nice to have a set of drawing tools. 11. Do you consider SmartBuilder's pricing fair, too high, or should it be higher for its value? I consider the pricing to be fair. 12. Have you used SmartBuilder's technical support? Quite often. Their technical support is the best I've ever experienced, and I've been an e-Learning developer since the very beginning. They are very friendly, very helpful, and very thoughtful. 13. What other thoughts would you like to include? The main reason I was drawn to using SmartBuilder is because I was tired of developing e-Learning using Flash and having the right ActionScript to accomplish even very simple things. However, I wanted a tool that would allow me to develop the same type of rich learning experience that I could develop using Flash. I've always been very disappointed by other rapid development tools, including Captivate, Articulate, and even ProForm which I used for a couple of years just to wrap Flash content to publish as SCORM. I do not use PowerPoint to draft e-Learning, so I realize that I may be on the fringe a bit, but it seems that these tools don't allow me to develop meaningful interactions and decision-based structures. For one brief example, I often use video within SmartBuilder. I play some video and then stop at a certain point. I then pose questions to the user and then based on the learner’s choices will resume the video to continue. Again, it allows me to do things that before were only possible using Flash as a development tool. I keep pushing the boundaries, and have yet to find a limitation that was not otherwise solved by contacting discussion boards or technical help. SmartBuilder as a company really appreciates people pushing their product to the limit and they seem thoroughly pleased when they are faced with the challenge of meeting a client's needs. |
(The SmartBuilder customer in this case has asked to have both name and organization withheld.) 1. Please briefly describe your organization. A large non-profit healthcare provider: five hospitals, many ancillary facilities and approximately 10,000 employees. 2. Do you design and develop all your e Learning in-house? We are at the beginning stages of developing e Learning. We have had SmartBuilder in house for the past year working on some content and will go live with our LMS this June. We are also planning to use off-the-shelf e-Learning when it meets our standards of interactive quality. 3. What tools beside SmartBuilder do you use in your organization? Adobe Captivate, STT Trainer (Kaplan), and SumTotal LCMS. Of course, we have Microsoft Office products as well as Adobe Professional that can all integrate with SmartBuilder, but which are not devoted authoring tools. 4. Of these, which do you use directly with SmartBuilder? So far just STT Trainer. However, I've seen SmartBuilder work well with Adobe Captivate too, and we have embedded PDFs. 5. How easy to you think it is to integrate SmartBuilder with other tools? Once we figured out the format SmartBuilder needed for STT, it was easy. PDFs and other types of documents were just a simple upload. 6. Describe the ways in which you use SmartBuilder. So far we have used SmartBuilder to create interactive e-Learning. However, we are considering using it for our online assessments rather than the SumTotal LCMS. SmartBuilder also has a Content Management component which has made it easy for us to work together on projects. (SmartBuilder support helped us do this.) 7. How many copies of SmartBuilder do you use in-house? Eleven licenses 8. How long have you been using SmartBuilder? One year 9. Which version of SmartBuilder do you use? Currently 3.10. The next upgrade is 3.11.2 and we will be moving there soon. 10. Which features do you use on a regular basis? Shapes, Display Sets, Question Sets, Actions, Flow Chart, and Variables 11. Which features do you consider indispensable or very important? The concept of display sets combined with the flow chart makes complex interactions easier to create and modify. I can't imagine trying to create this in a linear slide-by-slide program. 12. What do you consider SmartBuilder's strengths?
13. What do you consider SmartBuilder's weaknesses? It's hard to move content from one SmartBuilder server to another if you want to share SmartBuilder raw content with another SmartBuilder user outside your organization. 14. Do you consider SmartBuilder's pricing fair, too high, or should it be higher for its value? SmartBuilder had several pricing options; we opted to bring it in house and feel the pricing was very fair. 15. Do you use one of SmartBuilder maintenance contracts? Yes, we pay an annual fee for support and upgrades. 16. What has been your experience with SmartBuilder's technical support? We really haven't had any technical issues; however, when we get stumped trying to figure out how to create a particular interaction they have always quickly supplied the answer. They have excellent online training, a user forum, Webinars for the new features and functionality after an upgrade, and individuals who will always get back with you and help when needed. I can say without a doubt they have provided the best support of any vendor I have ever worked with. 17. What other thoughts would you like to include? Compared to the other authoring tools we researched and the others we purchased, I feel SmartBuilder is heads above the rest. Essentially you are only limited by your imagination and you don't have to spend years learning Flash! |
