If you tell me you’ve heard of Mohive, I wouldn’t be surprised, nor would I be surprised if you told me you’ve never heard of Mohive. As a product, Mohive has been available for over 10 years, but it hasn’t been widely known. Like most good products, Mohive has been steadily building a client base, and now many more have become aware of it. I’m here to let you know why and when you should consider Mohive as an eLearning creation platform and tool. It is both a mature product and one that continues to grow and adapt to ever-changing needs. It is also international in nature, allowing for multiple languages to be used and chosen in several places.

Consider the workflow

First, I very much like that Mohive is not simply focused on the eLearning development stage: It shows a four-stage workflow when you first open it, calling them the four steps to eLearning (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Mohive’s workflow stages

  • Planning is the stage wherein you establish the objectives for your module, create and maintain to-do items, and set up and maintain planning review cycles, assigning new and established users as reviewers. As a result of the review cycles that will occur throughout the project, you can return here and improve on the objectives when necessary.
  • When you invite new reviewers, you can tell Mohive to send them an invitation to join Mohive using American English, UK English, German, Spanish, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Japanese, Swedish, or Flemish! However, when it comes time to send them the invitation to review the module, the default text it offers is in English, though you can edit it as much as you want.
  • Authoring is the main area, in which you create and upload the content you wish the learner to experience, including exercises.
  • Quality assurance lets you set up and manage review cycles and keep every stakeholder aware of the current state of the module.
  • Publishing not only creates a version you can upload to your learning management system (LMS), but also allows for translations using standard XLIFF files. This, too, has a well-defined workflow, which you can see here.

Planning

When you create a module, you define a few factors at the beginning (Figure 2). Mohive can automatically create the thumbnail you see from the first slide in your module, or you can upload your own image to show to learners. You can also access a library of free images, currently numbering about 2,000.

You can choose from eight standard themes or dozens of custom themes. You can always change a theme later, and you can create your own using the Theme Wizard.

Figure 2: Setting up a module

Authoring

You can divide your module into chapters, sequences, and exercises and create the contents in each. Chapters are set up like a book, in that you can have an introduction, as many chapters as you wish, and a conclusion. You can set up a series of exercises using one of 33 templates (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Template categories

The templates cover a wide range of needs. Each template offers one or more layouts.

  • Structure is for creating:
    • Module titles
    • Chapter titles
    • Module endings
  • Demonstrate lets you create:
    • Info slides (with multiple layouts)
    • Presenter, in which you can synchronize sound or a video with text and images
    • Bullet points
    • Video
    • Discussion, wherein you create a sequence of screens where two or more people are having a dialogue
    • HTML/Flash animation
    • Web content that lets you show live content from other websites (Figure 4)

Figure 4: Website content insertion

    • Concept list, using small or large images
    • Sequencer, which lets you group several Info templates
  • Discover gives you:
    • Clickable images (click to show full-screen feedbacks)
    • Clickable zones
    • About images, which show images and text (without a need to click)
    • What if…?, offering multiple alternatives with associated feedbacks
    • About a process
    • About matrix
  • Manipulate offers:
    • Process puzzle (reassemble steps into the right order)
    • Combine phrases (assemble sentences that are divide in two)
    • Matrix puzzle (complete the text matrix)
  • Ponder & associate lets you:
    • Match to images (associate text and images)
    • Matrix to texts (sort words or sentences into categories)
  • Study & memorize allows:
    • Fill in the blanks
    • Check list
  • Test & evaluate are more traditional quiz questions:
    • MCQ (three different layouts for multiple-choice questions)
    • Classic MCQ
    • Fill in the blanks
    • Assessment result
    • Evaluate media
    • Match to images
    • Match to texts

Every one of the above templates offers a wizard and options that are pretty easy to use.

Quality assurance

During this very important stage, you can:

  • Create and manage proof sheets
  • Set the module’s status (to Planning, Development, In Review, or Ready for publishing)
  • Create and manage to-do items (as in Planning)
  • Print contact sheets, voice scripts, and video scripts
  • Create and manage review cycles (as in Planning)

Publishing

There are a few options for publishing:

  • Create and copy an internal link for stakeholders
  • Create XLIFF files, the standard used by translation agencies, to allow them to translate all the text in your module to one of 132 different languages, from Afrikaans to Zulu
  • Create a SCORM zip package to upload to your LMS (note that xAPI options are not yet available)

Uploading media

Whenever you want to upload media, you can choose the type from the list in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Types of media you can upload

Whenever you upload an image, you have the option to have Mohive re-encode the image for optimal streaming and add screen reader text for accessibility needs (Figure 6). This happens automatically with video (just as it does when you upload to YouTube).

Figure 6: Uploading images

More about Mohive

Mohive is web-based (just as is true of almost all new platforms). The approach in Mohive is straightforward and intuitive. As with any tool like this, you may find yourself wanting to have a little more freedom about where items are placed on the screen. On the other hand, this does mean you can usually work faster and with fewer errors.

The resulting published file is all HTML5 (unless you include Flash animations) and is also responsive. You have options for locking down quizzes or chapters until prerequisites are met. A recent added feature is user self-registration, which allows you to send an invitation to any number of people and have them choose their own username and password.

For pricing and more information, visit the CrossKnowledge Mohive website and click the orange box that says, “Get in touch with our experts.”