Creating a New Content Author Module

Content Author modules are created directly in SAP Litmos Training either via an existing course or as a new module.  The example flow shown here  is from Content>Create a course. (Modules Can also be created directly from Content>Create a module and then added to courses at a later time.)

• Navigate to Content
• Click 'Create a course'
• Select 'Add Modules'
• Select  the 'Create' tab

• Click the 'Content Author' button

From here you can select 'Save' to save the module and continue adding modules to the course or return to edit this module later. Or you can choose 'Save and Author' which saves the Litmos Module details and takes you directly into Content Author to start authoring your module.

 

Content Author Module- Authoring

When you create a new module in Content Authoring, you will land on the pages tab. 

From here, all menus for Content Author Can be accessed.  It is easiest to first go through the Introduction, Theme and Settings for your module to configure those details before you create the content itself.

Introduction

The introduction will display at the start of the module. 

When you create a module, the module name will display in Content Author. If you would prefer that the module in Litmos is different to what displays in the module, you can change it by clicking on the title.

 

To change the banner image, click the select banner image button. From there you are able to browse to an image from the available images in the module or upload one.

Once you have changed your banner image it will appear as below.

Themes

Themes is where you can edit the overall appearance of your module. To make it simple to author content, your styling will default to the logo and colours from you Litmos brand. 

These can be left as is or updated if you prefer a different look and feel for you module. When you change each colour, the sample image on the left of the Themes page will update to give you an indication of what this will look like within the module.

The logo can be updated if required. Logos will display on the introduction screen and at the top left of each module page. Click the 'Change'/'Remove' button to update or remove the logo.

The fonts can be updated to any in the available drop down list.

Modules are also available in a light or dark mode. Light mode modules have a white background and dark mode have a black background. You may need to swap your colours if you change from light to dark mode or vice versa to provide adequate contrast. See the example image below.

 

Accessibility

If you select colour combinations that do not meet 508 or WCAG AA standards for accessibility you will be prompted to update them as shown below.  Content Author is designed to produce accessible and responsive content by default so it is important to review any accessibility warnings. Ignoring these warning will mean your content will not  meet 508 or WCAG AA standards.

 

Settings

The settings page allows Authors to set an option for lock progress, the completion mode and the module language.

Lock Progress: 

This setting if enabled, ensures that a learner needs to complete all mandatory items within each page before progressing to the next page.

 

Completion Mode:

There are three available completion modes for modules created in Content Author:

Last Page: The module will complete once the learner has reached the last page

Quiz Pass: The module will complete once the learner has passed the quiz. (A quiz and quiz results must be configured for this to work within the module)

Declaration: The module will complete once the learner has completed the declaration. (A declaration component must exist within the module for this setting to be used.)

 

Language:

Set the language of the module. This setting will not translate the module content itself. The content needs to be authored by someone fluent in the required language. The setting will set all buttons/ menus for the learner in the selected language when accessing the module. (This also sets the document language by setting the lang="" attribute on the course's html element.)

 

Add pages

To add a page, click on the 'Add Page' button.

Select from any of the page templates available:

• Basic 
• Accordion 
• Video 
• Quiz 
• Conclusion 
• Blank 

The page can now be edited by clicking on the 'Edit Page'.

To continue adding pages click the + page icon. 

Pages can be reordered at any time by hovering the mouse over the page you want to move until 'Drag to reorder' tooltip appears and the mouse changes to a hand. Then simply drag the page into its new position.

 

Templates and Components

When creating modules, you can simply add predefined pages to your module, or create your own pages by adding any components to an existing page. Choose among the following page templates and components: 

Page Templates: 

• Basic: This page template contains a cover image and text with heading component
• Accordion: This page template contains a cover image, accordion and text with heading component
• Video: This page template contains a cover image, video and text with heading
• Quiz: This page template contains a cover image, text with heading, quiz and quiz results component.
• Conclusion: This page template contains a cover image, text and text with heading component with a conclusion style layout.
•  Blank: This page contains no default components and is used to create your own layout. The 'Insert' components button is visible after creating this page type. 

Common features within pages

These features are common across the page types (excluding blank).

• Page settings including title and show in module menu can be updated
• Insert icon allows Authors to add all components:
  • Cover image
  • Text with heading
  • Heading
  • Text
  • Picture
  • Video
  • Audio
  • Accordion
  • Tabs
  • Button Popups
  • Gallery
  • Multiple Choice
  • Quiz Results
  • Declaration
• Sections can be added/removed/copied
• Section background colour/gradient/image can be updated
• Section padding in px top and bottom can be updated
• Page Template can be edited/copied/deleted

Additional settings are available dependant on component type (and are covered under the Components section).

Components: 

Individual components can be added to any page using the 'Insert' button. 

• Text and heading: Heading with accompanying text
• Heading: Simple text heading 
• Text: Simple text component with basic formatting such as bold, italic and lists
• Picture: Single Image. Allows you to reuse images from within the module or upload new ones. Images are ideally landscape and a minimum of 800 x 450 px
• Accordion: Headings with expandable/collapsible text content sections
• Tabs: Display content in tabbed sections 
• Button Popups: A list of buttons that open content in popups 
• Gallery: displays components in a gallery learners can swipe through 
• Cover Image: Display a full-width image with a heading on top. (Use at the top of a page) 
• Video: Embed a video by uploading a video file (including option to add captions and transcript) 
• Audio: Embed an audio file (including option to add transcript) 
• Multiple Choice: Single quiz with multiple questions. Can be a review quiz (unscored) or not (scored question). Learner can be shown correct/incorrect feedback (optional). Questions can be shuffled.
• Click to Match: The Click to Match question type involves a learner being required to correctly match all the displayed items on the left with the options presented on the right in order to have the question marked as correct.
• True/False: True/false question.
• Quiz results: Show overall quiz results, feedback and score.
• Declaration: Mark the module as complete when the learner checks the box. Customizable declaration text.

Common features within Components

• Alter size of heading to:
  • Fit to content column
  • Bleed outside content column
  • Full page width
• Align text (text/heading components):
  • Left
  • Center
  • Justified
• Set text color (text/heading components):
  • Using color picker
  • Color transparency
  • Color with hex values
  • Color with RGB values
  • Colours with HSLA values
• Component can be edited/copied/deleted
• The component can be moved up or down the page

Specific features within components

• Accordion:
  • Can reorder individual accordion elements
  • Can add other components within the individual accordion elements and edit /delete those
• Heading: can be set as H1 to H6
• Tabs: Can add the following other components as content to the tabs and edit /delete those
• Button Popups: Can add  other components as content to the button popups and edit /delete those
• Gallery:
  • Can turn on/off swipe gestures
  • Can turn on/off auto advance
  • Can add  other components as content to the gallery and edit /delete those
• Audio: Can add/edit transcript file
• Picture:
  • Can add/edit Picture Alt text
  • Can add/edit caption
  • Can Add/edit picture (browse or select from existing files within the module)
  • Accepted image file types: jpg, jpeg, gif, png, webp, svg
• Video
  • Can add/edit/remove Video Transcript
  • Can add/edit/remove captions
  • Can Add/edit/remove poster image(browse or select from existing files within the module)
  • Can Add/edit/remove video file (browse or select from existing files within the module)
  • Accepted image file types: mp4, webm, ogv
  • Can set video to pause when not in view setting off or on
• Multiple Choice:
  • Can add/edit/remove question text
  • Can add/edit/remove answer option text
  • Can set multiple choice as review or assess. When set to review, the multiple choice has no impact on module score. When set to assess, the multiple choice component impacts the score and pass/fail
  • Can set or change max attempts
  • Can shuffle answers
  • Can add /edit/ remove  correct or incorrect feedback
  • Retry incorrect only. The learner would keep their correct responses from the previous attempt and only be required to reattempt incorrect questions on any subsequent attempts. Available only when the quiz has more that one attempt.
  • When set to review, the multiple choice has no impact on module score 
• Quiz Results:
  • Can add/edit/remove incomplete message text
  • Can add/edit/remove passed feedback text
  • Can add/edit/remove failed feedback text
  • Can set or change max attempts
  • Can add/edit/remove pass rate

Please Note: The default quiz will be used by all questions unless multiple Quiz Results components are added. If more than 1 Quiz Results is added then a new quiz will be created for each new Quiz Results, then questions can be assigned to different quizzes. If I add a multiple choice set to assess but no quiz results the question will be part of the 'default' quiz which always exists even when there are no Quiz Results components, so the score would still be calculated/reported even though there is no visual display of results. When there are multiple quizzes in the module the overall score is calculated based on the result of all quizzes. i.e. if there are 2 quizzes ('default', and a quiz at the end of the module) then overall score is "default_quiz% + final_quiz% / 2"

 

When each Component is added to a page, sample image, text, video etc will be displayed within the component to make it easier to visualize how your module layout looks and to make it simple to update the component data.

 

Sections

Sections can be added to any page. Click 'Add Section' to add a new one within your page. These act as visual separators within the module.

 

Resources

Resources can be attached to any Content Author module and will be available to learners under Menu>Resources in the published module.

To add Resources: 

• Click on the 'Resources' menu

• Click 'Add resource' button
• Add a Resource Name
• Select URL or Document
• For URL , add the URL. For document, select 'Choose a file' and browse to a file or select an existing resource from within the module

• Click 'Add Resource' to Save

Completion Options

There are three available completion modes for modules created in Content Author:

Last Page: The module will complete once the learner has reached the last page

Quiz Pass: The module will complete once the learner has passed the quiz. (A quiz and quiz results must be configured for this to work within the module)

Declaration: The module will complete once the learner has completed the declaration. (A declaration component must exist within the module for this setting to be used.)

 

Edit existing modules

These modules can be easily edited directly via the Content menu. To find content created in the Content Author, either navigate directly to the courses or modules, or alternatively, go to Content > Modules and select the Content Author Module Filter (under More). 

Select a module  to begin editing.

Click the 'Content Author' button

You can continue editing your module until it is ready to publish. All changes made to your module are automatically saved as you edit. 

If your module has already been published, the new changes made in Content Author will not be visible to learners until the module is published again.

Please note: When republishing a module learners are already assigned to, the behaviour for learners is the same as if a new SCORM module has been manually uploaded over an existing one.  Incomplete learners will be made to restart the module.

Preview and Publish

Once you have completed your module, Admins can preview how the content will look on Desktop, Tablet, or mobile before publishing. 

Previewing a module assumes you wish to view the page you are currently on and defaults to previewing this page. You may wish to return to page 1 before previewing if you would like to view the entire module.

Click the preview button to see the module from a learner's perspective. The Preview will default to displaying Desktop view.

Change between Desktop, tablet and mobile view to preview the module on different devices

 

Content Author offers seamless publishing to SAP Litmos Training  and the option to download copies of your modules as well.

Publish Options:  

• Directly into SAP Litmos Training (as SCORM 1.2) 
• Download SCORM 1.2 ZIP file 
• Web version (will run outside of an LMS on a website) . If Publishing to web, the downloaded zip needs to be placed on your website and extracted. The module can be launched from the shell.html file within the extracted module folder.  This version will only run successfully on a website.

Please note: When republishing a module learners are already assigned to in Litmos (Using the 'Publish' option) , the behaviour for learners is the same as if a new SCORM module has been manually uploaded over an existing one.  Incomplete learners will be made to restart the module.

 

Administrators can also download copies of Content Author modules at any time via the Content Author or Module Library.