DEV Community: Harvey Singh

How Does Chatbot Conversational Search Need to be Designed in eLearning?

Harvey Singh — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 12:02:58 +0000

A chatbot is a conversational user interface that is gaining a lot of attention these days. Chatbots and conversation interfaces are expected to make their mark in the eLearning industry as well.

Conversations are intrinsic to our everyday life, the more an interface leverages its functionalities the better it enables the mind to translate the same into a coherent narrative.

What is a Conversational Interface?

A Conversational Search is an interface that enables computers to interact with humans using voice or text and mimics real-life human communication.

“A conversational interface is the best model to engage and captivate our ever-more fleeting attention.”

The primary advantage of the Conversational interface is that it helps fully leverage the inherent efficiency of spoken language. In simple words, the user can search for questions, answers, or search for content that may help them answer a question or acquire a new skill.

Chatbot offers the advantage that it can narrow down more specifics about the search by asking questions back to the user so that the search results are more relevant.

How to Make a Great Conversational Search Interface?

A chatbot needs a good script, platform, name, and image for it to work. However, it is the purpose, personality, and functionality of the chatbot, that transforms the whole outcome. Multiple strategies are used to translate complex voice requests into a more structured pattern that a computer can understand.

As opposed to the traditional keyword search, a conversational search system takes complex grammatical sentences and from the standpoint of previous interactions provides more useful and comprehensive results.

In an attempt to improve the user experience or to increase the opportunities for your target audience to find your chatbot online it is essential to optimize it for the search bot of the search engine that the audience may use.

Tips to consider while creating a Chatbot [Conversational User Interface]

Here are some of the best practices to optimize your chatbot for search and knowledgebase functionality successfully:

1. Keywords:

keywords are paramount for improving discoverability among your potential audience. Ergo, it’s important to use them where it matters to facilitate a search bot to index your chatbot online and lead your audience to your chatbot. Keywords in the meta descriptions of your landing and about pages of your chatbot enable establishing discoverability.

2. Professional help:

Leveraging the help of a professional with conversational design experience lends perspective, ensuring the bot is providing relevant answers to the questions that the user may have. Further, the designer can help provide different answers and include links to frequently asked questions to other relevant content on your site.

3. Prototyping tools:

Prototyping design tools help create a functional chatbot that users and developers can test for errors. An error-free bot makes indexing and ranking online content way easier. Prototyping tools enable the visualization of your concept.

4. Interaction style:

Both text and links/buttons could be used for inputting information into interaction chatbots, only the purposes are different. Predetermined links and buttons save the user from typing. These are usually displayed in a carousel and could include images. Texts allow the user flexibility in choosing the types of questions they wanted to ask.

5. Question-and-Answer Tool:

Can scrape questions and answers from an existing FAQ while permitting a manual configuration of your customized list of questions and answers.

6. A natural language processing (NLP) system:

Based on artificial intelligence techniques, to effectively analyze a user's message to determine the user’s intent or query.

A combination of search, a question-and-answer tool, and a service such as an NLP processing system will help determine intent, extract entities and invoke more elaborate dialogues.

New advances in artificial intelligence imply that automating tasks such as searching for information related to your job, a new skill, or a topic is easier than ever, and the benefits extend to both the information provider and the information seeker.

For example, there are language chatbots now that enable users to learn a new language. Through the chatbot, one can learn how to perform everyday tasks in a language that one is trying to learn. Chatbots in the form of virtual tutors are available to make the learning interactive.

An in-built dictionary helps to enhance the vocabulary. Some chatbots help in practicing listening and speaking skills as well. The learning is not just limited to understanding the basics of a language anymore. It is more complete, more natural, and human-like. Chatbots are the virtual tutors who guide the learner through the learning experience.

Instancy Chatbot app is part of the Instancy Learning Experience Platform that enables you to build a chatbot and knowledgebase without writing any code. You can use frequently asked questions, documents, product manuals to build your knowledgebase. 

To learn more, visit Instancy Learning Platform Software & Apps!

Experience API, xAPI, Tin Can API Based Integrated LMS

Harvey Singh — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 12:11:05 +0000

Tin Can API Integrated Learning Management System
Experience API, xAPI, Tin Can API Integrated Learning Management System.

No doubt the new learning world has arrived with the speed of mobility, as Web 3.0 has become the new reality in organizations. The use of Android devices by Samsung, Motorola, and HTC, along with the Apple iPhone and iPad, has changed the way everyone receives and retains information.

Additionally, we can now create new and intriguing mobile learning apps without coding. Because there is always something new to discover, enhancing contemporary learning and increasing the knowledge base on a wide array of platforms are essential.

Traditional eLearning standards like SCORM (conceived in the late 1990s) are inadequate to meet the demands of digital and distributed learning today.

We need a more flexible learning architecture that can enable learning to occur anyplace, anytime, with any device and support myriads of learning opportunities from traditional courseware, games, simulations, and social interactions and sharing.

Instancy and it is Tin Can API integration is now the answer. Implementing Tin Can API Integration within the Instancy Instancy Learning Management System (iLMS), along with Instancy Learning Content Management System (iLCMS), can create an integrated learning environment that interoperates data with other learning systems and legacy enterprise applications.

Instancy’s Tin Can API support allows you to:

Package your eLearning content with built-in support for Tin Can API after creating it within Instancy’s easy-to-use Authoring tools
Deliver the content through Instancy LMS and track user progress through a Learning Record Store (LRS)
Have it all translated into a learning progress report or a dashboard

Instancy Learning™platform supports this new interoperability specification from Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), Tin Can API also known as Experience API, to help any organization create, deliver and track learning content seamlessly on the web and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

The Instancy web-based authoring and Learning Content Management System (iLCMS) are designed to help you create SCORM compliant content. The iLCMS not only supports traditional SCORM (eLearning specification for content packaging and interoperability) but also supports the latest Tin Can API.

Tin Can API based eLearning content developed with Instancy web authoring tools & LCMS can be:

Delivered onto the web and mobile devices
Tracked within Instancy LMS for learner progress reporting
Exported as SCORM packages with built-in Tin Can API calls for third party LMS/LRS delivery

The mobile learning content resources can be:

Delivered through a mobile browser
Downloaded on the mobile device via the Instancy Native App framework.

Tracking offline and synching the learner experience and progress are also critical ingredients:

Instancy Platform and the Mobile App framework support learner experience supports offline tracking and synching with an LRS
Learning content may also be downloaded on a mobile device within the Instancy native learning app
The downloaded content can be launched in offline mode The student experience and progress data is recorded locally on a mobile device, then synched back with the LRS when Internet access is available.

Next-generation learning is here now – freedom to learn anywhere and on any device is what your audience expects. With Instancy, all the pieces of the next generation learning architecture puzzle come together. Tin Can API is a key component of next general learning architecture and Instancy is mission is to help you get there faster and better.

What is an eLearning Authoring Tool?

Harvey Singh — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 11:32:23 +0000

New tech solutions are revolutionizing the production and delivery of digital learning. eLearning authoring tools are transforming content digitization in organizations.

Many learning and development organizations and eLearning developers are abandoning tools that depend heavily on scripting (such as HTML5, Javascript, etc.) and software programming and focusing on eLearning authoring tools that simplify content authoring.

For trainers and instructional designers, designing and developing content is a large part of their workload. Content developers continue to produce courses that are shorter and more focused.

Learning flexibility and ease of use are paramount in an eLearning setup. To achieve this, trainers leverage eLearning authoring tools. Choosing the right tool for a business or organization is very critical. Read on to gain an in-depth understanding of eLearning authoring tools.

What is an eLearning Authoring Tool?

An eLearning Authoring Tool is a software application that helps trainers design and develops digital content using text, multimedia, and interactions.

Users do not require any programming expertise to use the software. These tools are pre-programmed to offer an interface that is ready to use in making digital content.

They come with tools, templates, and themes to manipulate and arrange content elements to create instructional material. 

What is an eLearning Course or Content?

An eLearning course is a sequence of pages or screens with multimedia content such as text, graphics, video, and audio. eLearning courses are interactive and enable users to engage in various ways.

Course content needs to be mobile responsive so that it can play on any device. One of the key features of authoring software is the capability to create lessons or microlearning modules.

When developing eLearning courses, it is important to include more than text. Besides adding text, adding and editing videos, images, animations, and other on-screen elements, course developers need robust authoring tools. With these features, an eLearning author can bring a course to life.

Desktop Vs. Cloud-Based eLearning Authoring Tools

 
The evolution of eLearning authoring tools 

In the past, organizations depended on traditional software known as desktop or installed authoring tools. These tools are downloaded on a desktop and then installed. They were the best option for organizations creating eLearning content until the spread of cloud computing and mobile devices.

Cloud-based tools are now standard in the eLearning industry. Today, more and more authoring tools are available as cloud-based web-applications. These systems provide much more capability than the installed or desktop authoring tools.

Unlike the installed tools that require downloading to installing the software and subsequent updating, cloud-based applications can be accessed instantaneously and updated more frequently with new features or updates.

Learning Content Management System

Every learning organization needs a learning content management system at the center of their learning infrastructure in order to provide a blended eLearning curriculum and personalized, and on-going learning experiences to the customers. 

Instancy Learning Content Management System, or the iLCMS, is a one-stop repository of learning objects that can help you: 

Create multiple content workspaces for designers, authors, reviewers, and publishers. 
Provide collaborative access and version control for your digital content. Collaborative content publishing workflows allow you to coordinate the tasks of multiple contributors and reviewers across the content supply chain.
Publish the content to Instancy Learning Management System with a single click.
Export the content to eLearning content standards (SCORM, xAPI, or AICC) based course package of your choice from a single source of content.

With built-in and integrated authoring tools integrated right into the iLCMS, you can create different content types in multiple languages, all while ensuring that your content plays on desktop browsers and any mobile device. 

In addition to helping you create new content, the iLCMS enables you to upload and manage external content files or packages and combine them with content created within the iLCMS to build your blended learning programs. 

The iLCMS facilitates the reuse of content objects within other larger objects. For example, images, videos, audio files, or webpages may be used within multiple Learning Modules. Similarly, supplementary content resources such as Glossary, Certificates, or Discussions may be linked with multiple learning modules.

iLCMS Key Features Include:

Learning object repository (LOR) where you can identify existing content resources and reuse and assemble them into courses for multiple businesses. 
Embed learner progress tracking based on modern Experience API (xAPI).
Collaborative and web-based access
Author and reviewer commenting 
Meta-data search
Reusable multimedia asset library 
Version control 
Upload and deliver documents (PDF, Word, PPT, etc.)

Instancy Web-based Authoring Tools

Are you looking to empower your learning design and development team to create personalized learning that can keep your customers' demands in line with the speed of your business?

Instancy cloud-based authoring tools enable you to speed up your eLearning content development and maintenance process by allowing collaboration among geographically diverse teams.

Using the eLearning Course Module editor to create multi-media and rich interactive content is easy. You can accomplish that without writing a single line of code. You can also:

Create multilingual content 
Enable full-text search 
Auto-convert existing documents into eLearning

Instancy provides assessment and survey tools with simple drag and drops options to create and reuse many types of questions. These help to measure your online training's effectiveness by gauging your learners' skills and knowledge. 

You can create branded certificates with dynamic data fields and attach them to any eLearning course. You can also develop or edit supplementary and reusable content objects like webpages, glossaries, forums & reference links to external sources and reuse them within your microlearning courses or classroom programs. 

Whether you want to create an eLearning course with a pre-requisite structure or create a blended one, combining classroom events with social collaborations, the Instancy learning track editor has got you covered! 

You can also separate your content presentation layer from the content by selecting a theme from our theme library, branding it, and applying it to your content. The best part? You can change your theme anytime without needing to rebuild the whole course from scratch! 

Instancy eLearning Authoring automates responsive and adaptive course development using the latest web design techniques used only by the pros so that you can create your content once and deliver it to your learners on any device of their choice, whether desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

You can protect your investment in content by leveraging Instancy’s automated publishing of content to your chosen eLearning technical standards. So if you’re looking to create micro-learning courses or quickly personalized learning paths for your customers, Instancy eLearning Authoring will put all the required tools at your disposal. 

Customers have experienced over 50% time savings in creating an eLearning library with Instancy compared to traditional tools and methods.

Key Features:

Rapid content creation using templates and WYSIWYG interface
eLearning content themes 
Embed classroom training within courses 
eLearning Standards (SCORM, AICC, xAPI) support
Multiuser and collaborative authoring
Multiple output and publishing options
Media resource management
Sequencing rules to personalize content delivery 
MS Word Conversion Tool
MS PowerPoint Conversion Tool
Content localization

Online Assessments and Certificates

With Online Assessments and Certificates, create online tests/assessments, exam preparations, or surveys using web-authoring templates. Automate randomization, scoring, and reporting using a single web-based environment.

Link certification with learning and assessment completion, and customize your own certificates using built-in templates. Learners can view their certificates online or print them. 

Key Features:

Various question types: True/False, Essay, Multiple Choice, Fill-in-the-blank, Single Correct, Single/Multiple Matrix Questions 
Timer-based assessment
Single page or multiple page questions rendering
Instant feedback to enhance learning
Easy authoring through WYSIWYG editors
Managing questions in topics and sub-topics
Randomize presentation of questions and choices
Built-in tracking and item analysis
Create text or exam preparation solutions providing students the ability to practice.

Importance of B2B and B2C Ecommerce In Learning Management Systems

Harvey Singh — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 12:55:59 +0000

LMS eCommerce: B2C AND B2B

Do you want to grow your revenue? Selling your courses in a B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer) environment is rapidly gaining traction in most learning organizations.

While initially, the transition may feel overwhelming, the Learning Management System you use is one of the significant factors between success and failure.

Do I need a Learning Management System?

A Learning Management System organizes, delivers, and tracks learning content and activities. Organizations not using an LMS can do nothing more than sell the product, and that is if they are using a shopping cart for course selection and payment for B2C transactions.

The LMS assists training organizations in delivering and tracking the content, assisting with selling memberships, enrolling users in courses, setting up class schedules, or conducting other tasks such as analytics and reports.

As technology transforms, the role of the LMS as the nucleus of the learning organization changes also. Modern LMSs also include a mobile learning interface that is now more popular than viewing content on a desktop computer. Selling training through an online checkout system was previously for large organizations.

Today, authors and Subject Matter Experts can easily do so as well as using easy-to-use Learning Management Systems.

Monetization

eCommerce allows training organizations to earn money and perform as a for-profit entity. In the B2C scenario, training content providers have a choice. They can sell their courses à la cart through a shopping cart or sell a library of course content as a membership subscription.

eLearning offers on-demand content and typically provides a higher Return On Investment (ROI). However, there is an integration component. If you use an online learning platform that easily integrates eCommerce, the LMS, and analytics and reports, you may be surprised to learn there is a captive audience willing to pay for the knowledge.

B2B is Different

In the B2B scenario, businesses may enroll a larger number of users into their programs. The company agrees to make payments on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. The LMS system enables businesses to enroll and access the designated courses or programs for a specific time. You can receive payment through a shopping cart or receive payment through more traditional methods.

Marketing & Product Positioning is Important

Make sure you get the right product in front of the right learner for the right price. Learners are accustomed to seeing various signup options. For example, one user purchases the course. During the checkout process, the user gets an offer to join at the membership level, where they pay one monthly price for all products.

You may offer a volume discount to specific customers and may even provide the course for free if it is a subject you want your business partners to consume, such as product training. This is when your LMS does its work. The course catalog allows large groups of learners to view and purchase content (or services) you list. Use simple admin rules to change the way your catalog appears to different users.

LEARNING PLATFORMS MUST BE EASY TO USE

Learning Platforms Must be Easy to Use

The LMS is now part of your online store. You must consider the look and feel of the site. Create a theme for your website, and either use your existing brand or create one if you do not have one. Using a single sign-on gives the learner seamless navigation around the site.

Using the content and data stored on the LMS, you can now easily track student progress and other stats.

Ensure your LMS Combines the Power of Browsing, Buying, And Learning

A Learning Management System must provide the flexibility to offer the course in B2B or B2C scenarios, or the combination of the two, through one integrated solution. As a business owner, you can manage your operations more efficiently and effectively.

When users visit your site and log in, they do not have to go here and there to view their preferred content choices. If the learner sees a course they want to take, they sign up.

In the B2B scenario, the learner begins the course as the company has an agreement with the owner of the content. The learner need not pay. In the B2C situation, the learner must pay for the course before viewing it.

This Blog is Originally Published at eLearning Industry on October 2, 2020.

An Introduction to cmi5: Implementing the Next-gen eLearning Interoperability within the LMS

Harvey Singh — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:06:38 +0000

cmi5 is a new standard for eLearning content and LMSs (Learning Management Systems) that simultaneously provides the capabilities of xAPI and SCORM.

It was developed by the Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC) and the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative as an alternative to the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) set of specifications.

cmi5 uses a similar methodology applied by SCORM in determining how resources of an Online Learning Platform are imported, launched, and tracked within LMSs.

At the same time, it deploys xAPI as the communication and data layer while implementing controlled vocabularies. Controlled vocabularies are necessary for the interoperability between Learning Management Systems(LMSs) and LMS-like systems.

This article will be using some acronyms and jargon that are likely to confuse many uninitiated readers.

So, before we continue focusing the spotlight on cmi5, we would briefly describe some of the acronyms and jargon.

Here it goes:

SCORM: The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) was initially released by the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL)  in 2001. It underwent a significant revision in 2004 and is one most used for LMS to content communication.

xAPI:The ADL released the Experience API (xAPI) in 2013 as the first component in ADL's Training and Learning Architecture. xAPI is used to communicate data about learner activities within both online and offline learning without course content or any learning experience.

xAPI is simple, extensible yet powerful specification that facilitates the ability to share learner activity data across systems

Learning Management System: An LMS is a software-based platformthat expedites the management, delivery, and measurement of e-learning programs. It is one of the critical components of an e-learning strategy.

E-Learning Interoperability: This refers to how digital learning tools intersect with other components outside a particular e-learning environment. Now that some terms are easier to understand, read on to find out why cmi5 was developed.

LRS: A Learning Record Store (LRS) may be built within a Learning Management System or it may be a separate system that stores all the learner activities tracked through the xAPI such as course view or completion and much more.

Why was cmi5 developed?

Cmi5 was developed to achieve the following:

Interoperability: This is one of the main reasons for its development. It was created to work in the same manner across LMS systems that support it. It supports the ability to import only the course structure and not the actual content. 

This allows the content to be located behind a firewall or as an app on a mobile device, among other options. This is a critical improvement over ADL’s previous, widely used, specification called SCORM.

Extensibility: cmi5 enables unlimited data tracking. It also supports extensions since it is also based on xAPI.This way, users can share data across several Assignable Units in addition to tracking videos, pictures, and audio clips and much more

Mobile Support: cmi5 was designed for mobile support; hence it's a base communication mechanism that is built to handle mobile devices, and learning resources provisioned through mobile apps.

What does cmi5 Affords Users?

Here are some of the benefits you get from cmi5:

You can store content defined data
It supports the sharing across content
You can assess a content-defined launch mechanism
You have assessed to distributed content

How does the cmi5 specification work?

The cmi5 specification contains xAPI Profile, so it inherits the requirements mandated by the xAPI specification in addition to those included in the associated xAPI Profile.

As such, cmi5 contains a simple course structure which permits the sequencing of learning activities. It outlines the roll-up rules that decide how a digital learning activity intersects learners' performance with other learning activities (LMSs, for example).

The use of xAPI specification in cmi5 is key to the way cmi5 functions because they define how performance metrics can be standardized and generally interpreted by other systems. Fully grasping the significance of xAPI to cmi5 operation will require a short detour to describe the xAPI specification.

The xAPI specification is a data representation of a learning activity stream mostly made up of Statements or machine-readable actor-verb-object triplets. It is designed to enable the collection and storage of performance information from a wide range of learning activities.

This is mostly done by depending on further usage constraints and definitions from xAPI Profiles instead of domain vocabularies.

How cmi5 Enables Next-generation Implementation of e-Learning Interoperability within the Learning Management Systems

The cmi5 specification enables interoperability within LMSs in the following ways:

Controlled vocabularies: The cmi5 specification is comprised of an archive of sorts that contains defined verbs that include learner actions that apply to all learning activities. They develop the messages in the SCORM runtime environment before being communicated back to the LMS.

The cmi5 specification permits the use of xAPI verbs that are delimited to the tracking of data by an organization chooses to track.

Content portability: It can also define how to launch and interact with content by creating a means of packaging, launching, and bookmarking learning experiences.

Extensibility: In today's digitized world, learning activities are no longer limited to browsers; neither are they stored in centralized repositories that are connected to the LMS. The cmi5 course structure format can store different content and learner interactions. This capability is further enriched by those of the xAPI specification that it is built on.

Consequently, the extensibility of cmi5 allows for a spectrum of unrelated learning activities, augmented and virtual reality applications, and other forms of instrumented activities to be sequenced into a software of instruction.

The cmi5 specification facilitates interoperability in the delivery of distributed content by utilizing a launch Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that has parameters for web services communication.

The URL can function without a browser, while the content can be located in diverse domains and delivery platforms. LRS systems are responsible for storing and retrieving cmi5 statements. This is because cmi5 conformance must include conformance to xAPI too.

Conclusion

Implementing cmi5 specification in next-generation e-learning will allow for the introduction of granular insights into learning and development by evaluating more detailed learning outcome data.

The cmi5 specification has xAPI-based data model that provides a tool for tracking learner performance across an assortment of learning activities. Its data model also allows learning-related decisions to be made based on performance, as against a single pass or fail data point.

Besides, it is also comprised of rules for content launch, authentication, session management, reporting, and course structure definition. The implementation of cmi5 will allow the synthesis and analysis of hitherto challenging visualizations.

Instancy Learning Management System (iLMS) enables you to import and launch Cmi5 and Experience API-based content, pull data from the iLRS dynamically, and view learning progress reports and dashboards. To set up a demo, please click https://www.instancy.com/elearning-standards.html

DEV Community: Harvey Singh

How Does Chatbot Conversational Search Need to be Designed in eLearning?

What is a Conversational Interface?

How to Make a Great Conversational Search Interface?

Tips to consider while creating a Chatbot [Conversational User Interface]

1. Keywords:

2. Professional help:

3. Prototyping tools:

4. Interaction style:

5. Question-and-Answer Tool:

6. A natural language processing (NLP) system:

Experience API, xAPI, Tin Can API Based Integrated LMS

Instancy’s Tin Can API support allows you to:

Tin Can API based eLearning content developed with Instancy web authoring tools & LCMS can be:

The mobile learning content resources can be:

Tracking offline and synching the learner experience and progress are also critical ingredients:

What is an eLearning Authoring Tool?

What is an eLearning Authoring Tool?

What is an eLearning Course or Content?

Desktop Vs. Cloud-Based eLearning Authoring Tools

Related Read: Importance of LCMS and eLearning Authoring Tools, Explained!

Learning Content Management System

iLCMS Key Features Include:

Instancy Web-based Authoring Tools

Online Assessments and Certificates

Importance of B2B and B2C Ecommerce In Learning Management Systems

Do I need a Learning Management System?

Monetization

B2B is Different

Marketing & Product Positioning is Important

Learning Platforms Must be Easy to Use

Ensure your LMS Combines the Power of Browsing, Buying, And Learning

An Introduction to cmi5: Implementing the Next-gen eLearning Interoperability within the LMS

Here it goes:

Why was cmi5 developed?

What does cmi5 Affords Users?

How does the cmi5 specification work?

How cmi5 Enables Next-generation Implementation of e-Learning Interoperability within the Learning Management Systems

Conclusion