L&D Tools: 10 Leading Course Authoring Software Platforms

Corporate learning continues to grow with learning and development (L&D) professionals now able to choose from a wealth of course-authoring tools to create great courses. There are various leading platforms available in the market, such as Articulate Storyline 360, Articulate Rise 360, Adobe Captivate, iSpring, and Elucidat, each with its own set of benefits, advantages, and features, as well as a different type of user experience.

In this article, we'll explore some of the most popular course authoring tools and highlight their unique selling points. But that's not all — we'll also provide a bonus tip on how you can translate the courses made on each one of these systems using the Smartcat translation platform, which drives translation process time and work savings for L&D managers.

Finally, you can get a downloadable infographic of the L&D technology landscape at the end.

Summarizing points:

• Intuitive interface and drag-and-drop functionality

• High levels of course creation customization

• Library of multimedia elements such as audio, video, and animation

• Interactive, dynamic elements, including quizzes and assessments

• Learner behavior-driven personalized educational experience

The Articulate Storyline 360 key benefit

Articulate Storyline 360 offers robust, customizable assessment capabilities. It provides a variety of question types such as multiple-choice, drag-and-drop, and matching, enabling educators to create quizzes and assessments that are tailored to their learners' needs. Storyline 360 also provides built-in accessibility features, ensuring that courses are accessible to all learners.

Differentiator: What makes Articulate Storyline 360 stand out against competitors

Articulate Storyline 360’s main differentiator is its powerful triggers and states feature, enabling educators to create dynamic, interactive courses. Course creators can add conditional triggers and states, allowing for personalized learning experiences based on learner behavior.

Summarizing points:

• Cloud-based

• Responsive, intuitive user interface

• Pre-built templates make it easy to create courses that can be accessed on any device for an immersive learning experience

• An integrated library of multimedia elements such as images, videos, and audio

• Built-in gamification elements, including badges and leaderboards

• Analytics and reporting capabilities suite

The Articulate Rise 360 key benefit

Articulate Rise 360 offers integrated review and collaboration features, enabling course creators to collaborate with reviewers and stakeholders in real-time. Rise 360 also offers built-in gamification features such as badges and leaderboards, motivating learners to complete courses.

Differentiator: What makes Articulate Rise 360 stand out against competitors

Articulate Rise 360’s main differentiator is its built-in analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing educators to track learner progress and measure course effectiveness. It also provides localization and translation features, enabling educators to create courses in multiple languages for learners around the world.

You can read our article on how to translate Articulate Rise courses.

Summarizing points::

• User-friendly, cloud-based e-learning platform

• Customized learning experiences

• Ability to add multimedia elements such as images, videos, and interactive quizzes

• Real-time learner guidance and support

• AI-powered course creation automation capabilities

WhatFix key benefit

The software empowers educators and helps enhance learner engagement and retention. WhatFix can provide real-time guidance and support to learners. This is achieved through the software's unique in-app guidance feature, which allows learners to access help and guidance without leaving the application they are using. This significantly reduces the learning curve and improves learner productivity.

Differentiator: What makes WhatFix stand out against competitors

The platform’s big differentiator is its AI-powered automation capabilities, which allow users to automate content creation. This makes it easy to scale training efforts across teams and organizations. WhatFix also integrates seamlessly with popular learning management systems (LMS).

Summarizing points:

• User-friendly interface and drag-and-drop editor

• Compatible with a wide range of formats (HTML5, SCORM, and others)

• Multimedia course creation capabilities with interactive quizzes, simulations, and branching scenarios

• Courses are optimized for any device or screen size

• Strong Powerpoint integration

The iSpring key benefit

iSpring offers an extensive range of publishing options. Users can publish their courses in a wide range of formats, including HTML5, SCORM, and xAPI, making it easy to integrate with LMS systems and to track learner progress. Additionally, iSpring's built-in analytics and reporting features enable educators and trainers to monitor learner performance.

Differentiator: What makes iSpring stand out against competitors

iSpring offers a strong PowerPoint integration, allowing users to convert existing PowerPoint presentations to interactive e-learning courses in just a few clicks. It also offers an extensive library of pre-built templates and assets.

Summarizing points:

• Immersive, interactive eLearning courses

• Ability to incorporate multimedia elements easily, like video, audio, and animations

• Personalized learning experiences that adapt to each learner’s preferences

• Integration with Adobe Creative Cloud, including Photoshop and Illustrator

• Responsive design to create courses for any device or screen size

The Adobe Captivate key benefit

One of the key benefits of Adobe Captivate is its advanced interactivity and branching capabilities, allowing users to create personalized learning experiences that adapt to the needs of individual learners. Captivate also offers a range of publishing options, including SCORM and AICC, making it easy to integrate with LMS systems and to track learner progress.

Differentiator: What makes Adobe Captivate stand out against competitors

Adobe Captivate offers integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud tools, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, enabling users to create custom graphics and designs for their courses. Additionally, Captivate offers a range of interactive quiz templates and assessment tools.

Summarizing points:

• Cloud-based course authoring software

• Intuitive interface and a drag-and-drop editor

• Supports multimedia element incorporation and optimizes courses for any device or screen size

• Collaborative authoring features

• Strong focus on personalized learning experiences

The key benefit of Elucidat

One of the key benefits of Elucidat is its collaborative authoring features, enabling multiple team members to work together on a course simultaneously. This streamlines the course creation process and ensures that all team members have access to the most up-to-date course content.

Differentiator: What makes Elucidat stand out against competitors

Elucidat focuses on personalized learning experiences. Elucidat offers a range of adaptive, personalized learning options, enabling users to create courses that adapt to the needs of individual learners. Additionally, Elucidat's analytics and reporting features enable educators and trainers to monitor learner progress and identify areas for improvement.

Summarizing points:

• Cloud-based course creation platform that supports multimedia element incorporation

• Intuitive interface and a drag-and-drop editor

• Easy adding of multimedia elements such as images, audio, and video

• Library of pre-built templates and interactive components

• Focuses on ease of accessibility and compliance

• Optimization for any device or screen size

The key benefit of Knowbly

Knowbly has an extensive library of pre-built templates and interactive components, which can be customized to create unique, engaging learning experiences. Knowbly also offers a range of collaboration tools, enabling multiple team members to work together on a course simultaneously.

Differentiator: What makes Knowbly stand out against competitors

Knowbly focuses on accessibility and compliance. Knowbly offers a range of accessibility features, including keyboard navigation, alt tags, and closed captioning, ensuring that courses are accessible to all learners. It is also compliant with Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 guidelines, making it an ideal solution for educators who want to create courses that meet regulatory requirements.

Summarizing points:

• Comprehensive course creation platform with multimedia element support

• Intuitive UI with a drag-and-drop editor

• Collaborative authoring features

• Modular architecture to create reusable components and templates

• Easy adding of multimedia elements such as images, audio, and video

• Drag-and-drop editor

The key benefit of Composica

One of Composica’s strong suits is its collaborative authoring features, which enable multiple team members to work together on a course simultaneously. This makes it easier to develop courses faster while ensuring that all team members have access to the most up-to-date course content.

Differentiator: What makes Composica stand out against competitors

Composica provides a modular architecture feature, which allows users to create reusable components and templates that can be quickly and easily integrated into new courses. This not only saves time and effort but also ensures consistency across multiple courses and modules

Summarizing points:

• Cloud-based platform with a wide variety of features and tools

• No coding knowledge needed

• Drag-and-drop interface

• Easy adding of multimedia elements such as images, audio, and video

• Responsive eLearning courses

• Collaboration-focused

• Focus on adaptive learning

The key benefit of DominKnow

DominKnow offers significant built-in collaboration features, which allow multiple team members to work together on a course in real time. DominKnow also offers a wide range of pre-built templates and interactive components, which can be customized to create unique, engaging learning experiences.

Differentiator: What makes DominKnow stand out against competitors

DominKnow focuses on adaptive learning. With its powerful analytics engine, DominKnow enables educators to track learner progress and adjust course content and delivery based on performance.

L&D managers can translate their courses created on any of the course creation software platforms mentioned above (and others, of course) using the Smartcat translation platform by following these steps:

1. Export the course content from the course creation software in XLIFF format.

2. Upload the XLIFF file into the Smartcat translation platform in a few clicks.

3. Select the target languages and run automatic AI translation.

4. Review the translation yourself or hire a professional linguist from Smartcat Marketplace.

5. Review and approve the translated content in the Smartcat platform, using its built-in quality assurance and collaboration features.

6. Download the translated course content from Smartcat in the same format and layout as the original, and easily import it back into the course creation software. Please note: you will have to download and import each language file (usually XLIFF) separately.

By using Smartcat's translation platform, L&D managers have already been able to achieve remarkable performance improvements, including the ability to accelerate course creation to 25 full corporate learning courses on Articulate in under three months.

Smartcat also provides advanced project management features, allowing L&D managers to easily track the progress of their translation projects and communicate with their translators in real-time.

There are a plethora of course-authoring platforms available to L&D professionals. However, the right platform is the one that suits each L&D department’s specific needs, preferences, and resources. Therefore, L&D managers need to compare and contrast the leading platforms to understand which is the right solution for them.

Moreover, it is always a good rule of thumb to keep abreast of the latest corporate learning-related technologies to enhance their workflows, increase productivity, and improve learning outcomes.

As the field of learning and development continues to evolve, new software and tools will emerge, enabling educators to create more engaging, interactive, and personalized e-learning experiences for employees. By staying informed and adopting the right new technologies, L&D managers can stay ahead of the curve and deliver high-quality training and development programs that meet the changing needs of the modern workforce.

You can also get the downloadable L&D landscape and lifecycle PDF.