Are you looking for a free authoring tool that will let you create eLearning courses?
Have you almost given up on finding a decent solution with no hidden costs or time limits?
Here’s some good news!
We’ve done deep research and tested nine courseware that cost nothing.
Watch to learn which free eLearning authoring tools are available, their strengths and weaknesses.
Happy learnsday everyone!
I’m Polina and today is another great day to learn something new, so let’s get started!
What Is an eLearning Authoring Tool?
First of all, let’s see what kind of software such a tool entails.
An eLearning authoring tool is software that enables you to create digital educational
content to share with learners through a learning management system, or on the Web.
Digital learning content includes e-courses, video lectures, quizzes, simulations and more.
Some tools are focused only on building one type of training content while others comprise
a set of tools under one roof that cover a lot of tasks instructional designers or educators
might need to deal with.
But when speaking about free solutions, it should be noted that their functionality is
quite limited compared to paid ones, but let’s have a look at what they offer.
The first authoring tool which we will talk about is iSpring Free
iSpring Free is a user-friendly authoring tool for creating slide-based courses with
quizzes.
If you have ready-made presentations, you can turn them into interactive online courses
in a few clicks as the tool builds right in PowerPoint.
When converting, it maintains all PPT animations, triggers, and transitions intact.
Since the interface is familiar and intuitive, it’s also easy to build courses from scratch:
just populate slides with texts, images, YouTube videos, and web objects – a page from Wikipedia
or your corporate website, for example.
There are three types of quiz questions for assessing learners’ knowledge: multiple-choice,
multiple-response, and short answer.
To enhance your quizzes, you can set feedback, a number of attempts, and time limits.
The content created with iSpring Free automatically adapts to all devices and looks great on any
screen, including those of PCs, Macs, tablets, and smartphones.
So the pros of this authoring tool are pretty clear.
It’s easy to use and doesn’t require coding skills.
iSpring Free always allows you to convert PPT slides to HTML5 or SCORM.
Also, it’s SCORM compliant and keeps intact all PPT effects.
That is why courses and quizzes look good and play well on any device.
And with iSpring Free you can publish courses without watermarks.
Although it has cons, they are super minor.
The main disadvantage is that iSpring Free doesn’t work without installed PowerPoint.
Also, you will be able to use only three quiz question types and 15 slides in your course.
Let’s move to the second authoring tool.
And it is Udutu.
Udutu is a free web-based tool for building courses.
It comes with a variety of WYSIWYG apps that let you create different kinds of activities,
including assessments, interactive modules, and branching scenarios.
Like iSpring Free, it allows you to convert your PowerPoint slides to online courses,
but this option requires a subscription of $10 per month.
Courses can be downloaded to your computer as SCORM packages.
Let’s sum up the advantages of this tool.
Udutu doesn’t require coding skills and it’s SCORM compliant as well as iSpring
Free.
It has pre-designed templates, a large variety of assessment questions and the ability to
create interactive learning objects and branching scenarios.
The disadvantage of Udutu is that it’s not very steep but definitely has a learning curve.
Besides that, without a subscription, you will be unable to preview a course without
watermarks or convert it into SCORM and HTML5 format.
Moving to the third tool -- and it is IsEasy isEazy is another cloud-based authoring tool.
It has a user-friendly interface.
The free pricing plan, as well as the paid plans, allows you to build slide-based courses
by using ready-made templates that you can populate with texts, images, videos, and audio.
The tool also enables you to add and customize interactive elements: quizzes, timelines,
catalogues, process interactions, and more.
But the free version has significant limitations.
The tool restricts its use to 3 eLearning projects and puts a 0.3 GB limit on the space
for courses.
Besides that, courses will be published with a logo and watermark.
However, there are many pros!
It's easy to use, has a variety of good-looking templates, includes 6 quiz question types,
has interactive elements and of course, is SCORM compliant.
The fourth authoring tool that we tested is Adapt
Adapt is an open-source tool that is designed for rapid course authoring.
It doesn't support branching scenarios and offers a very limited animation scope, so
it is suited only to those who want to create long read courses with ‘linear navigation.’
Overall, the core functionality is sufficient to make simple online courses, but you can
enhance the learner experience by installing additional Adapt plug-ins that will allow
you to custom design your content.
However, you need to have a techie mind to make some plug-ins work.
So the pros of this tool are adaptive plug-ins, a variety of supported languages and the ability
to use it on different devices.
However there are some cons too.
Adapt supports a limited variety of animations and doesn't support branching scenarios at
all.
Also, it requires a techie mind to make some plug-ins work.
The next guest of our tool-meeting is CourseLab CourseLab is another free authoring software
for building interactive eLearning courses that can be published on the web or to an
LMS.
However, the interface looks a bit outdated and is not very intuitive.
But for tech geeks, this tool can be a good solution, since it provides quite an extensive
feature set: images, videos, complex multi-object interactions, and quizzes.
Let’s sum up the advantages of this tool.
CourseLab is SCORM and AICC compliant and has 6 quiz question types.
You can make your job easier using a tree-like course structure and a built-in screen capture
feature.
BUT!
We cannot fail to mention the cons.
CourseLab has a non-intuitive user interface and outdated design.
Also, some media files required Javascript, Shockwave, and Real Player.
The app is not compatible with mobile devices and many LMSs.
Let’s move to the sixth authoring tool - GLOMaker GLOMaker is a free open-source tool that enables
you to create structured interactive learning materials.
There are a variety of templates that can be customized according to your training needs.
GLOMaker provides a great number of options, including quizzes with feedback, slide-show
viewer, photo display with zoom facility, video and audio players, and more.
However, many novice course builders will find the tool unintuitive and complicated
to use.
Let’s cover the pros of GLOMaker authoring tool.
It is compliant with SCORM and AICC, has pedagogical guides, built-in patterns and templates and
creates sequences of online learning activities.
But GLOMaker also has an outdated design, limited interactivity, only two quiz question
types and Doesn’t work without Adobe Air.
The seventh tool of our list is H5P H5P is an open-source cloud-based tool that
allows you to create HTML5 eLearning content and publish it on popular platforms like WordPress,
Moodle, or Drupal.
The content can also be added to any LMS that supports LTI integration.
H5P has interactive videos, HTML5 presentations, branching scenarios, quizzes, flashcards,
and more.
However, the tool is quite limited as far as creating complex and customized eLearning
projects.
The main pros of this tool are open API and that it’s mobile-friendly.
With that tech-savvy developers can create new H5P content types.
Also with H5P, you can create a large variety of interactive eLearning activities.
The disadvantages of this authoring tool are limited features for customization, no preview
option, and the impossibility to make content private.
Our penultimate guest is Moovly Moovly is a cloud-based video editor that
is a good fit for creating training videos.
It allows you to create tutorials by using your photos, screenshots, footage, or voice
recordings, or by leveraging the built-in media libraries.
The tool comes with a huge library of images, sounds, and stock videos you can use to make
new video content in any style.
But if you want to record your webcam or screen for your training video, you need to get a
paid account.
With Moovly, you can also start creating your video by uploading an existing PowerPoint
presentation.
So the pros of this authoring tool are pretty clear.
Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, possibility to publish to YouTube, Vimeo, and Moovly Gallery,
1.3 million free images, sounds, and footage and Ready-to-go templates for fast authoring.
However, with Moovly you can create only video content and publish it only with watermarks
with the best video quality - SD 480p.
The maximum video length is only two minutes.
And you will not be able to record the screen or webcam.
Our final authoring tool is AdaptiveU AdaptiveU is a cloud-based tool with a course
creation capability.
But it includes an LMS functionality, allowing you to invite learners and track their training
statistics.
It is also not free but does enable you to create two courses free of charge.
With AdaptiveU, you can build responsive webpage-style courses.
You can also create a variety of lessons and steps in a course to let your learners digest
information in smaller chunks.
The pros of this tool are ease of use, creation of interactive well-organized content, quick
knowledge checks that you can add and the possibility to build courses that are responsive
across devices.
Regardless of all the pros, AdaptiveU doesn’t allow users to share courses with learners
outside the platform, they need to be registered learners.
The free pricing plan provides access only to five users and two courses.
It doesn’t allow the creation of graded quizzes and design customization.
I think that your main question is: Which Free eLearning Authoring Tool to Сhoose?
All of these free authoring tools are good if they serve your needs.
For example, if you want to create beautiful slide-based courses with quizzes extremely
fast, iSpring Free can be a perfect fit.
If you need to build courses with customized interactions, you’re a tech-savvy person,
and willing to invest time in training, CourseLab may be a good pick for you.
Or if you aim to create versatile interactive content and publish it on WordPress, you might
be better off choosing H5P.
However, if the basic features that free eLearning authoring tools provide are not enough for
your ambitions, test-drive a full-featured authoring toolkit that will allow you to build
professional online courses with quizzes, video tutorials, dialogue simulations, and
interactive modules.
You can use it for free for 14 days.
So it’s up to you!
Bye!