Overview Internet connections have improved over time and are much faster than they used to be, while graphics algorithms are more or less the same. As a result, page loading is much faster than in the past. Still, you have to be careful and optimise the weights of the elements you are going to include in your developments. There are scenarios, such as navigation on mobile devices, that benefit especially from this optimisation of elements. In developments created with Author you can include the following types of graphic and multimedia elements: Images Jpg Png Gif Svg Audios (mp3) Vídeos (mp4) Images As mentioned before, there are four types of image formats to include in Author. Each has preferred applications.  The main point to consider is the optimisation of the weight in Kbps. Guidelines are given in the specific sections for each of them. The second point to consider is the size in pixels. Try to make the image at least as wide in pixels as the gap that contains it to avoid blurring the image. Since this is a responsive scenario, assume that the size of images can vary between devices and between themes. Even depending on structures that are created in editing. So the default size of an image in a Lesson or Sydney theme, 880 pixels wide, will not be the same as in a Paris theme, whose default size is 960 pixels wide.  To find out the size of an image, you can use the inspection tools of your preferred browser. In general, these tools work in a similar way in all browsers. Here is an example of how to access Chrome's inspection tools Another way of accessing Chrome's inspection tools. (Continued) In this case with the inspection tool we select an image of a Lesson theme to know its size, in this case 880px wide In this second case we include the image in a row of two columns and altered the size of the second column that includes the image. With the inspector you can know the minimum size of the image for that specific gap, 358px JPG This is the preferred image format to use. You should apply compression tools that allow you to optimise its weight.  As a reference, in Photoshop, you can apply a compression factor between 50 and 70% to generate images with sufficient quality and low weight. In this example, we achieve a reduction of almost 1.5 Mb to just 40 Kbps only by applying a 50% reduction and with hardly any loss of quality In case you do not have this type of tool at your disposal, there are free online services to optimise the size of jpg images. One of the most efficient is TinyJPG. This format is used to output photographic images or illustrations. It is also widely used for backgrounds of sections, pages, etc. PNG This is the type of image to be used when the image contains gradients or elaborate details and some kind of transparency is needed. Preferably use the PNG-24 format so that the transparency is as clean as possible. If you use Photoshop, you must be careful with its creation as it is a format without compression and very heavy files are generated without the user having any configuration options. In this case, you can also resort to an external service such as TinyPNG, which allows you to greatly optimise these images taken from Photoshop. SVG This is a type of image format that can be used when working with vector formats. It has an optimal resolution on any screen, a very good transparency and a reduced weight and you do not have to worry about the space it occupies, as it will always be displayed in an optimal way. It requires vector software for its creation (Illustrator, Inkscape…). Apart from vector images, it is very useful for creating diagrams, tables, and other elements of this type.  PRO TIP  1:   If the image includes text, make sure to convert the text to curves to avoid incorrect displays. Where to convert text to outlines in Illustrator to avoid losing typography in the final SVG  PRO TIP 2:   There is an animated SVG format that can be included as a standard image and that enriches the look of the content.  There are not many image banks that include this type of element. There are some creation tools on the market, depending on the skills of the content creator. SVGator Expressive Animator Free Online SVG Animation Generator GIF This is an image type that should be avoided as much as possible because it is limited by its maximum number of colours, 256, which makes it a bad choice for complex images. Its transparency is also very limited and it tends to generate artefacts and dirty cuts. Its natural replacement for complex images with transparency is PNG, while for vector images SVG is a much better choice. Audio Generally include mono files because they are lighter in weight. If you can access the audio properties, make sure that the bandwidth does not exceed 128kbps in the case of a human voiceover.. Screenshot of the export window from Audition If the audio is mixed with sound effects, music, etc., you can consider the option of increasing the bandwidth to 320kbps and even exporting it as stereo. Video For video, you can set these parameters as the ones that will give you the best results. Preferred video size: 1920x1080 pixels Bandwidth: between 1,5 and 2Mbps Audio: mono, 128Kbps (see audio section) Profile: Baseline, 4.1 There are factors that cause two videos of identical length and resolution to weigh differently. The amount of information on screen and the speed at which images change are two of them. So a bandwidth of 1.5Mbps, which works well for a video with slow pacing, flat colours and little visual information, may be completely inadequate for another video based on a real image, with a high editing pace. In this case, even 2Mbps may not be enough.  Unfortunately with video a lot of trial and error comes into play.  PRO TIP:   Handbrake is a free and open source software that allows you to optimise very heavy videos to very good levels, while maintaining a more than acceptable output quality. Note on the profile: Web video players support mp4 with other more advanced profiles (Main). However, experience shows that on certain occasions on some mobile devices, profiles other than Baseline have caused problems. It should be noted that Baseline is not ideal for video resolutions higher than 1080p.

When you create a new user in Author through the Global Admin tool, you can assign them four different roles according to their function: Administrator, Manager, Author or Reviewer. Check these articles to know what permissions each one has and how they work together. Each user you give the Author role, the ones in charge of creating and editing the authoring units, consumes an Author license. There are two different types: Easy and Professional. Easy license This mode is designed for content experts with no previous design knowledge. It allows them to start creating professional content right out of the box, choosing from the available themes, using the pre-designed structures, so that they only have to focus on instructional design and activity creation. Authors can choose from a list of content blocks provided by the theme to create pages and sections, filling them with their own texts, images and videos. This translates into an agile and easy way of editing, worrying only about the subject matter. Create new pages and pop-ups focusing only on the content (write texts, replace images, set up videos...). An Author with Easy license cannot alter the structure of the pre-designed content blocks. Professional license On the other hand, the Professional mode is intended for users who are not experts in graphic design, but have knowledge of instructional design. More advanced authors who need to make more specific adjustments to the structure of the content. They also start from a theme, but unlike the previous one, they have the freedom to add new elements and components within the pages. They work at the component level. Starting from the predesigned content blocks, they can alter them, adding or removing elements (a button, a video, an image...), move them in position, add or remove columns... But There is no need to worry about the graphic design and appearance of these components, which are already predefined in the platform. An Author with a Professional license can alter the structure of the predesigned content blocks. Difference between licenses Customization options Easy Author Professional Author Theme colors (color scheme) Can choose one of the color schemes from the list provided by the theme Can choose from the ones offered by the theme, or create his own custom one Page and section background images Yes Yes Modify the structure of the pre-packaged content templates No Can add a predefined structure to the page and later modify its elements, add or delete others, edit and resize columns... Fonts (typography) No Can change the theme fonts to other fonts added in TTF format Create his own content templates Must be ordered as a service Create new themes The Easy license has the following functionalities: Add and remove pages, popups and notifications to content Add and remove pre-labeled sections of pages and popups Change the texts, images, videos, audios, and links of the added content blocks Adding sections with quizzes and activities, and editing them Changing the color scheme to one provided by the theme Change the completeness criteria (free or sequential navigation, elements to be interacted with...) Change the passing criteria (grade calculation criteria, cut-off grade...) Manage what happens at certain events of the unit (at startup, passing, completion, exit) Add and remove languages (multi-language content) Enable integrations with third-party tools Save versions of content, and retrieve them later In addition to this, the Professional license has the following functionalities: Add or remove from the content smaller structures (rows), or individual components (texts, images, videos, buttons, hotspots, flipcards, accordions...) Change, adding and removing columns to a row, as well as resizing their widths Create and use a custom color scheme for the content Manage licenses Author licenses must be purchased specifically, and have a different cost depending on whether they are Easy or Professional. Authoring licenses already purchased before these new types came into effect are now equivalent to Professional licenses. To find out more about purchasing Author licenses, please contact your Learning Consultant or KAM. To assign a license type to an Author, go to the Users section and look for him in the list. Click on his profile and in the side menu, enter his Author Permissions tab. Clicking on the drop-down next to the three dots you can choose the type of license he will have, Easy or Professional. The type of license an Author has is the same for all the projects he works on. It is not possible to have different licenses for different projects. You can check that the Author does indeed have the permission you have assigned to him. If you search for his profile again, you can see the license type in brackets. Once this is done, the process for assigning permissions to a project is the same as before. If you exceed the limit of licenses you have contracted, if you try to assign a type of license you have already exceeded, you will see a warning message. Check the licenses You can know how many licenses in general you have, and specifically how many Easy or Professional, by checking the Reports → Licences section. In the Licenses table there are three columns that indicate: how many licenses of that type you have Contracted in total; how many of them are being Used and how many are currently Availables. The first row Generals shows all licenses overall, including all users regardless of their role (Administrator, Manager, Author or Reviewer). The following rows show specifically how many Easy and Professional Author licenses you have. Keep in mind that even if there are available Author licenses, if you have reached the limit of General licenses (Author + Administrator + Manager + Reviewer) youa are not allowed to assign licenses to new users, even if there are available Easy or Professional licenses. You can assign these available Easy or Professional licenses to existing users, modifying their role. If you want to assign the available Easy or Professional licenses to a new user, you must first cancel the license of an existing user. Or purchase more General licenses. In the Permissions table, if you click on View users next to each license type, you will see a listing of the users in each category. This option automatically takes you to the Users section, applying the corresponding filters. From here you can also change the Filters clicking on the funnel icon to see another type of authors.

Sometimes, it can happen that the student of sCORM or xAPI content loses data of their follow-up (the score obtained in a questionnaire, their last position, the degree of progress...). This can be due to a number of situations: Situation 1. The user closes the training platform before the content. Typically, on most training platforms (LMS or LRS), when SCORM content is loaded, it opens in a new browser tab. Thus the user will have two tabs open (on some platforms will open an additional intermediate tab, so you will have three tabs, as in the case of learningCentral). If the user closes the platform tab (or I inject the middle tab), nothing of the trace will be stored because, when closing the platform, communication between the content and the LMS has been closed. The correct closing order is to close the content first (which will send the data to the platform for storage) and then the platform. In other cases, the content "inside" the platform opens, rather than opening it in a new browser window (such as in LMS if the activity is published "full screen"). In this case, the same thing will happen: If the student closes the platform window directly, the tracking data may not be saved. The user must close the content before closing the platform. To try to prevent the loss of progress information, Author incorporates several alerts for the user, check this article. Situation 2. The user queries the content from a mobile phone. For the trace to be sent and saved to the training platform, the user must close the content. As long as it remains open, data will not always be sent for storage. What usually happens on mobile terminals is that the user DOES NOT close the browser tab of the content since the tab's close button is hidden. The most common action is to minimize the browser to access another application (so that the browser is still open in the background, without sending tracking data) or directly close the entire application (thus closing the content and platform at the same time and not tracking). To solve these cases it is recommended to: a. Publish the contents in SCORM 1.2. or in xAPI. On most platforms, with SCORM 1.2 publications. and xAPI, changes that happen in content are stored as they occur, without waiting for the student to close the content. It is sufficient for the content to issue a "commit" message that asks the platform to store the information it sends it (note from a questionnaire, progress...). Content created with Author automatically sends these "commit" message when an important event occurs (when there is a score change and when a goal is reached). This prevents the user from closing the content window even if the content window is not stored. In SCORM 2004 content not all platforms support these messages and only save data with content closure. In any case, it is recommended that you test the LMS/LRS platform to be used to verify that the information is saved correctly. b. Add an Exit/Close button in the content itself. Because the browser's close button on mobile phones is usually hidden, it is recommended to add a custom-created button within the content that performs the tracking closing and sending function to the platform. All content creation templates in Author allow you to add this button to close. Check the properties of each template to verify how to turn it on. It will be even more important to urge students to use this button to complete the training button, ensuring that their progress is properly submitted. In case they don't use it, it's left to the browser that commands these progresses, and not all browsers have to match their behaviors when the "close" button is pressed, as in the case of Chrome 80 (see situation 3). NOTE: If you add xAPI content in LMS that opens "on the card" or "full screen" you won't need to add this button. It will only be necessary if the activity is configured to open in "a new window" (see here how to configure it). In the case of contents SCORM 1.2 or SCORM 2004 will always open in "a new window", so it will be necessary to add the button to close. Situation 3. The user uses Chrome browser 80 or higher. As noted, for the trace to be sent and saved on the training platform, the user must close the content. Until now, when you close the window with the content in any browser, this data submission was executed. But currently in Chrome, starting with version 80 or higher, released in February 2020, this no longer happens. In order to improve its performance, Chrome has limited the data it emits with certain features. Therefore, if a student closes the browser tab with the content, presses the browser button to "Go back to the previous page" or presses the "Reload Page" button, the tracking will be lost. See more information here. In Netex training platforms, in both learningCentral and LMS we have implemented in our SCORM Engine developments that minimize this problem. When using other training platforms, it is recommended to use those whose SCORM player is adapted to the new Chrome 80 behavior. In addition, it is recommended, as in the previous situation: a. Publish the contents in SCORM 1.2. or in xAPI. b. Add a Exit/Close button on the content itself and insist on students using it. In Chrome it will be especially relevant that they already use it if they close the browser tab, the tracking will not be saved. c. Cambiate Chrome behavior from version 80 so that the trace is saved by closing the browser tab. To do this, the user must change the flag value chrome://flags/

Updating a xAPI activity on an LMS is a practice to avoid. Netex always recommends that a new activity be published to the LMS that reflects changes made to the new version. SCORM content cannot be updated in LMS. If you still want to update, you must make sure that the new version of the xAPI package doesn't have any change of structure compared to the previous version. The following options are changes in structure in contents created with Author: Change templates (for example, switch from Basic Netex to Tokyo) Change the score for approval Modify the unit objectives Add/remove pages and/or popups. Add/remove components on those pages and/or popups Add/remove questionnaires Add/remove questions in questionnaires Modify questionnaires questions: Add new options or change the correct options The option to update content depends on the LMS. Some of them will not allow you to update the activity if there is a change of this caliber. Others LMS will allow updating, but it will be possible to generate problems in the tracking of students who have already worked in the unit (e.g., if we add a page, a student who had completed it at 100% would no longer have it completed; and if we changed the right option for a question, a student could have it suspended.). Therefore, the only changes that DO NOT AFFECT the structure (and that will be accepted by most LMS platforms) are: correction of existing texts substitution of images and/or videos

Units created with the Tokyo, Berlin, and Vegas templates have the following behavior: Complete status: The unit shall be completed when the student meets the defined objectives. The editor can configure and customize the goals that you want to be reached (See here). Success status: The unit will send ascoreto the LMS if Questionnaires that have been set to "Evaluables" (See here)have been added. The calculation of the note will depend on the number of evaluable questionnaires the unit has. The editor can set the minimum score to exceed the unit (mastery_score) from the project properties (See here in the Author's Manual). Units created with the Vienna template behave as follows: Complete status: The unit will be completed when the student views all the pages to the end and press the "Finish" button that appears in the lower area of each. Success status: Activities are not evaluable, so they do not send score to the platform. The unit is terminated when fully visited. Depending on the type of publication chosen, the unit will communicate differently with the LMS: Scorm 1.2. With this type of trace, a single data, the status of the drive (lesson_status)is sent to the LMS. The status of the unit will change when the unit is complete (all targets are set) and the cut-off note is exceeded (if evaluable questionnaires exist). In the project properties you can configure what the status of the drive will be after complete/incomplete or passed/failed. Scorm 2004.With this type of tracking, two data will be sent to the LMS: Full-itude status (completed_status). The unit shall be completed when the defined objectives are met. Exceeding status (success_status). The unit will be exceeded when a score higher than the set cut-off note is obtained. Thus, it can be given that the student has completed the unit (e.g. viewed all of its screens), but has not passed it (has suspended the questionnaire). TinCan. In this case, the interactions made by the student are sent to the LMS, although for practical purposes it will have the same behavior as in scorm 2004, in terms of completeness and improvement.