Lecturnity Webinar Qs & As

This blog post keeps growing: every time we do a Lecturnity webinar, we put the Q&As from it at the top of this post.

If you would like to seek further answers to any of these questions or would like to comment, please either e-mail me (tom.holliday(at)im-c.co.uk) or add a comment to this post.

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Q. Will Lecturnity SCORM content be able to talk to the SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK) Learning Management System?
A. Yes! SLK is a SCORM 2004 certified e-learning delivery and tracking application, so Lecturnity content will be able to output to it. (P.S. Lecturnity uses SCORM v.1.3).

Q. Do you have any technically-biased case studies that show how other customers have used Lecturnity?
A. We don't have any in-depth technical case studies, but there are three nevertheless relevant ones on our website: click on the names for more information on: Trox-Technik, Stuttgart University and The Royal Navy.

Q. There is no text wrapping or hard return option when writing a long question: it therefore gets cut off the edge of the presentation when you're viewing the published version. Is there any way of wrapping the text and stopping this from happening?
A. It is possible to wrap the question text if you use at the position where you want to add a new line.

Q. Can you import a video file straight off a DVD, or does it have to be in a stand-alone video file when you import it?
A. It is not possible to import video straight off a DVD. Normally you have to convert it into a stand-alone video file (which is also called "DVD rip"). It is recommended to create an AVI file with a dedicated codec, e.g. the DivX codec.

Q. Regarding the 'Lecturnity Player', you say this was free. Can it be used on an internal server for multiple users and if so is there a maximum number?
A. No, you need one Lecturnity player for each PC, but it's free and very quick to download (click here).

Q. What about Thin Client networks, I assume this is suitable for thin client servers?
A. Yes, you can run anything through a thin client network that you can run on a PC, so Lecturnity would also work.

Q. Regarding the assessment in Lecturnity, and it being SCORM compliant, can this be used and recorded in a Moodle platform without having to duplicate the assessment?
A. Yes it works with all versions of Moodle without the need to duplicate. But when you say "recording it in the Moodle platform"... you can only record the presentation in Lecturnity and then have it saved & used through the Moodle system.

Q. Are there people who could help us transfer our training program to use on Lecturnity? It's an instructor led course using PPT. Do you then do all the work (editing, etc.) or would we still need to find someone to do that. We would be producing for resale, so the quality needs to be high. We also have an old CD-based self-insturctional course that we might want to redo in a more modern format.
A. Yes we can record your live presentations for you using Lecturnity, or you can install Lecturnity on your laptop and, using a webcam and a microphone, you can actually record your own presentation as you're recording it, like I did with mine in the webinar. It's very easy. We can also do the editing. The amount of work we'd do would simply be built in to the cost. We also make bespoke hand-designed content for our clients, which is very high quality. We hold regular webinars on this as well. More information can be found by clicking here. The CD-based course would probably need to be redeveloped.

Q. Can the answers from the assessment be imported into the Moodle course so that individual student's scores etc can be tracked?
A. The answers themselves (free text etc.) can't be imported, but the learner's score can be. This is set in the Publishing Profiles, which I didn't show on the webinar demo. But yes, it is trackable.

Q. I am having problems finding the 'terms and conditions' section for the product, can you provide a hyperlink? For example is this a one off licence fee for the product?
A. Please click here. Yes it is a one-off licence fee. It's £99 until 21st August 2009 (introductory offer), then it will go back to £149.

Q. Does the new version of Lecturnity package up the multiple files into more manageable numbers?
A. This is not a feature of Lecturnity v4.0. The thinking was that we wish to retain as much flexibility as possible when authoring and re-jigging Lecturnity presentations, although I agree that the individual picture files are numerous and can look messy! However, once you get used to using it, it's easy to set up folder structures that you'll find easy to use.

Q. What language is Lecturnity written in?
A. Lecturnity is written in C++, Java, JavaScript, VBA, (D)HTML and Flex.

Q. WebCT is SCORM 1.2, but Lecturnity content is SCORM 1.3. What functions will not integrate with WebCT?
A. There are none. SCORM 1.3 is just faster, so there is nothing that you can do on Lecturnity that will not work on a SCORM 1.2 LMS such as WebCT.

Q. Where does it store the files?
A. You can specify the exact destination where it is saved.

Q. Is there any plan to make an English only version of the software packages?
A. It is already in English, although the original version was made in German (we are a German company). If there are elements in the demo that are still in German, these will be rectified by our development team. Please let me know if this doesn't answer your question.

Q. Is it always recording the PPT file or do you need to press screen grab for that as well?
A. No, it always records the PPT file.
UPDATED ANSWER (04.08.09) - the new version of Lecturnity (released today!) offers the choice to start with PowerPoint OR to start with a blank presentation. The old version (v 3.0) required at lease a blank PowerPoint slide to be imported before you could start, even if you only wanted to use Lecturnity for screen recording.

Q. Is the output flash file SCORM? If so 1.2 or 2004?
A. Yes, I apologise: I didn't mention that several publoishable formats (including FLASH) are SCORM compliant. It is version 1.3

Q. Can you publish to multiple formats?
A. Yes:

     • Web/Blog/Podcast (MPEG-4)                  

     • Flash (SWF, FLV)

     • RealMedia

     • WindowsMedia

     • LECTURNITY Player

     • Direct export to SLIDESTAR.de

     • CDs/DVDs with no installation required

     • Podcast with iTunes connectivity

Q. Can it be integrated with existing online grading tools?
A. Yes. Please see the question on SCORM, (above)

Q. Can it export to .flv?
A. UPDATED ANSWER: yes, screengrabbing can be exported to .flv, but this is in certain cases combined with an .swf file, (the audio)

149 good reasons for LECTURNITY 4

New release and new licensing model for IMC AG authoring software – Special offer until 21st of August

Saarbrücken/Sevenoaks, 31st July 2009 – Several years ago, recording presentations was an unusual way of creating learning content. Since then, the situation has changed: recordings of presentations have become popular and are now a standard way to create learning content. They are more popular than ever among learners. This development has been expedited by IMC AG’s presentation recording tool, LECTURNITY. From 4th August, the company will be launching the next phase of this successful software with a new release and new licensing model at the significantly reduced price of 149 Euros.

LECTURNITY 4 is all about product innovation. “Until now, screen grabbing and the use of object-based recording have been perceived as opposites. In this new release, we have combined these two worlds together into one solution,” says Frank Milius, board member at IMC and responsible for product development.

Finding instead of searching
LECTURNITY 4 uses the advantages of both recording methods – the independence of the screen grabbing approach for special file formats, alongside the option of relocating important information using full-text searches and slide preview images. “In the case of display recordings, we now work with automatic text recognition,” explains Milius. LECTURNITY initially records all display activities. The program then recognises the text within all captured elements of the recorded document – whether an Excel spreadsheet, PDF document, Word file or browser window. Even labels in diagrams are included. “Here, LECTURNITY is working on the basis of the ‘optical character recognition’ principle for printed documents. This is not available anywhere else for presentation recordings in this form – only with LECTURNITY,” Milius points out.
All recorded documents produced with LECTURNITY are therefore “retrievable”. It does not matter whether they are recorded as a screen-grabbing clip or as slide imports, the genuine LECTURNITY approach – targeted searches for information are possible in LECTURNITY documents. This retrieval ability is available in all target formats (Flash, Real Media, Windows Media etc.) which can be created using the tool. The completely new design of the tool aims to create user-friendliness, speed and process efficiency when producing content, by using widgets which can be positioned freely, flexible function services and configurable tools, taking the great popularity of presentation recordings and the increased usage of LECTURNITY into account.

New licensing model
Product innovations are, however, only one side of LECTURNITY 4. The new licensing model is the other. “Presentation recordings are no longer considered exotic,” explains Dr.  Wolfgang Kraemer, CEO of IMC AG. “We are now working in a mass market, both with regards to the amount of content produced and the number of operators and users. We have therefore not only based LECTURNITY functionality on these developments, but also dramatically reduced the price.” The software is now affordable for everyone, at 149 Euros, and is easily available via IMC’s new eCommerce shop solution.
LECTURNITY has already gained many fans in the corporate world due to its diverse uses. Sales and software training, media training, operating instructions or standard operating procedures (SOPs) can now be cost-effectively and quickly produced thanks to LECTURNITY. The new release will further increase the cost-benefit effect when creating training materials, and will convince even more corporate training managers of its strengths. However, Kraemer considers even the traditional target group, universities, to be a great source of growth potential. Today, over 300 universities already use LECTURNITY for the production of e-lectures. “The low price will result in a multiplication and therefore even wider use. Our aim is to win new target groups in all sectors, and also the consumer market, with our new price model,” says Kraemer of the evolution in strategy. The standardised international price should also support global marketing. The new licensing model is therefore also part of the internationalisation strategy of the company, and meets the significant global demand for simple and quick production tools and methods.

Spontaneous customers benefit from a special offer: Only until 21st of August the new release of LECTURNITY is available for the price of just 99 Euros for a single authoring licence.