The Experience Builder™ AUTHORING TOOL FACT SHEET

Experience Builders offers the Experience Builder™, a web-based, collaborative authoring tool that enables a team of people – experts, trainers, managers, and users – to collaborate on the development of a simulation of a real-world task. Companies purchase a license (either for one project, or annual) and access the tool on Experience Builder’s state-of-the-art servers.

Experience Builders is proud to announce that the Experience Builder™ authoring tool won an Excellence in E-Learning award from brandon-hall.com for Innovative Technology in collaborative authoring.

Here is how the tool use is structured:

• You purchase a license, either to build one project, or to build an unlimited number of projects over a year. You are then issued a set of logins for you and your team to use, and FTP access to Experience Builders server (e.g., for uploading media assets or downloading a prototype or the finished system).
  
• You and your team can then log on and begin using the tool to author simulation content, following Experience Builders’ innovative production methodology.
  
• With or without Experience Builders involvement, you can create an HTML or Flash “template” which has the look-and-feel you desire for the simulation (e.g., to match other e-learning courses you have built). This is uploaded to the tool.
  
• At any time in the process, you can go to the “Compile” page and click a button to create the simulation using whatever content has been developed so far: using a template, Experience Builders’ tool will immediately create a self-standing application. You can click a link to go immediately to the application to try it out, or send the URL to someone else to try. You can also download the application to try it on your server or on your desktop. This step can be repeated as often as you like.
  
• You can upload media assets (video, audio, animations and/or graphics) to see the finished simulation in action on Experience Builders’ server. What you see is truly what you get.
  
• Use the automated audits in the tool to perform Quality Control (e.g., to look for missing assets, broken links, loops, incomplete tutoring, etc.)
• You can use Experience Builders’ Issue Tracker, an on-line bug reporting and tracking tool, to systematically capture problems and issues that arise as development is completed. This helps you make sure that the application is bug-free, and allows you to capture and distill qualitative user feedback about the application.
  
• Once development is complete, download the finished application and install it wherever you wish. You own the finished product. There are no royalties or licensing fees for your simulation.
  
• The project will remain on Experience Builders’ server in the event you need to change it. You can log in and change it at any time, and download the new version for immediate use.

In addition to these important features, the Experience Builder™ collaborative authoring tool offers numerous advantages over a stand-alone authoring tool:

On-Line Access From Experience Builders’ Server

• On-line authoring tool access 24-hours a day/7-days a week, from anywhere in the world, with just a standard browser and internet access
  
• No internal I/T involvement necessary – there's nothing to install. You can begin developing immediately!
  
• Compliant with virtually all firewall policies, and requires no special plug-in or control to operate
  
• Automatically deploys prototypes on the authoring web server, so other members of the team can see the simulation anytime you desire

Team Authoring

• Multiple people can simultaneously author, to meet tight production deadlines
  
• No programming! All you need is a writer, graphics/media developer (if desired), and SME
  
• You can involve a variety of different personnel, tapping into various constituencies and getting the best out of everyone. No more wearing multiple hats!
  
• Built-in commenting capabilities enable you to capture rich feedback from trainers, managers, and users, and to systematically incorporate their feedback into the system. This ensures that the finished product has everyone’s approval, from the beginning of development through the end.

Flexible Pricing and Outsourcing

• Pay on a per-project basis, or purchase an annual license
  
• Modular development allows you to outsource some or all of the work to Experience Builders, and to reserve some of the work for your team, resulting in less cost and better use of resources