zipBoard For eLearning
A new product called zipBoard, launched a few months ago, wants to make it easier for e-learning developers to collaborate on their SCORM courses. zipBoard lets you either upload your SCORM course or add a URL for a hosted course and share reviews.
Today, many instructional designers face challenges when getting the courses reviewed from SME’s, project managers, etc. A lot of back and forth is required between different stakeholders either through physical meetings, Skype calls or emails.
zipBoard, however aims to make this collaboration easier by offering a screenshot and annotation feature while playing your online course.
"One of the biggest thing is being able to particularly point at the issue by creating an annotation on the screen.” explains zipBoard co-founder Bhavya Aggarwal. “ When working on an e-learning course, there are too many visual elements that need to be perfected. It is mostly easier for an SME or other stakeholder to simply take a screenshot of the issue that they are seeing, draw an annotation and tag the person who has developed it.” It makes it particularly easy for all stakeholders to collaborate and also do QA.
Bhavya and zipBoard’s co-founder Pranab Agarwal are familiar with the problems faced by e-learning companies when it comes to collaborating on courses thanks to their time working for an LA based e-learning company for course creation using Articulate storyline. They had to rely heavily on using tools like snagit to discuss their concerns along with long email exchanges to discuss every issue.
They also have first-hand experience with the problem when working in the web design world, working in different product companies like Microsoft, Solidworks, etc. “We spent a lot of time explaining, brainstorming, annotating during product development as there was no streamlined way of sharing feedback during the development process.”notes Pranab who worked in product development at Microsoft and Dassault Systemes previously.
This prompted their idea for zipBoard, which now offers both e-learning developers and product developers, a quick and easy way to share visual feedback, collaborate and track bugs.
To use zipBoard, a project manager creates a project, uploads their SCORM course or shares the URL of their hosted SCORM course and start adding collaborators. Once the collaborators are added, they can view the course being developed in their browser, take screenshots when they see an issue and add a comment or assign tasks. Tasks can be categorized into bug or enhancement and also be assigned priority. Every time a task is created, it can be also assigned to the concerned person for them to work on it. Whether it is a graphic issue, a content issue, or an incorrect transition, all can be marked and assigned directly from the screenshot or board.
In the future, zipBoard would like to bring collaboration also at the storyboarding stage of development.
zipBoard’s solution is especially useful as remote teams are on the rise, and being able to collaborate and track issues through zipBoard will make the entire process very streamlined. zipBoard also integrates with bug tracking app JIRA and collaboration app slack, so that teams can track directly from their favorite app.
The freemium service offers 1 project with unlimited reviewers always free. The cost goes up based on number of projects or courses being reviewed. Current customers are spread over different geographies and either make their courses in-house or outsource the development. It has already processed over 2000 tasks.
