<div>Hello,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I've came across Xerte fairly recently and have only just begun to experiment with its capabilities for authoring learning objects. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Coming from a background in instructional design, I've worked with quite a variety of commercial e-learning authoring tools over the years, including Flash, Lectora, Softchalk, Articulate and many others. However, I've always felt these commercial offerings had shortcomings that ultimately made them very unlikely to be really see much use by the majority of instructors in academia. Typically, these elearning authoring tools either have too steep a learning curve for teachers who have very little time to spare, or that they are far too expensive to be feasible for a departmental budget, or both. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>So for many years, I've made it a point to search for this "holy grail" of e-learning tools. As I searched, I added to my wish list that the idea tool would be XML based, able to export to its content in swf format, and create content that was 508 accessible. Thus, I was extremely excited to discover Xerte and to learn that this platform is free and open source, based in XML and creates highly accessible content. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>However, as I've begun to delve into making my first learning objects with the Xerte standalone tool, I'm running into some early challenges getting comfortable with the authoring workflow and with getting things to work right.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>For example, I've tried to take advantage of some of the pre-built templates, but when I try to install a template, I get an "Invalid File Format" error prompt. I've tried this in two different versions of Xerte, including the latest, but no luck. I would really like to try these out so wondering if anyone might have a suggestion.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I'm also concerned that not having a WYSIWYG authoring environment will likely be a show-stopper for many instructors. Is there any plan to have such an interface enhancement added to future versions?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Also, I'm curious to know to what extent this tool is Open source. Obviously, it is free, but is the source code also available for other developers to modify to create their own customized versions? If modification of the code is permissable, my institution has some fairly robust programming talent which might be utilized to enhance aspects of the authoring infrastructure, such as adding a WYSIWIG editing component.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I hope these questions aren't out of place in this forum, as I would greatly any feedback offered.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Much thanks.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Chris King</div>
<div>University of South Florida Polytechnic</div>
<div>Lakeland, FL USA</div>
<div> </div>
<div><br> </div>