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Creating a ToolBook Exam and Deploying to an LMS

By Tom Hall

 

SumTotal Systems recently announced the release of ToolBook Instructor 9, the first fully 32-bit compatible version of the popular authoring product. This article will introduce you to ToolBook Instructor 9, provide you with some ToolBook basics, and then show you how to quickly build the shell for an exam and then set up the exam for deployment via a learning management system (LMS).

 

ToolBook Instructor 9

 

The long awaited 32-bit version of ToolBook Instructor 9 has finally arrived. This version of ToolBook is compatible with the latest Windows operating system (Vista) and provides developers a more stable and powerful programming tool.

 

This release of Instructor 9 includes many enhancements.

 

    • The main authoring GUI displays a newer style for the icons on the toolbar, tool palette, and Script Editor.
    • The Startup Dialog box contains a Book Wizards tab rather than Book Specialists, and this tab contains a Book Wizard and a Lesson Design Wizard.
    • There is improved support for the latest Windows operating systems, including 64-bit Windows, and long filenames are now supported.
    • There is improved browser support; the ToolBook HTML product works well with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and support has been expanded to address the Internet Explorer Eolas-related update that affected how web pages that use ActiveX controls and other dynamic content items display, thus eliminating the “Click to activate” prompt.
    • A new Book Explorer feature takes the place of the Object Browser and Page Browser found in previous versions of ToolBook. The Book Explorer provides developers access to all pages, backgrounds, and objects from an easy to use interface. Developers can quickly move, delete, copy, and edit all ToolBook objects.
    • The new Go To feature that provides options for navigating to any page by page name, page ID, or page number, as well as any background by name or ID number.
    • An enhanced Quiz Summary feature will create a detailed summary of all questions in a book (Figure 1-4), and a Generate Checklist button provides a means of saving important question information to a text file.
    • The new SmartStyles and SmartPages features offer two new Catalog Categories (Pages and Styles), which provide developers with an easier way to quickly create the core components for a lesson. Once the core of the lesson is built, the developer just adds their specific content.
    • In the enhanced Lesson Properties Feature, the Behavior tab now provides a quick way of setting up a quiz to be randomized as well as allowing a quiz to be set up to draw a random sub-set of questions.
    • It’s easier to deploy in a corporate environment; the ToolBook setup application supports the Windows operating service “Windows Installer” and the authoring environment runs as a normal user. Also, the AutoPackager now supports MSI installations.
    • An enhanced Version Updater now makes it easier to update books created in previous versions of ToolBook.
    • It offers LiveXtensions, which is a new product features that extends ToolBook beyond what is provided in the shipped product. 
    • There are new Catalog Categories: a Navigation Objects Category has been replaced by a Navigation Panels Category; a Pages Category contains the Smart Pages; the Styles Category contains the Smart Styles; a Questions Category now is available with a single multiple-choice and true-false question objects. (The Questions Categories from the previous editions are still available if you customize the Catalog.)
    • There are new objects in existing categories. For example, the Action Objects Category now contains a ShowInfo object along with a ShowMore and ShowLess object, and the Navigation Objects Category contains a Chapter Menu object. 

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ToolBook 9 basics

 

ToolBook is an authoring system that provides an object-oriented environment for developing Windows applications. An object-oriented environment is a programming environment in which all the visual elements such as buttons, fields, graphics, viewers, backgrounds, and pages are objects.

 

Indeed, ToolBook has even been called the "software construction kit for Microsoft Windows" by some. Each object has a set of properties that can be used to define the object's appearance and behavior. As an example, a button's property can be set in such a way that it appears as either a push button, check box, or radio button.

 

OpenScript, Toolbook 9’s programming language, provides a way of controlling object behavior. Developers can write a script for a button (Instructor only) that allows a certain action to take place when the button is pressed. Because ToolBook runs in the Windows environment, the graphical user interface provides access to windows, menus, dialog boxes, and graphic controls. The Actions Editor programming environment enables developers to create highly interactive e-learning content for deployment via a web browser using a friendly drag-and-drop method.

 

In addition, ToolBook uses the book metaphor. Each ToolBook application is called a book and each screen is called a page. The various visual elements, such as buttons, fields, and graphics, make up what the user sees on each of your ToolBook pages. The developer is referred to as the Author, while the learner is referred to as the Reader.

 

A major feature of the recent release of ToolBook is its Catalog, which contains a wide variety of graphical objects that developers can drag-and-drop into their applications. These Catalog objects make it easier for developers to create applications that contain multimedia components, including digital audio, animation, and digital video. The Catalog objects also make it easier to add questions and feedback, and it makes page navigation a very simple process.

 

Building the book

 

A quick way to build a book is to use the Book Wizard. Upon launching ToolBook Instructor 9, the author encounters a Startup Dialog box that has several tabs. One of these tabs is called Book Wizards. A series of screens walks the author through decisions about what type of book he or she will  develop and how the book is going to look.

 

A useful new feature in ToolBook Instructor 9 is SmartStyles. While the term SmartStyles refers to the feature, the actual component in ToolBook is called a Smart Style. Figure 1 shows the available Smart Styles (Page Styles) screen, with the Basic Smart Style selected. A practical application of this new feature is how the author can change the style at any time before final deployment by simply dragging a different Smart Style from a Catalog.

 


Figure 1: Choosing a Page Style (Smart Style)

 

Another screen within the Book Wizard is the Book Outline. Using this feature, the author makes a selection from pre-designed outlines. Figure 2 illustrates the Simple Quiz Book Outline, which shows that there will be a Title page, Objectives page, one Multiple Choice Question page, one True-False Question page, one Fill in the Blank Question page, and a Summary/Score page. (Also available, but not displayed in the figure, are two additional pages: Return to LMS and Remedial Feedback page.)

 

 


Figure 2: Choosing a Book Outline

 

The built book

 

After preparing the book in the Book Wizard, it’s a straightforward process for the author to enter the content. For example, as displayed in Figure 3, the author must name the page, enter the Question text (the Question stem), and then set up the Question object with the correct and incorrect answers, scoring options, and feedback.

 


Figure 3: A Multiple Choice Question Page

 

Figure 4 shows the finished page that the learner will view. The author can now add content to the remaining pages to finish the final book that is published and deployed to the LMS.

 


Figure 4: Finished Multiple Choice Question Page

 

Understanding the Exit buttons

 

Each page that is built using the Book Wizard contains a button that is preset to allow the learner to exit the exam, have the results to this point stored in the LMS, and then allow the learner to return to this page in a future session. This is the “bookmarking” button.

 

The Return to LMS page contains an Exit (Mark as Complete) button that is used to store the exam data in the LMS and mark the lesson “complete.” If the author chooses to build a book from scratch, both of these buttons are found in the Catalog. In addition, if an author wants to do more than what the Object offers, he or she can create unique buttons and use the Actions Editor (a powerful drag-and-drop programming environment) to program them with such options as Exit (discard results), Exit (mark as complete), Exit (suspend lesson), or Exit (restart lesson). Note that the Exit (suspend lesson) is the same as the “bookmarking” button described above.

 

 


Figure 5: Return to LMS Page with Exit (Mark as Complete) Button

 

 

Publishing to an LMS

 

The final step in the process is to publish the native ToolBook book to HTML, while making choices as to what type of LMS will be used to launch the lesson. The ToolBook Web Specialist makes this an easy process. Figure 6 shows the various choices available with TotalLMS (SCORM 2004) chosen. Once complete, it’s a basic process to copy files to the web server and set up the lesson within the LMS.

 

 


Figure 6: Web Specialist

 

 

Changing the Style

 

As mentioned earlier, some of the great new features of ToolBook Instructor include SmartStyles and SmartPages. A Styles Catalog Category (displayed in Figure 7) contains 12 styles authors can choose from.

 

 


Figure 7: Styles Category

 

The book built earlier used the Basic Style. If the author needs to change the look of an exam at a later date (to reflect new branding requirements, for example), it’s a simply a matter dragging a new style to the book. Figure 8 shows The Question 1 page with the Solar Style applied. Figure 8 illustrates that this is a very dramatic change to the overall look of the exam without changing the content of the behaviors. If you compare Figure 8 with Figure 4, you will see the following changes to Style:

 

  • background color
  • button graphics
  • text color and font
  • a slight change in layout (location of the objects on the page).

Once the new style is applied, the author merely runs the Web Specialist feature again as described above and redeploys to the LMS.

 


Figure 8: Solar Style Applied to Exam

 

Toolbook Instructor 9 offers a number of other functions, features, and improvements. Although, it’s impossible to cover all the key points in a major product, I hope this article offers a basic idea of ToolBook’s strengths in the new version.

 

 
 
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