Matt Fox takes a tour of Giunti Labs extensive suite of authoring and content management tools.

Born out of Italian publisher Giunti Labs' internal development tool, learn eXact is a high-end learning content development tool which can support local and server based authoring. The full suite includes the authoring tool ‘eXact Packager’, the learning content management system ‘eXact Lobster’ and ‘eXact Siter’ the learning management system.

We’ve focused our review on eXact Packager as it’s authoring we are most concerned with in our reviews, but if you are going to take a look at the suite, bear in mind that there’s much more to it than just authoring.

Know what a server-based development tool does?

If you do, just skip this and move on to the ratings. If not here's a quick summary:

Using server-based authoring tools is broadly no different from desktop ones such as Articulate. The difference is that everything you produce is stored online. The latest version of the content: every image, every audio file and every piece of text is stored in one place so you can re-use every element of any programme. This is great for managing a lot of content, or content that changes a lot. You can simply change a content object and republish your courses accordingly – very handy for small updates and it offers better version control and file management than desktop based approaches.

First impressions:

Getting started with eXact Packager, the first impression is that you are dealing with a tool developer’s tool. The interface is relatively busy, and the screen divided into a number of  zones, each of which fulfils a different function (such as resource management, learning object sequencing, packaging and wysiwyg authoring.)

If you are familiar with Toolbook type authoring environments or indeed Lectora, then this interface will have some similarities.

To be fair the Giunti Labs team are the first to acknowledge the interface isn’t the simplest to get to grips with, but with a very rich feature set and some unique authoring capabilities, if you are investing in serious authoring capability, the suite is definitely worth a look.

In a hurry to see a demo? View eXact Packager content produced for this review by Giunti Labs.

Kineo Rating:  Worth consideration for experienced authors or teams with ambitions to deliver large scale content in multiple formats.

Read on for a full review of the product.

eXact Packager: The Full Road Test

Ease of use: Average to low.

Giunti Labs reckon on around 5 days’ training to get fully up to speed with eXact Packager. We feel that is a fair reflection of the learning curve. It’s certainly not a tool you can just pick up and work out for yourself. There are quirks of how the interface is labeled and arranged, and even if there is a wysiwyg aspect to content assembly, the authoring environment is quite busy. Even using templates there is feel of handcrafting, though it’s easy to import content you’ve previously created for reusability or work from the extensive library of objects and templates available through the Lobster content repository.

Instructional design flexibility: Excellent
Pretty much any type of learning can be accommodated in eXact Packager except systems type training. The variety of screen interactions and flexibility in ordering which can be imported into template structures is considerable but would be challenging for a user to create by themselves. The best option would be to import pre existing styles or commission some from Giunti  Labs as you could spend some time getting your optimal set up for different training types, and assembling sequences of learning objects from scratch would require quite a lot of effort.

eXact Packager’s ‘wow’ factor is its ability to export interactive learning directly to mobile format as well as other training content types (pdfs, eLearning, standalone objects etc.) This means with no specific customization you can develop multi format learning objects directly and extend your delivery channels.

The mobile format delivers genuinely interactive learning screens and the ability to record and upload information back to the LMS from PDAs and other mobile devices. I’m not aware of any other tools that can do this – let us know if you do!

Ability to incorporate existing content: Good
It is very easy to import all forms of content from PowerPoint slides (without animations – just as screen shots or html pages), audio and flash files including video. You can cut and paste text in the normal way. You manage all your resources from the main authoring screen and it’s relatively easy to search the online content repository to incorporate your own content.

Ability to handle variety of topics: Good
As with last month's review subject Mohive, if you use e-learning for systems training you'd better keep your copy of Captivate (or any of the other screen capture tools out there).

Ability to incorporate graphics/media: Excellent
This is simple: just drag and drop your media to the learning object you are working on.

Ability to publish SCORM/AICC compliant courses: Excellent
Giunti Labs are one of the leaders in defining e-learning standards and one of the impressive aspects of the tool is how well it is configured to export content into a wide variety of package formats, with the team on hand to help create further custom ones if needed.

Conclusion:

Get over the initial reaction to how eXact Packager is presented and you will find a feature rich, flexible and innovative tool. If you are serious about developing e-learning and are committed to making a training investment when establishing a tool in your business the Learn eXact suite is an option certainly worth considering.

While the tool is highly featured for authoring, it also incorporates some workflow management through the Lobster tool, though we feel this is maybe less well integrated and highly featured than in tools like Mohive.

The Giunti Labs team are committed to continuous improvement of the tool and have new versions under-development which we understand will address some of the usability challenges that it currently presents – with that sorted it could be a class leading tool. In the meantime the web authoring interface could offer a softer entry into using eXact Packager and still deliver good results.

Want to see a demo of content produced by Giunti Labs? View it here.