How would you plan this out?

[cr_chris]

I've been given the task of importing several eLearning lessons from another program (ReadyGo). The program isn't very robust and I've found that I have to go in and copy/paste all of the text into a separate document in order to eventually move it into Captivate 4. I did the first extraction using Notepad.

My boss would like me to transfer these lessons into Powerpoint in order to have a file format that others within our organization can keep as "master files". These master files would be updated by various people - think of them as the raw scripts, which will be updated by various "lesson owners". The idea here is that when there are updates to the text for the lessons, the owner of the lesson will update the Powerpoint file and send it to me. I would then re-import the updated slides.

My concern is that importing slides from Powerpoint seems like it will make things more comlicated. It's almost as if I will have to design the lessons fully in Powerpoint then import the finished product (sans sound and video) into Captivate, taking away a lot of the functionality of Captivate. Am I right? Would it be easier to simply have each lesson owner keep a raw text file for updating so that I can do all the work in Captivate instead of having to deal with Powerpoint and Captivate?

Once all of the existing lessons are transferred over to Captivate, new ones will be created. I just need to put a plan/system in place now so that we can work efficiently. Any suggestions on how I should proceed? Both with the transfer of lessons and for the upkeep/updates from multiple lesson owners

Thanks in advance.

[John From Don]

Get them to storyboard everything.

What I have found is that "Rapid E-Learning Development" is something that is useful only for people with no development skills. If you have any experience in building content Chris, I would recommend the team to storyboard using anything - Word, PPT etc and only use it as your guideline to deliver to.

Build and create from scratch your templates for Captivate, then populate these with content as and when.

IMHO - I create my own templates from scratch as off the shelf doesn't always deliver what you may need, however see how other people do things and take what you need from them