How Can I Keep My Course Assets Organized?

Do you ever find yourself with a collection of media you need to use in your e-Learning, but find it challenging to keep it all in order? “Which photos have I used…and where?” For this reason, many folks during our hands-on Articulate 360 training ask us if there’s a way to stay organized while developing in Storyline 360. The answer: yes!

In our last blog post, we revealed some time-saving benefits of importing audio into Storyline 360’s Media Library…but wait, there’s more! Today we’ll explore other aspects of the Media Library to answer the common “as heard in training” question: “How can I keep my course assets organized?”

While we love and use Articulate 360’s included and ever-growing Content Library of royalty-free assets, our development team occasionally receives specific media a customer wants us to use, whether these materials are approved by their marketing department or just represent their team, processes, or facilities. Needing a system for all of these new materials is where the Media Library is so valuable in streamlining e-Learning development. Let’s take a closer look.

Importing Media

Since it saves us time, provides us a system, and shines in the realm of efficiency, one of the first things we do upon receiving media from a customer is to import them into the Media Library.

Very simply, we navigate to the View tab | Media Library, select either the Add button (if the Media Library is empty) or the import button (always in the top right corner of the window), and select the images or videos we want to import.

Once everything’s imported, we can work with these assets in several ways and all in one place, while continuously and effortlessly tracking their usage throughout your project:

• The “Uses” column keeps count of how many times in this project an asset’s being used.
• For accessibility purposes, you can quickly add alt text to every instance of an item in one fell swoop.
• Using convenient arrow buttons, you can scroll through exactly which slides and layers use a particular graphic.
• You can even rename items or make notes on an asset, which can make searching in the Media Library a breeze!
• With a handy toolbar in the bottom-right corner, you can also replace an item everywhere it exists, locate the file on your machine, export, or edit it.

Tip: Did we mention that the Media Library allows you to edit your assets using other software tools? If you think that’s convenient, the Media Library applies those edits to your project right away!

Incorporating Media

While developing, you may have noticed that you can insert these assets from the Media Library as you would traditionally via the Insert tab.

To save time, however, we can open the Media Library from the View tab and leave it running on another monitor. (If you’re not utilizing a second monitor, you’re really missing out!) This way, we’ll be ready in an instant to insert a graphic.

(Fast, right?!)

Tip: As you insert media, always keep an eye on the Media Library’s “Uses” column if you don’t want repeated uses of the same media throughout your course.

The Media Library is all about orderliness (one of my favorite things in life). As we’ve seen, it can also help us develop more rapidly. We hope these Articulate 360 features and tips help to simplify your e-Learning development, but if you have more ideas, we’d love for you to share them in the comments below!

~Stefanie