Intro

Captivate has always been famous for its interactive software simulations. Originally when it was released under the name ‘RoboDemo’ it was its primary goal. Although – in recent versions  – not much has been changed  for this feature,  it could be worthwhile to explain some tips I acquired while recording interactive tutorials for many applications (in several languages). In Flanders we often quote ‘Goed begonnen is half gewonnen’, freely translated ‘a good preparation will spare you lot of work later on’. This blog is about this preparation phase. some recommendations are also valid for Video Demo. I plan another blog will focus on the capturing workflow, and a third one on editing/polishing the sims into engaging eLearning course(s).

Preferences

Preferences can be edited before opening a project, while you are in the Welcome screen, the so-called Global Preferences. You do not have to start the Software simulation type of project to do so. Preferences are too be found under the Edit menu (Win users like me) or under the Captivate menu (Mac users).  Those global Preferences have less options because project-specific ones are missing, but the Recording category is complete.These options need to be checked, and eventually changed:

Settings:

Check the language! If you need to use another language, this is the place to be before starting the simulation. The feedback messages during capture (both shapes and captions) can be found in a file with extension rdl, like you can see in this screenshot. You can edit the messages in an editor like Notepad (don’t use Word).

I tend to keep the other settings at their default value. Lot of them can be set up later on for the project (narration, system audio..). The Camera sound and the Keystrokes audio are useful during recording, will not be included when published. The Smoothening is meant for the movie slides which have to be created for drag and other mouse actions. Later on you’ll get tips in the second part which will treat the capture itself.

Video Demo

To have a better quality for the movie slides (setting is also used for the simulation movie slides, also indicated as Full Motion Recording slides), change to 32-bit instead of 16-bit. For Video demo the temporary files are in a dedicated folder, you may want to switch to another folder on another drive if your startup drive (C) is too small. That tip is only for Video Demo, which can become rather big in file size.

Keys

Some of those shortcut keys are only for software simulations, not for Video Demo. That is the case for the Pause button, you cannot pause a Video Demo (answered that question multiple times in social media). You have to end the recording and eventually record another video at the end of the previous one..

Modes

Allows to check the setup for the three default modes (Demonstration, Training, Assessment) and eventually set up a Custom mode. Beware: you cannot choose a ‘default’ mode for future recording, which is what some users seem to believe. Choosing the mode(s) always happens at the start of a new recording. Personally I will edit some settings in this category. The feedback messages in a software sim, contrary to all other feedback messages (shapes) are by default set to be Text Captions. I prefer to switch to shapes and you can have a choice for the shape; it is easier to control the style of shapes in Captivate (see Step 2: Themes). You need to make the choice for the Demonstration mode, but it will be taken over for the Hint messages in Training/Assessment:

Take note of the objects to  be added during recording: besides the Success/Failure/Hint messages, highlight boxes, click boxes, Text Entry Boxes and eventually Rollover Captions (for Tooltips).

Defaults

This category is meant to edit the styles to be used. It is bit weird that this is included in the Preferences. Do not worry, Recording defaults will be added to the used Theme as well.
Beware: that will be the Theme set as Default theme. Of course if you opted for shapes instead of captions under 4., you only have to check the styles for shapes, not for captions. It is a bit confusing, because some captions have no counterpart as shapes: Capture Caption, Rollover caption. The styles for Smart Shape (used for both) is by default empty, but you can choose a styles there as well.
I will always create a different style for the Highlight box, instead of the thin lined Blue one which is the default. For the TEB, which often doesn’t have the wanted style that is a lot more difficult, because the wanted font and font size depends a lot on the application you’ll want to capture.

Theme

All software simulations (and the Video Demo) use the Blank master slide. It is important to keep that master slide blank. A background color or background image is not a problem. But you shouldn’t add other objects.

The Theme of your choice will need the wanted theme colors palette, theme fonts and object styles (maybe set in the Preferences, Defaults), Content and Quiz master slides are important if you want to add them later on to the course.  Once the wanted theme has been double-checked mark it as the Default theme. Especially if you do create many software simulations it is recommended to keep a Theme dedicated to them.

Storyboard

You have to know precisely what you want to capture. For long workflows, do not hesitate to split them up in small logical parts. It is a lot easier to record a limited number of slides, certainly if you want to do narration at the same time (which I do not recommend). For a software simulation you don’t have to worry that much about the synchronization with audio, since that can easily be done while editing (phase 3). While preparing, keep in mind to limit Full Motion Recording slides when possible. In many case drag and other mouse actions can be replaced by alternatives. Example: instead of dragging in scrollbars click somewhere on those bars. There are a couple of reasons. Several users have reported issues with the FMR (Full Motion Recording) slides when publishing to HTML5 in some browsers. Originally those slides are SWF-based, they are converted to MP4 when publishing but apparently the result is not always optimal. A better solution is to replace FMR by Video Demo slides, but that slows down the recording workflow (see second post).

Why?

Since 2008 I have been blogging regularly about Captivate. The most visited post is a rather old one date October 2011. It is labeled  ‘Question Question Slides‘ and believe me, still has daily views.  It is the reason why  I consider Quizzes as one of the three main topics for any Newbie in ‘Three Skills to Acquire‘.  Since 2011 quite a lot has changed in Captivate, although the basic design of quizzes is still the same.  Many peers have asked me in the past to publish a book about Quizzes  (could easily fill a book if it included custom questions). From what I feel in the community, a book is not at all the appropriate medium anymore. However I want to publish a sequence of articles about Quizzes, as I did for the Timeline (another stumbling block), with up-to-date information. It is important to understand the terminology, which is a problem when trying to answer questions everywhere: there is no ‘official’ glossary for Captivate and lot of terms are used in a haphazard way. To avoid any misunderstanding in future posts about Quizzes, I want to start with explanation of the different terms concerning quizzes. Some are ‘official’ also to be found in the Help documentation, some are terms I am using as well.

Drag&Drop will not be included in this sequence of articles, it is not following all the rules of the normal question types

Quiz Menu

Although you can insert Question slides and Knowledge Check Slides from the big button Slides, the place to be is the Quiz menu:

The red box shows the 4 possible choices:

Question slide

Is based on a dedicated Quizzing Master slide, depending on the type: True/False, Multiple Choice, Fill-in-the-Blank, Short Answer and Sequence have the same master slide, Matching, Hotspot and Likert have each an individual master slide. Beware: Likert type cannot be used in a responsive project, whether Fluid Boxes or Breakpoint workflow is used.

An inserted Question slide will have these settings by default (except Likert which is set to Survey):

• Graded
• 10p score, no penalty
• 1 attempt
• actions Success/Last Attempt are set to Continue
• pausing point at 1.5 secs
• 1 Failure message
• Reporting turned on
• Included in Quiz Total

Most settings can be changed. Only one type has the possibility for partial scoring: MCQ with multiple correct answers. MCQ with one correct answer has the functionality of Advanced Answers (message/action). If number of attempts is higher than 1, you can have up to 3 Failure messages.

Question slides have a dedicated  category of system variables, read-only. More information in this post

You can use the On Enter event of a question slide to trigger a custom action, but not the On Exit event. Question slides, like interactive objects have a Success and a Last Attempt event which can be used for actions.

Random Question Slide

Is a placeholder slide, which will be replaced by a random question from a question pool. Pool questions are based on the same quizzing master slides as normal question slides. On Enter event can be used on slides in the pool, not on the placeholder slide. The same quizzing system variables are used for random question slides as for the normal question slides.

You find the option for Random slides also in the dialog box ‘Insert Question’ which you open with Quiz, Question slide.

More details about this type in Random Questions, Do’s and Don’ts

Pretest Question Slide

Slides are based on the same master slides as the normal question slides. They have a special bunch of system variables, will not be included in the variables used for question and random slides. The Pretest slides have only one goal: to have navigation after the pretest based on the results. For that reason you set up a Pretest action. These special slides have limitations:

• They need to appear in sequence at the start of the course.
• All free navigation will be disabled: both by playbar and by Table of Contents (reason is that learner cannot go back to the Pretest slides).

Knowledge Check Slide

This new type was introduced with Captivate 9.  Likert questions nor random questions can be used. They are not scored, will not be present in the quizzing system variables nor in Review/Retake. They can be recognized by a special icon in the Filmstrip. This is the default setup:

• Not graded
• No score, no penalty, partial scoring in MCQ impossible
• Infinite attempts
• action Success is set to Continue
• pausing point at 1.5 secs
• No Failure message
• No Reporting

Some featured can be changed: you can limit the attempts and will then get a Last Attempt action. You can turn on Failure message(s).

A complete comparison with normal quiz slides can be found in Tips for Knowledge Slides

TIPS:

1. It is possible to copy/paste normal question slides in a question pool  to reuse them as random slides.
2. It is possible to copy/paste a question slide from a pool as a normal question slide in a project.
3. It is impossible to convert a normal quiz slide to a Knowledge Check slide nor to a Pretest slide.
4. It is impossible to convert a Knowledge Check slide to a normal quiz slide nor to a Pretest slide.
5. It is not possible to convert a Pretest slide to a normal question slide, nor to a KC or random slide.

PS: KC slides can also be used as Overlay slides in an Interactive video. You’ll find more details in Tips for Interactive Video.

Question slides can be used in 360 slides and VR projects. Styling of those slides is limited at this moment, cannot be based on a custom theme.

Import GIFT file

Instead of adding the question/answers in the individual slides, Captivate allows two alternatives, one of them being GIFT import. Moodle developed this ‘language’, you can find the full documentation here. Use a text editor which allows to publish to non-formatted txt files. This file can be used to insert all types of questions in Captivate with the exception of Likert, Hotspot and Sequence types. There are also workflows which start from an Excel file.

Lot of features are supported: for MCQ with multiple correct answers you can set up partial scoring, you can add feedback messages etc.

GIFT import is possible for normal question slides, for slides in a question pool. It is NOT possible for Pretest slides, nor for Knowledge Check Slides.

Especially when dealing with big amounts of question slides, and/or many pools I like to keep the questions ready in a GIFT file as backup and for eventual editing

Import CSV file

New import workflow appeared with CP2019: use of an Excel template which will create a CSV file that can be imported. You’ll need two files which are stored in the GalleryQuiz under the installation folder of Captivate. I published a small article about this workflow. Using the macros in CSVQuestionsCreationMacro file is pretty straightforward and documented in this tutorial by Dr. Pooja Jaisingh.  Same question slides are supported as for GIFT import (T/F, MCQ, Matching, FIB and Short Answer). There are some limitations, reason why I still stick to the GIFT alternative:

• You cannot indicate partial scoring for MCQ with multiple correct answers
• CSV file not really suited as backup, since you cannot edit a question once it has been added to the CSV sheet
• Got some errors when trying CSV editing with importing to an Excel file, and exporting to CSV. File was not accepted by Captivate.

Quizzing Master Slides

All types of question slides described above are using the Quizzing Master slides. Each theme in Captivate needs at least 6 master slides, whether it is a blank (non-responsive) project, a Fluid Boxes (responsive) or a Breakpoint Views (responsive) project. Blank master slide is always required (for PPT import an software simulations), 4 question master slides and one score master slide. The Blank theme used to show this minimum set, but for some reason in CP2019 a Title master slide was added (?) which I deleted in this screenshot.

I will focus on editing those quizzing master slides in a later article. In this introduction I just want to point out some very special aspects of those slides.

Timelines

The timeline of the quizzing master slides, and the result master slide is very simple: you see only the slide timeline. There are no placeholders, no object timelines like you normally find  on content master slides. However when you look at the content of those master slides, you see a lot of objects!

You don’t see any pausing point on the master slides, not for the questions, nor for the score master. However when you insert a question slide (any type) it gets automatically a pausing point at 1.5secs. Same for the Score slide.

When you select an object on the master slide (button, a feedback, Question, Answer area) they still don’t show a timeline. Their properties will appear. I will point to the objects in a question (master) slide or a score (master) slide as:

Embedded Objects

My definition: objects that do not have an individual timeline, not on the master slide nor on the slide itself. Those objects have functionality built in, which control the workflow for the slide. I talk about the Submit process (see future article), the appearance of messages, the inclusion in quizzing system variables etc. Just one tip: be careful when dealing with Embedded objects.

Those objects have absolute priority in the z-order, also known as stacking order. They will always appear on top of extra inserted custom objects.

Puzzling: normally the only interactive object allowed on a master slide is a shape converted to a shape button. However on the quizzing and score master slides the used buttons are all Transparent buttons.

When creating a question slide or a score slide, not all objects will appear. It depends on the setup in Quiz Preferences (see later article), the Quiz Properties of the slide and… on the situation. The Review Navigation buttons (with the double arrows) on quiz slides will only appear during Review. The Retake button on the score slide can only appear if more than one Attempt on Quiz level is allowed.

Next?

So much has to be told about Quizzing, always more than I expected. In future posts I will try to write about:

• Two-step Submit process
• Tweaking/customizing that process
• How to handle Embedded Objects
• Quiz Preferences
• Editing the Master slides for quizzing
• (Setting up the Pretest condition)
• Audio on Quiz slides
• Custom objects on quiz/score slide
• Custom score slide
• Scoring for KC slides
• ….

I am sure this list is not complete. If you want to add more ideas, feel free to comment.

Why?

This is an basic article because often questions about this specific feature appear on the social media. This week I had another one in this thread. The question was specific for Multiple Choice questions with multiple correct answers. It is a very basic post, not meant for advanced Quizzing users.

Terminology

Penalty

A penalty is a negative score linked to a question (or an individual answer for a MCQ, see below). It is essentially meant to avoid ‘guessing’.  Think about a T/F question where a learner always has 50% chance to choose the correct answer, without proving real understanding. In Captivate you can add a Penalty for each type of question in the Quiz Properties panel. You add it as a ‘positive’ number.  See this screenshot:

The Penalty will appear in the Advanced Interaction panel, column Negative points:

You can have a hands on experience with penalty, when playing with this short quiz (more explanation later on), has only MCQ type of question. The previous screenshot of the Advanced Interaction panel was for this example file. Either you watch this embedded version (fixed resolution) or you use this link to open a scalable version:

For this example I have used design elements from the most recent Quick Start Project ‘Business’.

Partial Scoring

For all other types of questions a learner gets the score  for a question only when everything is correct.  That can be very frustrating for learners if they just missed something.  That is certainly the case for a MCQ with multiple correct answers, but also for a Fill-in-the-Blank with multiple blanks, or a hotspots question with multiple hotspots. However those other types have no inbuilt  partial scoring.

MCQ with Multiple Correct Answers

To set up partial scores, you need to activate the option ‘Partial score’ and in this case the option ‘Multiple answers’ is of course also needed. If you do not specify the exact score for each answer, both score and eventually penalty will be equally distributed. But it is much better to identify the score and penalty, because each answer can have a different weight: some are more easy to detect than others. 

For that reason you need to:

• select each answer
• open its Properties panel
• go to the Options tab
• enter the ‘points’
• for wrong answers you enter ‘negative’ points,

After entering individual score/penalty the score and the penalty on the Quiz Properties will look ‘dimmed’, but they are calculated as sums from the individual positive and negative scores of the answers. I prefer the expert UI because I can have both Properties and Quiz Properties next to each other, or at least both visible at the same time. Here an example for one correct answer, 6 points out of the total score of 15 points, because the two other correct answers have a score of 5 and 4points:

In this screenshot you see the ‘penalty’ or negative score for one of the wrong answers:

This wrong answer has a score of -4p, whereas the second wrong answer is estimated at -3p, which leads to a total penalty of 7points.

MCQ with One Correct Answer

It may be less logical for a MCQ with ONE correct answer, isn’t it?  However the term ‘partial score’ is also valid for ‘partial penalty’ as you could see above.  You may have several wrong answers, and some may considered to need a bigger penalty than other wrong answers. This means really differentiating the penalty which is available for MCQ with one correct answer. The first question slide in the example file was set up that way. The correct answer was rewarded with 10 points, the wrong answers had 3 different penalty scores. Here is an example:

Something is wrong with the ‘total’ penalty in the Quizzing Properties however.  It has been calculated as explained above: sum of all the negative scores. But in this case, the learner can only  mark one of the wrong answers, that penalty of 10 points can never exist.

Possible Issues

LMS reporting

Attempts on Question level

The reason for the example file was the thread I mentioned in the introduction. In the example file, the Quiz attempts are set to Infinite, but the attempts on question level are limited to:

• Two attempts for the Single Choice question
• Three attempts for the Multiple Choice questions

The second and third question are identical, but the second has no partial scoring, the third has partial scoring turned on.  Captivate will see a question with a partially correct answer as a ‘correct’ question, and include it in the system variable cpQuizInfoTotalCorrectAnswers. That has also its consequence for the attempts. If you give only one correct answer, the attempts will be considered to be exhausted, you’ll not have the possibility to add correct answers. Try it out: you will see that you can use the 3 attempts always on the second question (as long as you don’t have all the correct answers), but not on the third question. That is a problem!