Question Writer Preview

I'm announcing the availability of a preview version of a new Flash development tool, Question Writer. It's a 1.0 release, but it's for preview purposes because the manual isn't ready yet. I wanted to get in a quick word about it before the Flash 8 release consumes all the oxygen in the Flash world for the next few months. If you're the kind of person who doesn't read the manual anyway, you might be interested in what we've got to show right now.

So what is it? It's a rapid e-learning development tool for creating surveys, assessments, tests, quizzes etc. While its primary focus is on questions, it can be used to create any kind of content that could benefit from a bit of additional interactivity.

If you're an Actionscript programmer, hopefully you'll be excited because it allows you to create any new question type as a Flash MX component which can then be parameterized with movie clips that are made by Question Writer. We're hoping to create a market for these kind of extended question types.

If you're a Flash designer, I'm hoping you'll be excited because you can create rich learning content, filled with interactivity and feedback without having to become a programmer. You can import virtually any existing Flash 6 content for use as backgrounds, buttons, video, audio and animations within Question Writer content. Then you can export it all as a new theme that anyone can use. We're hoping to create a market for these themes too.

If you're a project manager, I'm sure that you'll like that you can have your designer creating the theme, at the same time that your programmer creates the code for new question types, at the same time that your content matter expert is writing the questions. Then you can plug it all together. When you're finished, you can re-use all the different elements again for the next project.

If you're creating tests for the government or schools, I think you'll like that we've paid a lot of attention to accessibility and Question Writer creates content that is fully compatible with screen readers and includes accessibility features.

If you like to use all those strange characters that most of the world just insists upon using, you'll be interested to know that you can just type, cut and paste all those Unicode characters just like they were real actual letters ;)

If you develop for mobile devices, you might want to know that all the content is combined into a single lightweight file that runs on Flash MX and uses the timeline much more than actionscript so can run on fairly low-end processors without a lot of memory.

If you're a business manager, I know you'll be delighted with the productivity improvements gained by using Question Writer. It'll take less time to create new content, less time to maintain it, less time on bug-fixing, less time on accessibility issues, less time on your next project because you'll really be re-using code, questions and themes.

If you use an LMS or a VLE, you'll be glad to know that QW publishes SCORM compliant packages that you can import into any SCORM compliant system. Then it returns every score you define through the cmi data model meaning you can keep track of the results within your existing system. You can also publish tests for use on CDROM or to the web and get the results back in lovely industry standard XML.

The Publisher Edition is $6795 and the Author Edition is available for $1795. The difference is that output from the Author Edition is branded as content that has been created with Question Writer. Both come with 12 month upgrade protection. This is a preview release but if you're eager to start using it - it's also available for sale. You won't lose out because the 12 month protection is extended to begin from when the full release is available.

It's been two years coming, I really do hope you like it. Have a look at some samples, try the evaluation version to get started. There's no manual, so you'll probably have some questions, you can ask them on the forum - no registration needed.

Posted by Alexander at August 3, 2005 02:37 PM

Make Flash tests and assessments with the Question Writer, Quiz Software. Question Writer 4 is now available. Click here to download.