Type A Learning Agency

Shedding light on conversion
Type A’s top five tips for converting courses from CD-ROM to the web
by Beth Larson

Got a course you'd like to migrate to the web? Well who wouldn't? The web is generally a more cost-effective method of delivery than CD-ROM, reaches more people, and is easier to maintain and update. But beware! Converting a course from CD-ROM to web may not be as easy as you think. To help make your conversion experience a smooth and positive one, we’ve put together a list of our top five tips for converting courses from CD-ROM to the web.

Note that although there are many types of CD-ROM to web conversions, the approach outlined here assumes you're taking a self-contained CD-ROM application and converting it into a set of HTML pages.

Tip 1: Treat your conversion project like a new web project
The word “conversion” can be misleading. A common pitfall is to underestimate the work ahead of you and your team. In fact, an effective conversion might take as much or more work than it took to develop the original course.

So, take care to thoughtfully plan and budget for the conversion as you would for any new web project. Employ your best practices of web design and project management, identify risks, create backup plans, prioritize your wish lists, and plan for plenty of time for quality assurance testing.

Tip 2: Audit the course thoroughly
Don't assume you know everything about the course, or how it should be converted. Most of us know that, in many cases, CD-ROM and web mediums have their own strengths and weaknesses; for example, CD-ROMs are still better suited for courses that contain a large quantity of rich media. But there are other differences that aren't so obvious, such as tracking capabilities, browser security, plug-ins, and programming architecture, all of which can have a significant impact on your budget and timeline. For example, a self-contained CD application will generally store all variables internally. But when you convert to web pages, those variables no longer have a global scope and must be managed using standard web methods like cookies.

So, before you begin the project, be sure to audit the course from top to bottom, and make sure your audit covers the following:

1. Instructional design: What items on the CD will translate to useable items on the website?

2. Software architecture: How was it built?

3. Content: How many pages, photos, and illustrations are there?

4. Media: What types are used? What are their specs?

5. Functionality: How does each type of exercise work? What other functionality is included?

6. Graphic design: How many templates are there? Can you scale back elements such as photos and background graphics to help the site load more quickly?

Once you’ve completed your audit, have a developer review the CD-ROM along with your notes to help you assess the most efficient plan for converting the course.

Tip 3: Prepare a media conversion plan
Usually the biggest risk for overruns in a media-rich conversion is, well, the media! A particular high-risk item is video conversion. Even if the video has already been shot and edited for the CD-ROM, it's often far from web-ready. Once you examine the specifications of the video, you’ll probably find that the compression will need to be higher or the size will need to be smaller to play effectively over the web.

So, your conversion plan should define the format into which the video will be converted (e.g., AVI to QuickTime), the specifications according to which it will be converted (e.g., QuickTime settings), and the steps you’ll take to convert the media properly. You may very well need to resize and convert graphics and audio to web-friendly formats, so be sure include those in your plan, too.

Tip 4: Track down the source files
If you're unable to acquire source files you’ll probably have to recreate a lot of things from scratch and are in for a much heftier project than you bargained for. Source files are the original files from which your course was made. These may include layered Photoshop or Illustrator files that contain all the design elements in your site, uncompressed video, and uncropped photos.

So, try your best to locate all the source files—invariably, your time will be well-spent! If you can't locate these files, you might need to employ workaround measures that often degrade the quality of your course or turn out to be surprisingly expensive, such as taking screen captures of video or reshooting video. In any case, missing source files will most likely increase your budget and timeline, so be sure to plan for it.

On a positive note, if you opt to rebuild the source files, you’ll have the opportunity to improve the instructional design and tweak other details that have been bugging you since you first viewed the course.

Tip 5: Prepare for a different look
With a CD-ROM you often have a good deal of control over how it appears on the learner's computer. However, this is usually not the case with courses on the web. At the moment, there are at least a dozen different web browsers which all behave somewhat differently, which is further complicated by the type of operating system running on the learner's machine. Another key difference is that the web and HTML are designed to allow the user a lot of control over how a page displays. (e.g., they let users set the font size). In short, your course will look different on the web, and among various web browser, platform, and OS combinations.

So, if you're a project manager, make sure to manage your client's expectations and explain these key differences between the CD-ROM and web. Prepare them for a new look and help them make decisions that will make their course look good and consistent in a wide range of environments. For example, encourage your client to use web safe colors, styles instead of font tags, and lighter graphics for quick load time.

Good luck! Obviously media conversion is an art that requires some experience that’s difficult to express in five tips, but we hope these prove useful in getting you off to a good start. For our assistance, contact us at info@typea.net.