You can create a course without any idea how the authoring tool and the framework fit together, but sometimes it can be helpful to understand just a little bit more.
So framework and authoring tool – what’s the deal?
Adapt framework code contains all the functionality to render a responsive e-learning course. It’s not dependent on the authoring tool.
But the framework has no graphic user interface, so you have to write the course using JSON text files and build it via the command line. This would be very difficult for anyone who isn’t already a competent coder.
The Adapt authoring tool translates the framework into more user-friendly forms and pages for building content – the sort of interface most people are familiar with from everyday software and apps. It also provides a way to more easily manage and configure plug-ins, components, and extensions.
Adapt from Can Studios has made the authoring tool interface even more user friendly with its Lite mode and Preview Editor.
Modules, plugins and extensions
The Adapt framework was designed to use code in modules. By encapsulating certain functionality in modules, the developers provided a way to customise courses. If your course doesn’t need SCORM reporting, for example, you could take it out. If you need a question type that isn’t bundled with Adapt, you can load it up.
Plug-ins are code modules that follow standards that allow them to be “plugged into” the Adapt framework. Menus, components, themes, and extensions work on this principle.
Components are the individual presentation, question, and navigation interactions that course content is built from.
Themes style a course in a variety of ways – including colour palette, font, the appearance of buttons and icons, and so on.
Extensions typically provide a function that extends across a course and may be applied to multiple items. Examples include making the course into an assessment or adding a course-wide glossary panel.
(If you want more technical detail, the Adapt authoring FAQs on GitHub is a good place to start.)
The Adapt Learning community, including Can Studios as an approved collaborator, is continually developing plugins so authoring becomes quicker, easier, and more creative.
We fully test our own and community plugins and make the best and most robust ones available in our monthly updates – so our users get extra functions faster.
As you get going, check out our quick guides to common tasks too. They’ll help you create courses with maximum speed, efficiency, and creativity – which is exactly the point of Adapt from Can Studios.