Creating a course from scratch is the most common way people create courses, so let’s start there. First, head to the  Author section using the Application Switcher in the upper right. From there, click + New Course in the upper right. You’ll be brought to the below screen:

Let’s go over the basic options first, as labelled in the picture above:

1. The Add Content button, which will add a single slide. Clicking on the arrow on the right of this will bring up the following two options:
2. Add Question, which will let you write a quiz, and
3. Add Cover Slide, which will let you create a custom cover slide
4. Below that is the navigation pane. As you add content, each slide will show up here, and you can switch between them by clicking on them.
5. Turns on Retain. See the linked article for more info.
6. This will start a preview of the course, starting on the slide you’re looking at.
7. This button Duplicates the course
8. Click Publish Course when you’ve finished it completely.
9. Click the X in the upper right to exit the course. All your changes will automatically be saved.

Next, we’ll talk about creating basic slides using the below picture as reference:

1. Type in the title of each slide here
2. This is where you’ll type the content of the slide, as well as add images, videos, etc.
3. This will make the highlighted text either Bold or italics. If no text is highlighted, then this will affect the next thing you type instead.
4. Insert a hyperlink. You can link to any site, it doesn’t have to be in SafetyNow
5. Change highlighted text to Headers, with 1 being larger and 2 being slightly smaller. If no text is highlighted, then this will affect the next thing you type instead.
6. Add a bulleted or numbered list
7. Insert video, images, or audio. See this article for more details
8. Enable or disable comments for this particular slide.

Feel free to make as many slides as you want.

Embedding/Attaching Files

Course slides don’t have to be just text. They can include images, audio, or even video! We’ll cover the two main ways of adding this type of content: hosted elsewhere, or hosted directly on SafetyNow. Both are accessed from the same menu.

First, click the button highlighted below:

This will open up the below window:

If your content is hosted on your own servers or elsewhere, then simply paste the URL into the first box. Otherwise, you can upload your files directly into SafetyNow by clicking the blue link, or dragging them directly into the window.

The following file types are supported:

• Audio: MP3
• Video: AVI, FLV, MP4, MPG, MPEG, MKV, MOV
• Video URLs: YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia
• Images: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, PSD, SVG

Each file can be up to 10GB.

You can also add attachments, which will allow your learners to download any files you wish them to. Below are the supported file types for attachments:

• Documents: DOC, DOCX, PDF, PUB, TXT
• Other: AI, CSV, ICS, JSON, ODS, ODT, PPT, PPTX, RTF, VCF, XLS, XLSX, ZIP

Code Blocks

A new feature of the course editor is the ability to show blocks of code. This can be useful for technical courses where you need to show HTML or other code and ensure that it looks very consistent.

To insert a code block, click the highlighted button below:

This will insert a grey line where you can type or paste the code you need to show. The font is fixed width, meaning that each character will take up the same amount of space, ideal for code. Any HTML or Java placed in a code block will also not be interpreted by the browser and instead be displayed directly.

Hitting Enter will make a new code block, while hitting Shift+Enter will lengthen the existing code block, as seen below:

Once you’re done entering code, simply click the same button in the toolbar again to exit code block mode.

So, you’ve created some slides for your course, and you’re ready to start adding quizzes. Let’s discuss a few key points before getting started.

First of all, every quiz counts towards the learner’s final score whether it’s in the middle or at the end. You can change the passing percentage after you’ve finished the course, however, and it defaults to 80%.

Secondly, quizzes by default will halt a learner’s progress until answered and prevent them from going backwards. This can also be changed with the “Open Book” option in course settings.

Finally, by default learners will see the correct answer to a question if they answer it incorrectly. This can be changed in the settings as well.

Alright, let’s get into the process of making a quiz. First, click the arrow to the right of Add Content, and click Add Question:

This will bring up a menu giving you the option of 7 different question types. First, let’s talk about what a Smart Quiz is.

Smart Quizzes

Smart Quizzes are a bit different from writing a typical quiz question. Instead of writing the actual question, you’ll instead provide the system with a vocabulary word, a fact, or an ordered list. SafetyNow will the generate multiple questions based on the information provided. These questions will be different for each learner, as well as each attempt on the course. They vary from True/False questions, fill in the blank questions, multiple choice questions, and more.

If you want to see what kind of questions each smart quiz will generate, click the eye in the upper right to preview the question. You can generate questions multiple times to get a feel for what the variety of questions are.

Let’s go through the types of Smart Quizzes one by one.

When you make a vocabulary quiz, you will write the definition of 2 or more words you want the learner to know. 3-4 is the ideal number so that the quiz pool is large, but not too bulky for you to write. Once you’ve provided this info, the system will generate a pool of questions challenging learners to match words with their correct definitions, fill in the blanks, or answer true/false questions.

Steps in a Process quizzes will ask you to lay out the order of a process. 3-5 steps is usually sufficient, but it can be as large as you want. The questions generated will have learners filling in blanks in the process, answering multiple choice questions about what step goes where, and more.

Factoids are a fun way of generating lots of questions with little information. First, you type in a fact that you want a learner to know. From there, you will type in “distractor words” to replace the various words in the fact you just typed. These words will then be used to create a pool of questions challenging learners to spot untrue facts, fill in the blanks, and more. Here’s an example:

As you can see above, we’ve generated distractor words for multiple words/phrases in the fact, which will generate a large pool of questions! Here’s an example question:

Traditional Quiz Questions

These questions are much more straight-forward. You will write a question, and the system will ask the learner just as you typed it. You do have the option of randomizing the order of answers, however. The traditional quiz types are Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, Sorting, and Short Answer.

Multiple Choice and Multiple Answer are very similar – learners read a question, then choose either a single correct answer, or multiple correct answers. The order of answers can be randomized, although I suggest turning that off for True or False questions.

Sorting questions allow you to write out a process in its correct order. Those will subsequently be shuffled, and the learner will have to put them in the correct order.

Short Answer questions are slightly different in that they are not graded. The learner is presented with a question, and then types in their response. Those responses will be recorded in the Course Summary for you to see later.