Flash eLearning is ending – Time to think Video instead 

All support for Adobe Flash Player ends this year. What to do? The good news is that with a video eLearning creation authoring software tool like uQualio, you can change the format directly during upload – but here are other suggestions for moving forward.

Flash has been an essential part of eLearning for over 20 years, eLearning owes a great amount of its success early on to the legacy format, as it greatly helped its distribution and accessibility online. But still, Adobe Flash will essentially stop existing by December 31st, 2020 .

What does this mean for your eLearning content? Can you avoid your current content becoming completely obsolete? Should you think of a modern solution now? Can you still use some of your current content for a while?

Read on to learn more about this and how you can make sure all your eLearning content makes it to 2021 safely.

1. Your old Flash-based content will stop working starting January 1st, 2021

It has been a long time coming. Popular web browsers such as Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox have steadily been moving away from Flash in favor of HTML5 content over the past few years in anticipation of Flash’s eventual demise.

But what does this truly mean for flash-based content? It means that any Shockwave Flash File (SWF) based content will immediately stop working in 2021 on all web browsers. This content can be games, videos, website animations and yes, even your flash-based eLearning content will no longer work on any browser next year.

Moreover, Flash-based content does not run on most mobile devices and needs a specific plug-in to run on the latest browsers, meaning that your current flash content reaches very few users today. It is time for an upgrade if your content still runs on Flash.

2. Check and convert your existing eLearning content if necessary

Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) packages are quite common in Learning Management Systems (LMS) and in the eLearning space in general.

However, SCORM packages come with the option of being published in both HTML5 and in SWF Flash, and while Flash has been prominent in the past, any SCORM packages that are published as Flash will essentially stop working in 2021.

If you possess the original authoring tool for your courses, the process is as simple as opening the courses with them and republishing them as HTML5 courses. You can convert them directly while uploading on the uQualio platform.

Be sure to double-check all your current packages and republish them as HTML5 was necessary before the end of this year. Remember to keep your project files handy in case you need to make changes to the course in the future.

3. Flash as a format is unsafe, highly incompatible, and consumes a lot of resources from devices.

If you are still thinking of holding on to your Flash content until the bitter end, you might want to rethink that strategy.

Not only will all of your content stop working altogether by the end of the year, but Flash as a format has existed for 24 years, a dinosaur almost in the modern internet era. It is already widely incompatible with many modern devices and it was conceived and developed before internet security was a priority, meaning that the format is extremely vulnerable to hacking and exploits. Additionally, devices that can still run flash do so with a very high battery and resource consumption.

There are hardly any real benefits of keeping your eLearning content, or any content for that matter, as Flash. You can also be putting yourself and others at risk by sticking to the old format today due to how unsafe it has become.

4. Consider using a video eLearning platform to future-proof all your eLearning content

Are you worried that your eLearning content might be outdated again in the near future?

Would you like a much faster, easier, and inexpensive way to create and update your eLearning? We have a solution to that. Video.

Before the Corona crisis, it was estimated that more than 81% of all internet traffic was video-based – in the future we expect it to be higher. Video is the future.

And we have the right solution for you – uQualio® – a combination of an easy-to-use authoring tool and LMS. Some also call it an LCMS – learning content management system.

We call it a state-of-the-art, cloud-based video eLearning creation authoring software eLearning platform and with it, you can ensure that you can easily build and maintain your online eLearning courses and ensure they are always accessible and updated.

Since uQualio® is a web-based application, it works on any device that can connect to the internet, such as a mobile phone, a tablet, or a PC. There is no need to download an external app, all your courses are instantly there for you and your learners anytime, anywhere via a single click or tap. Legacy formats such as Flash will never be a problem for your content again.

Book a meeting with us to find out more about how uQualio® can help you future-proof all your eLearning needs today!