Plan your Custom Content

Before you begin adding custom content, we recommend that you first make a plan with regards to curation best practices and maintenance best practices. It is important to know how learners will discover and use your content as well as how other admins will use it for assignments, promotions, and learning programs.

Before you begin adding custom content, you should ensure you have thought through how you will group, categorize, label, and describe your content. You will also want to identify its location in the library. Having the details organized before you begin ensures the best design possible and an easy creation process.

If your content requires approval before publishing, you will want to know who your approvers are to ensure the process continues unimpeded.

This page has two sections:

New to custom content
Checklist

New to custom content

If you are new to adding custom content, ask yourself the questions in the following table. Then use the checklist at the bottom to ensure you have what you need when you go to add your content.

Question	Reason
What type of custom content are you adding?	You can add any of the following items: Links to web sites AICC or SCORM packages Web pages (HTML and .zip files) Single files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .pdf, .mp3, .mp4, etc) Live events like conferences And then determine its modality: Watch: usually a video or course Read: usually an e-book, article, or blog post Listen: usually an audio book or pod cast Practice: usually resources that can be edited for a user's purpose, such as Microsoft Word or Excel documents, or something they can practice like a custom CAISY Attend: usually something they join live either virtually or in-person Assess: usually something where they rate themselves in some manner.
Do you have a title and description for your custom content?	Learners see the title and description of the custom content when viewing it in the platform. The words you use here also become keywords for searching. Use words that are meaningful to the learner. Title and description are required fields and the title must be unique. Please note, if you retire an item, the system still recognizes that title as being in use for reporting purposes and you cannot reuse the title for another item. In many cases, when you add content, the platform pulls title, description, and image from the meta data. You can edit it as you see fit. Example for Akara, a fictitious company Title: Become an Akara Manager Description: Akara wants to help you advance your career. If you are interested in becoming a manager, get the necessary skills by completing this content.
What are the learning objectives for this content?	If enabled for your site and if you want, you can identify what learners should achieve by completing this content. You can specify up to 5 objectives that learners should meet upon completing the content you are uploading.
What are the relevant skills a learner will gain upon completing this content?	When you select skills from the Skillsoft skill dictionary to associate with your content item, learners with a role associated with those skills, may see the content as a recommended item to take to achieve that skill.
Do you have an image created that represents your custom content?	Learners see the image when browsing the library and in search results. If you do not have a custom image, you can select a royalty-free one from the image gallery or use the default Skillsoft Platform image.
Have you identified where in the library the content should reside?	As a best practice, we recommend that you add your content item to a custom channel or journey within the library hierarchical structure. This ensures learners can both browse and search for it and helps you track your curation. If you are using this method, ensure your custom channel or custom journey is set up before you begin creating your content. If you do not want learners to be able to browse to your content or if you are in a review or testing phase with your custom content, you can instead choose to publish directly without adding your custom content to a custom channel or journey. When you publish directly, learners who you designate can search for the content item and have it show in their search results, but they can't browse for it.
If you are adding an AICC or SCORM course, are you allowing learners who complete it to earn a Digital Badge?	You can create custom Digital Badges that you can add to custom courses. Badges provide an incentive to learners to stay engaged and complete the course. To use custom Digital Badges, they must be turned on and created, then added to the course.
If the content is not an AICC or SCORM file, choose the completion criteria.	For custom content that is not AICC or SCORM, choose how a learner achieves completion. You can choose: The learner opens it: Once the learner launches the content, the platform marks it as complete and places the status to Completed on the learner's Learning Activity page. The learner marks it as complete: Once the learner launches the content, they can mark the content as complete using the Mark as completed option from the content card while viewing the card from a channel or journey or from the Learning Activity page. If the learner views the content from search results, they do not see the Mark as complete option and must choose to mark the item complete from their Learning Activity page. Only administrators can grant completions: After the learner launches the content, they see it with a status of Started in their Learning Activity and on the content card. Administrators also see the content with a status of Started in activity reports. To receive completion, the admin must grant a completion for the learner. Admins can grant completions for each learner individually or in bulk. If the Learning time entry setting is selected for your site, learners can also add the amount of time they spend learning for this item. The time they enter is tracked in their learning activity and counts towards their learning goals. Learners can enter their time from the Actions menu on a content card or from the Learning Activity page. In some cases, like YouTube videos, tracking and completions options default to standard platform video completion settings. You cannot change them. If your custom content is an AICC or SCORM package, the platform uses the completion criteria defined in the package.
In what language will learners access your custom content?	If your content is in a language other than English, you will want to select that language from the drop down list and add translated title and descriptions. When the learners' site language matches the content language, they see it in their library and search results.
Do you want your content to only be visible to a limited number of learners?	By default, custom content is visible to all learners targeted by the channel or journey in which the content resides. If you want it to be visible to only a select number of learners, you will need to Create a New Audience for those learners and ensure the channel or journey where the content resides is targeted to that audience.
Help learners by adding filters that learners can use in search results to find your content.	Select a Content type. Content type is a universally recognized classification that defines how the content will be consumed by the learner. Skillsoft uses the types: videos, courses, labs, live events, books, audio books, etc. We suggest you use these as a starting point, but also define some of your own such as web articles, presentations, and quarterly meetings. There is a default selection but you can select a different type from the drop-down or enter a new value. We suggest you use the type ahead feature to avoid replicating an existing entry. You do not want to have two or three entries for the same item; one with title-case, one with all lowercase, a one-word entry, a two-word entry, or a hyphenated word would all be considered different types. If you have the permission to manage content types and source values enabled, you can add new values to this field. If that permission is not enabled, you must pick from existing values for this field. Select a Content source from the list or enter a new value. We suggest you use the type ahead feature to avoid replicating an existing entry. Content Source is who owns the intellectual property; it is not the platform where the item resides, such as YouTube or SharePoint. Skillsoft uses source to distinguish brands and partner content like Wintellect and GoFluent. If you have the permission to manage content types and source values enabled, you can add new values to this field. If that permission is not enabled, you must pick from existing values for this field. By default, the value specified in Organization name is associated as a content source for your custom content, dynamic content, journeys, and live courses. You do not need to specify the Organization name in this field in order for learners to use the Organization name as a Content source filter on the search results page, but you must specify something as described above.
How long will it take learners to go through the content?	This displays on the content card. The duration is the average amount of time your learner can expect to engage with the content. To estimate books and content, use the average of 300 words per minute. If adding a video or audio file, the platform tries to pull the actual duration for you from the file. Confirm the actual duration.
Identify additional discovery details if it will help learners find your content.	Expertise level: Select a level that users should have to understand this content. You choices are Beginner, Intermediate, Expert, and Everyone. Technology title: If you are supporting many items around one type of technology, enter that here, for example, Microsoft Excel or Google Docs. Technology version: If you are supporting many items around a particular type of technology with multiple supported versions, enter that version here, for example, Microsoft Excel 365. Additional search terms: The platform uses terms from the title and description when searching, but you can add additional terms in this field to aid learners in finding your content while keeping you title and descriptions brief. Optionally, enter an External ID. This is a unique identifier you can use to search for your custom content in Skillsoft Platform Admin. The external ID does not display to learners in any search results or content cards.
Does your content play on all device types?	Specify if your content is optimized for play on desktop, mobile, or tablet.
Does your content require an approver?	Identify the person who can approver your content.

Checklist

These are the details you need to create your custom content. Items marked with an * are required:

	*Title	Enter a title for the content item. The title must be unique. Please note, if you retire an item, the system still recognizes that title as being in use for reporting purposes and you cannot reuse the title for another item.
	*Description	Enter a description of what will be covered and what the learner can expect to accomplish upon completion.
	*Image	Add an image that will display to learners who discover the content item through search or the library.
	Language	Learners whose site language matches a custom content language see it when they search or browse the library. You must add translated titles and descriptions.
	Learning objectives	If you want, specify up to 5 learning objectives for the content. This is what the learner should achieve upon completing the content. Learning objectives should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.
	Skills	If you want, associate skills from the Skillsoft skills dictionary to the content. Learners with roles associated with the skill may see the item as part of recommended content.
	Custom Digital Badge	If the content is an AICC or SCORM package, you can allow learners to earn a custom Digital Badge upon completion of the course.
	*Completion	If the content is something other than AICC or SCORM, specify how you want learners to achieve completion, upon opening, or upon marking the item complete.
	*Modality	Know which modality your item falls under: Watch: usually a video or course Read: usually an e-book, article, or blog post Listen: usually an audio book or pod cast Practice: usually resources that can be edited for a user's purpose, such as Microsoft Word or Excel documents, or something they can practice like a custom CAISY Attend: usually something they join live either virtually or in-person Assess: usually something where they rate themselves in some manner.
	*Content type	Help learners filter search results to find your content.
	*Content source	Help learners filter search results to find your content.
	*Duration	Help learners filter search results to find your content.
	Discovery details	Help learners filter search results to find your content.
	*Optimized for	Identify whether you content can run on desktop, tablet, or mobile devices.
	Determine learner availability	For learners to access custom content, you must choose one of two ways to publish your custom content. You can either publish directly to search where learners can only find it through searching You can first publish it to the content list, then add it to a custom channel or custom journey and publish that. In either case, learners must also be part of an audience that has visibility to the custom content, channel or journey.
	Content approver needed	If your company requires content approval, you will want to know the name of the person who will be able to approve your content before you can publish it.