Building Your First Lab

Are you unsure where to start building your first hands on experience? This document will guide you through the process in building your first lab using the Skillable Studio Template Gallery.

This article is for anybody that does not know where to start when building their first hands on lab.

Best Practices for Creating Your First Lab

To get the most from this document the clearer the idea you have for building a lab the better. If you are completely new to this process the best approach would be to start of with a lab you maybe already have, or for some content that exists that you would like to create a lab for.

Before Starting to Build the Lab

Before you can start building the lab within Skillable Studio you have to have an idea of what the lab is designed to allow the learner to achieve. It is possible that some ideas will evolve are part of the lab build process, but you should at least know the following:

• What is the high-level objective outcome of the lab?
• What hands-on environment/software will the learner be working in or on? For example, a Windows computer with an application or a Public Cloud platform as examples.
• What does the potential starting environment look like for the learner? For example, is the application installed, are there resources already created in AWS?

Building Your First Lab

Building a lab within Skillable Studio requires 3 core tasks, these are:

1. Create a Lab Profile - This could be from one of the Skillable templates or a custom template created by the Organization.
2. Optionally Configure the Environment - Update the VM, Container or Cloud to represent the starting environment that the learner will be initially connected to on lab startup. This is an optional task as templates are often configured correctly.
3. Create the Instructions - Create the instructions that the user will need to complete the lab tasks, this can use any instruction design methodology.

Creating a Lab Profile

To build a Lab Profile from the Template Gallery is a very quick process. To complete this task complete the following:

1. From the Skillable Dashboard select Create New.
2. The Template Gallery will appear, find an applicable template using the search and filter options.
3. Select + Create on the tile for the template.
4. Complete the Create Lab Profile form with the necessary details:
   1. Number: A short lab code/description
   2. Name: A full descriptive name
   3. Leave the rest at the default values
      These can be edited later so temporary values are fine.

This completes creating the Lab Profile. On the Lab Profile details page there will be a Launch button. Pressing the button will allow you to explore the default environment, make and changes to the environment if it is a Container or VM lab, as well as edit the instructions.

Configuring the Environment

This process can take many paths depending on if the environment is a Virtual Machine (VM), Cloud or something else. This walk through assumes the template meets the requirements. If you want to review configuring the environment, please see the applicable detailed sections:

• VM and Containers: Building Labs with On-Premises software
• Public Cloud and Public Web Applications: Building Labs with Cloud Platforms

Create the Instructions

Instructions can either be edited from the Lab Profile details page (the Edit Instructions link top right) or if the lab is running within Studio under the Settings menu in the lab client there is also an Edit Instructions link.

Once in the instructions editor you can just start typing to enter the instructions, or maybe paste a document in. The instructions are written in Markdown which provides simple characters to format text. You will also notice that common word processor keyboard shortcuts work as well, e.g. ctrl+b = bold. On the instruction editor toolbar there is a ? which provides a cheat sheet to get started. Select the link for full instruction editing guidance.

Making a lab available

When the creation of a lab and its instructions have been completed the lab can be made available for external launches by users. The exact process for this will depend on the specific requirements of the organization but the steps could include:

• Performing validation and quality assurance of the lab contents itself.
• Adding the lab to a Lab Series
• Publishing a lab to an API Endpoint
• Adding the lab to a learning path in your LMS or the Skillable TMS

Related Topics

• See the following individual articles for detailed instructions on the tasks you need to complete.
  • Create a Lab Profile from a Template
  • Create a Lab Profile
  • Creating a Lab Series
  • Validating Skills with Skillable Studio Scoring