It’s time for a new H5P content type! The HAW Hamburg as part of the Hamburg Open Online University liked StoryMap by Knightlab, but even though it could be used a library and then wrapped in an H5P content type – just like Timeline – we did not follow that approach. On the one hand, the library is not maintained anymore, on the other hand, experience with Timeline shows that some things would simply be hard to achieve with it. Instead, we created H5P StoryMap from scratch …
It’s pretty straightforward to use, but creating this content type also covered creating an introductory tutorial for H5P.StoryMap and a user manual for the H5P.StoryMap view and a user manual for the H5P.StoryMap editor, so don’t be shy to have a look if you get stuck somewhere.
Please note: This content type does not ship with all the maps. Those are loaded from 3rd party servers (e.g. from the magnificent OpenStreetMap). That means
- that you will need to be online to view the maps and
- that you may want to check whether the services comply with your local data privacy laws – I’d not know what relevant personal data they might process, but according to a German court even using fonts from Google servers is against data‑transfer rules under GDPR.
Want to use it already?
The H5P core team has been asked to review the content type, and when they find time, they should release it on the H5P Hub.
If you want to use the content type right away, look for the Reuse button underneath the content. Use that button to download the demo content, and then upload the .h5p file onto your H5P enabled platform. Please note that you will need to have permission to install H5P libraries. Otherwise, you cannot install the content type this way. In that case, your system admin will need to assist you.
The source code is available as well, if you want to check it before installing or if you want to build the libraries yourself:
Also, the documentation including the tutorial and the user manual are openly available on github. You are more than welcome to improve the documentation, add translations, etc. Just create a pull request at https://github.com/otacke/h5p-storymap-docs.
Is it available in my language?
In theory: yes! If it’s missing, you can contribute to the H5P community and fill in the gaps yourself.
Any future plans for that content type?
Ideas? Yes: title screen, end screen, support H5P’s upcoming theme feature, more subcontent types, support for connecting to custom map tile servers …
Plans? No.
I know you want to share your ideas, too. Please keep in mind though, that I was merely the contractor! I do not have the intention to develop it further in my spare time beyond fixing hidden bugs or general maintenance.