Learning Management System

Learning Management System : 

Learning Management System By Parth N. Acharya Sardar Vallabhbhai Institute of Technology, Vasad By PresenterMedia.com

Structure of Presentation : 

Structure of Presentation Introduction to LMS Benchmark of a good LMS Features of an Open Standard LMS - MOODLE Features of a commercially available LMS - TrainNet 1 2 4 3 5 Hardware and Software for LMS X Q&A

Introduction to LMS : 

Learning Management System is a software package enables the management and delivery of learning content and resources to students. LMS typically contains features for administration assessment course management content management and authoring. What is LMS? Introduction to LMS

Benchmark of a good LMS : 

Intellectual Property Security Hardware and Software Considerations Multilingual Support  Integration Capacity LOM integration Reliability Scalability General Criteria Benchmark of a good LMS Features and Functionality Cost of Ownership Maintainability and Ease of Maintenance Usability, Ease of Use, and User documentation User Adoption / Current User Community Openness Standards Compliancy / Specification Conformance

General Criteria : 

Features and Functionality See Feature Specific Criteria for details. How robust is the feature set for the program? Does it already include all of the teaching "tools" faculty need? Does it include both synchronous and asynchronous communications tools? Can data be imported and exported easily into/from the program? What is the cost and ease of implementation? How fast can you be up and running? What level of expertise is required? What kind of support and assistance are available? What are the costs for licensing, software, hardware and custom development requirements? General Criteria COST OF OWNERSHIP

General Criteria : 

Maintainability and Ease of Maintenance How many valuable resource hours will this take to administer and maintain at the server level? How many valuable resource hours will this take to administer and maintain at the program level? How granular and distributed is the administration (the more granular the better)? Are all of the data processes automated and will they integrate easily with your other systems? Does the program run on a server platform on which your staff already has excellent expertise? How available and accessible is end user documentation/support? How responsiveness of will support be? How available is documentation, how-to guides, training and online help? Will the program require lots of training or is it fairly intuitive to use? How long will it take faculty to set up their courses at a minimal level? How well will this program help an average group of faculty deliver their materials online? General Criteria Usability, Ease of Use, and User documentation

General Criteria : 

User Adoption / Current User Community Is there a strong development community associated with the program? Are comparable institutions currently utilizing the program? Dog story/fraternity of users How open is the source code really? Is it written in a modular format that is designed for easy modification and new, custom modules? Are there clear code specifications for writing new modules? General Criteria Openness

General Criteria : 

Standards Compliancy / Specification Conformance Does the LMS adhere to specifications like SCORM, IMS, OKI, AiCC? Can the LMS import and manage content and courseware that complies with standards regardless of the authoring system that produced it? Is XML support available? Has the application been integrated with other systems? Does the solution allow for ready integration with other systems? General Criteria Integration Capacity

General Criteria : 

LOM integration How available is compatible content? What is the capacity to integrate with existing and newly created learning objects? General Criteria Scalability Is the program suitable for both small and large installations? How easily does the solution allow for growth of users, content, functionality? Intellectual Property Security Are there tools for digital right management (DRM)? Are the provisions for privacy issues? Reliability Is the solution reliable?

General Criteria : 

Hardware and Software Considerations Does the software run under an open source operating system? Is there provision for platform solutions? What are the client browser requirements? What are the database requirements? What additional server software is required? What are the hardware specifications? Does the system support additional languages? General Criteria Multilingual Support

Benchmark of a good LMS : 

Security Access Course Design, Development and Integration Course Monitoring Assessment Design Online Collaboration and Communications Productivity Tools Feature – Specific Criteria Benchmark of a good LMS

Feature – Specific Criteria : 

Security Encryption (encodes and decrypts messages)- Ability to accommodate privacy - note that full certificate-SSL (a protocol that encrypts a single TCP session) likely to be too slow for this purpose Authentication (verifies the identity of a user) --Username & password with forgotten password routine Individual/Group Login and Password Assignable Privileges Browser accessible Course Authorization - Course selection by keyword, course ID, title. Program recommendation. Registration Integration - Registration, Prerequisite Screening, Cancel Notification Student Tracking - minimum PC requirements; bandwidth requirements and ability to work offline. Feature – Specific Criteria Access

Feature – Specific Criteria : 

Course Design, Development and Integration Enables easy maintenance of courses. Customizable adaptable look and feel Support classroom and virtual courses Course templates Use and access LO Web course creation Support multimedia types Feature – Specific Criteria Accessibility Compliance Instructional design tools Instructional Specifications Support Curriculum Management Easy Navigation/linking Easy Course structuring Extensible Architecture Support style sheets

Feature – Specific Criteria : 

Course Monitoring Course Listing/Catalogue Course Descriptions Schedules and Availability Control Bookmarks Calendar/Progress Review Orientation/Help Search Work offline/Synchronize Feature – Specific Criteria Productivity Tools

Feature – Specific Criteria : 

Ease of exam and assessment creation and grades tracking. Creates test questions and facilitates test administration Automated Testing and Scoring Learner Profile Management/progress tracking -- Enables measurement of training needs and identify improvement areas. Course Path Maintenance - Path lists and diagrams Feature – Specific Criteria Assessment Design Competency Mapping/Skill Gap Analysis Course Certificate Creation - Support for multiple certificate types. Restricted creation. Self-assessment Online Grading tools Activity Tracking

Feature – Specific Criteria : 

Community learning or collaboration components that support communication. Messaging - Integration with SMS/text messaging on cell phones E-mail - Ability to integrate with emails sent from regular POP mail accounts (from learners not logged in real-time) chat rooms bulletin boards Feature – Specific Criteria Online Collaboration and Communications newsgroups online support / help desk file exchange online journals notes whiteboard discussion groups/forums groupwork

Hardware & Software for LMS : 

Learning management system works in a Client-Server mode. Teacher/Administrator – Server Student – Client Server Hosted – Asynchronous (wider in coverage) Stand alone – Synchronous (works with campus area network) The selection of hardware depends upon the type of the usage. All open standard LMS are based on php language. Hardware & Software for LMS

Hardware & Software for LMS : 

All sever side generally needs http server software. Server Software windows 2003 Apache Database software MsSQL Oracle Video (handled in two ways) Interactive learning – Video streaming server Non-Interactive learning – FLV VMware packages are also available for easy installation. http server Database server php support Hardware & Software for LMS

Examples of popular LMS : 

Each LMS package boasts how it is incorporating the above criteria. LMS are available as Open standard package (freely available) Commercially sold package Most popular LMS packages 1. Commercially sold LMS - TrainNet 2. Open standard LMS - MOODLE Let us study them. Examples of popular LMS

Features of TrainNet : 

The following slides the features of commercially available LMS named TrainNet. The features are taken from it’s brochure. Features of TrainNet

Unique Features of TrainNet : 

Unique Features of TrainNet High Quality Adjustable size Live Video: Students receive high-quality, clear video and audio from the instructor. Both the teacher and student can independently adjust the video to any of three available sizes: small, medium and full screen,or completely turn the video off. TrainNet's video encoder is based on pure software and requires no third party hardware.

Unique Features of TrainNet Interaction Tools : 

Video BW: Video supports MPEG4 and H.264 standards with scalable bandwidth from 28Kbps to 3Mbps Video Control by Instructor: The instructor has full control over the video and can synchronize all students’ PCs to the same video size, as well as disable the ability of the students to change the video size. Return Video from the remote classrooms – TrainNet enables the teacher to receive return video either automatically from the remote, which received permission to speak, or from multiple remotes. Return video is based on software and requires no specific HW. This video can be rebroadcasted to all Students Multiple Video Bit Rates – Course video stream, can be sent in both High, and Low, video bit rates, Unique Features of TrainNet Interaction Tools

Unique Features of TrainNet Interaction Tools : 

Full Duplex Voice Interaction: Voice is provided in full-duplex enabling clear and uninterrupted communication between the teacher and the students. TrainNet allows the instructor to connect any student in the class for a VoIP conversation. When the student is connected, the student’s voice is broadcast to all students in the class. Immediate Anonymous Feedback: TrainNet allows the instructor to request instantaneous anonymous (yes/no) feedback from the students at any time during the lesson. The feedback is displayed as a percentage of yes/no responses, providing the instructor with on-the-fly results. Unique Features of TrainNet Interaction Tools

Unique Features of TrainNet Interaction Tools : 

Raise Hand: Students can raise a "virtual hand" by clicking a "raise hand" icon on their PC, to ask for permission to speak to the instructor. The raise hand option also provides a window for a text question to be typed and sent to the instructor. Only when given permission to speak, the student can speak. White Board: The Whiteboard allows the instructor to write, annotate and use graphic tools to illustrate points directly on the course material slides. A connected student can use the Whiteboard tool, as well. Text Chat: TrainNet includes a built-in text chat, allowing students to send real-time messages to other students and to the instructor, as well as private messages to the instructor only. Email: An integrated email system enables students and instructors to communicate and send attachments within the learning system. Unique Features of TrainNet Interaction Tools

Unique Features of TrainNet Instructor Control : 

Guided Content Presentation: The instructor can present the course slides and synchronize all students with a particular slide in the presentation, with just the click of a button. Hidden slides: The instructor has the option to disable or enable students to view slides that have not been discussed by the instructor. Guided Web Browsing The instructor can synchronize all students to any site on the Web and use external HTML content during the course. Student Raised Hand List: TrainNet provides a queue list of students who have raised their hand in the training session. The first student who has their hand raised appears in a “Quick-Connect” button that allows the instructor to simply click the students name to connect them to speak. Full control over Student PCs: The instructor can turn off and disable select features in all student PC during the course (e.g., video, mouse, keyboard, and chat). Unique Features of TrainNet Instructor Control

Unique Features of TrainNet Administration : 

Student Registration: Students are registered to TrainNet either by the teacher/system administrator or, if enabled, by self-registration from their desktop. Course Registration: The system administrator has the ability to assign students to courses in the system. Courses are either “open”, where all students are eligible to participate, or as “restricted”, where students are enrolled by a system administrator. Attendance List: The instructor, as well as the students, has access to an attendance list, which details the names of all students attending the class. The instructor can also view the queue of students who raised their hand. Reports: TrainNet offers a variety of reports such as attendance, tests scores, and other information that enable both the instructor and the students to get a clear picture of class and individual student progress. Unique Features of TrainNet Administration

Unique Features of TrainNet Recording, Playback and Rebroadcast : 

Recording of Sessions: TrainNet is capable of recording live lessons for use in various asynchronous modes. After a recorded lesson is created, the instructor or system administrator can upload the course immediately to the virtual campus. Re-broadcast of Recorded Lesson: The recorded lesson can be re-broadcasted at specific time and students can attend the re-broadcasted lesson as if they were in a live lesson (including registration, tracking of responses, etc). Distribution for Offline Learning: The recorded lesson can be distributed, (on CD or downloaded from the TrainNet server) for offline viewing and study. Playback of Recorded Lessons: After a recorded lesson is uploaded to the server, students can access the course. While participating in a recorded playback session, the student can pause or stop the course at any time. Unique Features of TrainNet Recording, Playback and Rebroadcast

Unique Features of TrainNet Application Projection and Sharing : 

TrainNet offers special tools for IT or software training that enable the instructor to project any application from his/her PC to all student PCs. It also allows an organization to get trainees’ feedback on an application prior to inducting it or making a large purchase. Application Projection: Any software applications residing on the instructor’s PC can be projected to all student PCs. The students can view and follow all instructor operation and movement within the application. Application Sharing: The instructor can pass control over the application to any student and give him/her the ability to control and operate an application as if it was installed on their PC. All other students see all students’ movements in the lesson. Unique Features of TrainNet Application Projection and Sharing

Unique Features of TrainNet Content Creation : 

TrainNet provides various options for easy creation and presentation of course content. Using the Desktop Camera: The desktop camera enables the teacher to present printed material from books, slides or even free hand writing without advance preparation. PowerPoint Conversion: TrainNet includes a tool for converting PowerPoint content to HTML HTML Content: TrainNet can import any HTML content from external sources, such as websites or files. HTML Content generation tools like EXE Learning (Freeware) comes quite handy for HTML Contenet creation. HTML Questions: TrainNet enables the instructor or course designer to add HTML questions to content courseware. Unique Features of TrainNet Content Creation

Unique Features of TrainNet Additional Features : 

Intuitive User Interface: TrainNet provides an attractive and userfriendly, icon-based interface appropriate for users without prior PC knowledge. The interface is “clutter-free” to direct the student’s attention to the study material. Teacher Assistant: When large groups of students attend a lesson, the teacher has the option to redirect all students’ questions to a Teacher Assistant (a separate PC on the network). The teacher assistant can respond to students’ questions without interrupting the flow of the lesson. Content Previewing: Students can preview the content before the lesson starts or review previously discussed material during and after a lesson. Status Messages: Status update messages (i.e. "student is connected to speak" or "HTML content is being synchronized with the instructor") are continuously sent to all students. Unique Features of TrainNet Additional Features

A video on MOODLE features : 

A video on MOODLE features

Slide 32: 

Q & A

Thank You! : 

Thank You!