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We provide course management systems solutions designed to help
educators who want to create quality online courses. The software is used all
over the world by universities, schools, companies and independent teachers.
Our solutions will run on any computer that can run
PHP, and can support many types of database (particularly
MySQL).
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Product Features |
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Our online education solution is an active and evolving product.
This page lists just some of the many features it contains:
Overall design
- Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities,
critical reflection, etc)
- Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face
learning
- Simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface
- Easy to install on almost any platform that supports PHP. Requires only one
database (and can share it).
- Full database abstraction supports all major brands of database (except for
initial table definition)
- Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server, including
accessibility to guests.
- Emphasis on strong security throughout. Forms are all checked, data
validated, cookies encrypted etc
- Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings, journal entries etc) can
be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor
Site management
- Site is managed by an admin user, defined during setup
- Plug-in "themes" allow the admin to customise the site colours, fonts,
layout etc to suit local needs
- Plug-in activity modules can be added to existing Course Management Systems
Solutions installations
- Plug-in language packs allow full localisation to any language. These can be
edited using a built-in web-based editor. Currently there are language packs for
more than 28 langages.
- The code is clearly-written PHP easy to modify to suit your needs.
User management
- Goals are to reduce admin involvement to a minimum, while retaining high
security
- Supports a range of authentication mechanisms through plug-in authentication
modules, allowing easy integration with existing systems.
- Standard email method: students can create their own login accounts. Email
addresses are verified by confirmation.
- LDAP method: account logins can be checked against an LDAP server. Admin can
specify which fields to use.
- IMAP, POP3, NNTP: account logins are checked against a mail or news server.
SSL, certificates and TLS are supported.
- External database: any database containing at least two fields can be used
as an external authentication source.
- Each person requires only one account for the whole server - each account
can have different access
- An admin account controls the creation of courses and creates teachers by
assigning users to courses
- Security - teachers can add an "enrolment key" to their courses to keep out
non-students. They can give out this key face-to-face or via personal email etc
- Teachers can unenrol students manually if desired, otherwise they are
automatically unenrolled after a certain period of inactivity (set by the admin)
- Students are encouraged to build an online profile including photos,
description. Email addresses can be protected from display if required.
- Every user can specify their own timezone, and every date in Course
Management Systems Solutions is translated to that timezone (eg posting dates,
assignment due dates etc)
- Every user can choose the language used for the Course Management Systems
Solutions interface (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese etc)
Course management
- Teacher has full control over all settings for a course
- Choice of course formats such as by week, by topic or a discussion-focussed
social format
- Flexible array of course activities - Forums, Journals, Quizzes, Resources,
Choices, Surveys, Assignments.
- Recent changes to the course since the last login can be displayed on the
course home page - helps give sense of community
- Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings, journal entries etc) can
be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor
- All grades for Forums, Journals, Quizzes and Assignments can be viewed on
one page (and downloaded as a spreadsheet file)
- Full user logging and tracking - activity reports for each student are
available with graphs and details about each module (last access, number of
times read) as well as a detailed "story" of each students involvement including
postings, journal entries etc on one page.
- Mail integration - copies of forum posts, teacher feedback etc can be mailed
in HTML or plain text.
Assignment Module
- Assignments can be specified with a due date and a maximum grade.
- Students can upload their assignments (any file format) to the server - they
are date-stamped.
- Late assignments are allowed, but the amount of lateness is shown clearly to
the teacher
- For each particular assignment, the whole class can be assessed (grade and
comment) on one page in one form.
- Teacher feedback is appended to the assignment page for each student, and
notification is mailed out.
- The teacher can choose to allow resubmission of assignments after grading
(for regrading)
Choice Module
- Like a poll. Can either be used to vote on something, or to get feedback
from every student (eg research consent)
- Teacher sees intuitive table view of who chose what
- Students can optionally be allowed to see an up-to-date graph of results
Forum Module
- Different types of forums are available, such as teacher-only, course news,
open-to-all, and one-thread-per-user.
- All postings have the authors photo attached.
- Discussions can be viewed nested, flat or threaded, oldest or newest first.
- Individual forums can be subscribed to by each person so that copies are
forwarded via email, or the teacher can force subscription for all
- The teacher can choose not to allow replies (eg for an announcements-only
forum)
- Discussion threads can be easily moved between forums by the teacher
Journal Module
- Journals are private between student and teacher.
- Each journal entry can be directed by an open question.
- For each particular journal entry, the whole class can be assessed on one
page in one form
- Teacher feedback is appended to the journal entry page, and notification is
mailed out.
Quiz Module
- Teachers can define a database of questions for re-use in different quizzes
- Questions can be stored in categories for easy access, and these categories
can be "published" to make them accessible from any course on the site.
- Quizzes are automatically graded, and can be re-graded if questions are
modified
- Quizzes can have a limited time window outside of which they are not
available
- At the teacher's option, quizzes can be attempted multiple times, and can
show feedback and/or correct answers
- Quiz questions and quiz answers can be shuffled (randomised) to reduce
cheating
- Questions allow HTML and images
- Questions can be imported from external text files
- Multiple-choice questions supporting single or multiple answers
- Short Answer questions (words or phrases)
- True-False questions
- Matching questions
- Random questions
Resource Module
- Supports display of any electronic content, Word, Powerpoint, Flash, Video,
Sounds etc
- Files can be uploaded and managed on the server, or created on the fly using
web forms (text or HTML)
- External content on the web can be linked to or seamlessly included within
the course interface.
- External web applications can be linked in with data passed to them
Survey Module
- Built-in surveys (COLLES, ATTLS) have been proven as instruments for
analysing online classes
- Online survey reports always available, including many graphs. Data is
downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV text file.
- Survey interface prevents partly-finished surveys.
- Feedback is provided to the student of their results compared to the class
averages
Future Features
Here is a rough map of the future (under construction):
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