E-learning

Overview and topics

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Contents
Articles
Overview
E-learning 1 1 11 11 16 19 19 22 22 23 26 31 32 38 43 44 45 45 46 55 55 59 62 63 63 64 68 74 75

Important Players
Moodle Blackboard Learning System

Organizations
IMS Global

Technical
Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee Sharable Content Object Reference Model QTI Content package Learning object metadata Learning management system List of learning management systems Authoring system

Concepts
Online learning community Virtual learning environment Digital content creation Asynchronous learning Intelligent tutoring system Integrated Learning Systems

Related articles
E-learning Maturity Model Learning object MLearning Learning pathway CLCIMS

Asymetrix History of virtual learning environments History of virtual learning environments 1990s

75 76 106

References
Article Sources and Contributors Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 134 137

Article Licenses
License 138

Overview
E-learning
E-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked learning or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process.[1] The term will still most likely be utilized to reference out-of-classroom and in-classroom educational experiences via technology, even as advances continue in regard to devices and curriculum. E-learning is essentially the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual education opportunities and digital collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM. It can be self-paced or instructor-led and includes media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming video and audio. Abbreviations like CBT (Computer-Based Training), IBT (Internet-Based Training) or WBT (Web-Based Training) have been used as synonyms to e-learning. Today one can still find these terms being used, along with variations of e-learning such as elearning, Elearning, and eLearning. The terms will be utilized throughout this article to indicate their validity under the broader terminology of E-learning.

Market
The worldwide e-learning industry is estimated to be worth over $48 billion according to conservative estimates.[2] Developments in internet and multimedia technologies are the basic enabler of e-learning, with consulting, content, technologies, services and support being identified as the five key sectors of the e-learning industry.[3]

Higher education
By 2006, 3.5 million students were participating in on-line learning at institutions of higher education in the United States.[4] According to the Sloan Foundation reports,[5] [6] there has been an increase of around 1214 percent per year on average in enrollments for fully online learning over the five years 20042009 in the US post-secondary system, compared with an average of approximately 2 per cent increase per year in enrollments overall. Allen and Seamen (2009)[5] claim that almost a quarter of all students in post-secondary education were taking fully online courses in 2008, and a report by Ambient Insight Research[7] suggests that in 2009, 44 percent of post-secondary students in the USA were taking some or all of their courses online, and projected that this figure would rise to 81 percent by 2014. Thus it can be seen that e-learning is moving rapidly from the margins to being a predominant form of post-secondary education, at least in the USA. Many higher education, for-profit institutions, now offer on-line classes. By contrast, only about half of private, non-profit schools offer them. The Sloan report, based on a poll of academic leaders, indicated that students generally appear to be at least as satisfied with their on-line classes as they are with traditional ones. Private institutions may become more involved with on-line presentations as the cost of instituting such a system decreases. Properly trained staff must also be hired to work with students on-line. These staff members need to understand the content area, and also be highly trained in the use of the computer and Internet. Online education is rapidly increasing, and online doctoral programs have even developed at leading research universities.[8]

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K-12 Learning
E-learning is also utilized by public K-12 schools in the United States. Some E-Learning environments take place in a traditional classroom, others allow students to attend classes from home or other locations. There are several states that are utilizing cyber and virtual school platforms for E-learning across the country that continued to increase. Virtual school enables students to log into synchronous learning or asynchronous learning courses anywhere there is an internet connection. Technology kits are usually provided that include computers, printers, and reimbursement for home internet use. Students are to use technology for school use only and must meet weekly work submission requirements. Teachers employed by K-12 online public cyber schools must be certified teachers in the state they are teaching in. Cyber schools allow for students to maintain their own pacing and progress, course selection, and provides the flexibility for students to create their own schedule. E-learning is increasingly being utilized by students who may not want to go to traditional brick and mortar schools due to severe allergies or other medical issues, fear of school violence and school bullying and students whose parents would like to homeschool but do not feel qualified.[9] Cyber schools create a safe haven for students to receive a quality education while almost completely avoiding these common problems. Cyber charter schools also often are not limited by location, income level or class size in the way brick and mortar charter schools are. [10]

History
In the early 1960s, Stanford University psychology professors Patrick Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson experimented with using computers to teach math and reading to young children in elementary schools in East Palo Alto, California. Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth is descended from those early experiments. Early e-learning systems, based on Computer-Based Learning/Training often attempted to replicate autocratic teaching styles whereby the role of the e-learning system was assumed to be for transferring knowledge, as opposed to systems developed later based on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), which encouraged the shared development of knowledge. As early as 1993, William D. Graziadei described an online computer-delivered lecture, tutorial and assessment project using electronic mail. In 1997 he published an article which described developing an overall strategy for technology-based course development and management for an educational system. He said that products had to be easy to use and maintain, portable, replicable, scalable, and immediately affordable, and they had to have a high probability of success with long-term cost-effectiveness.[11] In 1997 Graziadei, W.D., et al.,[12] published an article entitled "Building Asynchronous and Synchronous Teaching-Learning Environments: Exploring a Course/Classroom Management System Solution".[12] They described a process at the State University of New York (SUNY) of evaluating products and developing an overall strategy for technology-based course development and management in teaching-learning. The product(s) had to be easy to use and maintain, portable, replicable, scalable, and immediately affordable, and they had to have a high probability of success with long-term cost-effectiveness. Today many technologies can be, and are, used in e-learning, from blogs to collaborative software, ePortfolios, and virtual classrooms. Most eLearning situations use combinations of these techniques.

E-Learning 2.0
The term E-Learning 2.0[13] [14] is a neologism for CSCL systems that came about during the emergence of Web 2.0[15] From an E-Learning 2.0 perspective, conventional e-learning systems were based on instructional packets, which were delivered to students using assignments. Assignments were evaluated by the teacher. In contrast, the new e-learning places increased emphasis on social learning and use of social software such as blogs, wikis, podcasts and virtual worlds such as Second Life.[16] This phenomenon has also been referred to as Long Tail Learning[17] See also (Seely Brown & Adler 2008)[18]

E-learning E-Learning 2.0, by contrast to e-learning systems not based on CSCL, assumes that knowledge (as meaning and understanding) is socially constructed. Learning takes place through conversations about content and grounded interaction about problems and actions. Advocates of social learning claim that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to others.[18] However, it should be noted that many early online courses, such as those developed by Murray Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz in the 1970s and 80s at the New Jersey Institute of Technology,[19] courses at the University of Guelph in Canada,[20] the British Open University,[20] and the online distance courses at the University of British Columbia (where Web CT, now incorporated into Blackboard Inc. was first developed),[21] have always made heavy use of online discussion between students. Also, from the start, practitioners such as Harasim (1995)[22] have put heavy emphasis on the use of learning networks for knowledge construction, long before the term e-learning, let alone e-learning 2.0, was even considered. There is also an increased use of virtual classrooms (online presentations delivered live) as an online learning platform and classroom for a diverse set of education providers such as Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and Sachem School District.[23] In addition to virtual classroom environments, social networks have become an important part of E-learning 2.0.[24] Social networks have been used to foster online learning communities around subjects as diverse as test preparation and language education. Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) is a term used to describe using handheld computers or cell phones to assist in language learning. Some feel, however, that schools have not caught up with the social networking trends. Few traditional educators promote social networking unless they are communicating with their own colleagues.[25]

Approaches to e-learning services

E-learning services have evolved since computers were first used in education. There is a trend to move towards blended learning services, where computer-based activities are integrated with practical or classroom-based situations. Bates and Poole (2003)[26] and the OECD (2005)[27] suggest that different types or forms of e-learning can be considered as a continuum, from no e-learning, i.e. no use of computers and/or the Internet for teaching and learning, through classroom aids, such as making classroom lecture Powerpoint slides available to students through a course web site or learning management system, to laptop programs, where students are required to bring laptops to class and use them as part of a face-to-face class, to hybrid learning, where classroom time is reduced but not eliminated, with more time devoted to online learning, through to fully online learning, which is a form of distance education. This classification is somewhat similar to that of the Sloan Commission reports on the status of e-learning, which refer to web enhanced, web supplemented and web dependent to reflect increasing intensity of technology use. In the Bates and Poole continuum, 'blended learning' can cover classroom aids, laptops and hybrid learning, while 'distributed learning' can incorporate either hybrid or fully online learning. It can be seen then that e-learning can describe a wide range of applications, and it is often by no means clear even in peer reviewed research publications which form of e-learning is being discussed.[28] However, Bates and Poole argue that when instructors say they are using e-learning, this most often refers to the use of technology as classroom aids, although over time, there has been a gradual increase in fully online learning (see Market above).

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Computer-based learning
Computer-based learning, sometimes abbreviated to CBL, refers to the use of computers as a key component of the educational environment. While this can refer to the use of computers in a classroom, the term more broadly refers to a structured environment in which computers are used for teaching purposes. Cassandra B. Whyte researched about the ever increasing role that computers would play in higher education. This evolution, to include computer-supported collaborative learning, in addition to data management, has been realized. The type of computers has changed over the years from cumbersome, slow devices taking up much space in the classroom, home, and office to laptops and handheld devices that are more portable in form and size and this minimalization of technology devices will continue.[29]

Computer-based training
Computer-Based Trainings (CBTs) are self-paced learning activities accessible via a computer or handheld device. CBTs typically present content in a linear fashion, much like reading an online book or manual. For this reason they are often used to teach static processes, such as using software or completing mathematical equations. The term Computer-Based Training is often used interchangeably with Web-based training (WBT) with the primary difference being the delivery method. Where CBTs are typically delivered via CD-ROM, WBTs are delivered via the Internet using a web browser. Assessing learning in a CBT usually comes in form of multiple choice questions, or other assessments that can be easily scored by a computer such as drag-and-drop, radio button, simulation or other interactive means. Assessments are easily scored and recorded via online software, providing immediate end-user feedback and completion status. Users are often able to print completion records in the form of certificates. CBTs provide learning stimulus beyond traditional learning methodology from textbook, manual, or classroom-based instruction. For example, CBTs offer user-friendly solutions for satisfying continuing education requirements. Instead of limiting students to attending courses or reading printed manuals, students are able to acquire knowledge and skills through methods that are much more conducive to individual learning preferences. For example, CBTs offer visual learning benefits through animation or video, not typically offered by any other means. CBTs can be a good alternative to printed learning materials since rich media, including videos or animations, can easily be embedded to enhance the learning. Another advantage to CBTs is that they can be easily distributed to a wide audience at a relatively low cost once the initial development is completed. However, CBTs pose some learning challenges as well. Typically the creation of effective CBTs requires enormous resources. The software for developing CBTs (such as Flash or Adobe Director) is often more complex than a subject matter expert or teacher is able to use. In addition, the lack of human interaction can limit both the type of content that can be presented as well as the type of assessment that can be performed. Many learning organizations are beginning to use smaller CBT/WBT activities as part of a broader online learning program which may include online discussion or other interactive elements.

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is one of the most promising innovations to improve teaching and learning with the help of modern information and communication technology. Most recent developments in CSCL have been called E-Learning 2.0, but the concept of collaborative or group learning whereby instructional methods are designed to encourage or require students to work together on learning tasks has existed much longer. It is widely agreed to distinguish collaborative learning from the traditional 'direct transfer' model in which the instructor is assumed to be the distributor of knowledge and skills, which is often given the neologism E-Learning 1.0, even though this direct transfer method most accurately reflects Computer-Based Learning systems (CBL). Locus of Control remains an important consideration in successful engagement of E-learners. According to the work of Cassandra B. Whyte, the continuing attention to aspects of motivation and success in regard to E-learning should

E-learning be kept in context and concert with other educational efforts. Information about motivational tendencies can help educators, psychologists, and technologists develop insights to help students perform better academically.[30]

Technology-enhanced learning (TEL)

Technology enhanced learning (TEL) has the goal to provide socio-technical innovations (also improving efficiency and cost effectiveness) for e-learning practices, regarding individuals and organizations, independent of time, place and pace. The field of TEL therefore applies to the support of any learning activity through technology.

Technology issues
Along with the terms learning technology, instructional technology, the term Educational Technology is generally used to refer to the use of technology in learning in a much broader sense than the computer-based training or Computer Aided Instruction of the 1980s. It is also broader than the terms Online Learning or Online Education which generally refer to purely web-based learning. In cases where mobile technologies are used, the term M-learning has become more common. E-learning, however, also has implications beyond just the technology and refers to the actual learning that takes place using these systems. E-learning is naturally suited to distance learning and flexible learning, but can also be used in conjunction with face-to-face teaching, in which case the term Blended learning is commonly used. E-Learning pioneer Bernard Luskin argues that the "E" must be understood to have broad meaning if e-Learning is to be effective. Luskin says that the "e" should be interpreted to mean exciting, energetic, enthusiastic, emotional, extended, excellent, and educational in addition to "electronic" that is a traditional national interpretation. This broader interpretation allows for 21st century applications and brings learning and media psychology into the equation. In higher education especially, the increasing tendency is to create a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) (which is sometimes combined with a Management Information System (MIS) to create a Managed Learning Environment) in which all aspects of a course are handled through a consistent user interface standard throughout the institution. A growing number of physical universities, as well as newer online-only colleges, have begun to offer a select set of academic degree and certificate programs via the Internet at a wide range of levels and in a wide range of disciplines. While some programs require students to attend some campus classes or orientations, many are delivered completely online. In addition, several universities offer online student support services, such as online advising and registration, e-counseling, online textbook purchase, student governments and student newspapers. E-Learning can also refer to educational web sites such as those offering learning scenarios, worksheets and interactive exercises for children. The term is also used extensively in the business sector where it generally refers to cost-effective online training. The recent trend in the E-Learning sector is screencasting. There are many screencasting tools available but the latest buzz is all about the web based screencasting tools which allow the users to create screencasts directly from their browser and make the video available online so that the viewers can stream the video directly. The advantage of such tools is that it gives the presenter the ability to show his ideas and flow of thoughts rather than simply explain them, which may be more confusing when delivered via simple text instructions. With the combination of video and audio, the expert can mimic the one on one experience of the classroom and deliver clear, complete instructions. From the learner's point of view this provides the ability to pause and rewind and gives the learner the advantage of moving at their own pace, something a classroom cannot always offer. Research on the use of video in lessons is preliminary, but early results show an increased retention and better results when video is used in a lesson. Creating a systematic video development method holds promise for creating video models that positively impact student learning.[31]

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Communication technologies used in E-learning

Communication technologies are generally categorized as asynchronous or synchronous. Asynchronous activities use technologies such as blogs, wikis, and discussion boards. The idea here is that participants may engage in the exchange of ideas or information without the dependency of other participants involvement at the same time. Electronic mail (Email) is also asynchronous in that mail can be sent or received without having both the participants involvement at the same time. Asynchronous learning also gives students the ability to work at their own pace. This is particularly beneficial for students who have health problems. They have the opportunity to complete their work in a low stress environment. Synchronous activities involve the exchange of ideas and information with one or more participants during the same period of time. A face to face discussion is an example of synchronous communications. In an "E" learning environment, an example of synchronous communications would be a skype conversation or a chat room where everyone is online and working collaborativelly at the same time. Synchronous activities occur with all participants joining in at once, as with an online chat session or a virtual classroom or meeting. Virtual classrooms and meetings can often use a mix of communication technologies. Participants in a virtual classroom use icons called emoticons to communicate feelings and responses to questions or statements. Students are able to 'write on the board' and even share their desktop, when given rights by the teacher. Other communication technologies available in a virtual classroom include text notes, microphone rights, and breakout sessions. Breakout sessions allow the participants to work collaboratively in a small group setting to accomplish a task as well as allow the teacher to have private conversations with his or her students. The virtual classroom also provides the opportunity for students to receive direct instruction from a qualified teacher in an interactive environment. Students have direct and immediate access to their instructor for instant feedback and direction. The virtual classroom also provides a structured schedule of classes, which can be helpful for students who may find the freedom of asynchronous learning to be overwhelming. The virtual classroom also provides a social learning environment that closely replicates the traditional "brick and mortar" classroom. Most virtual classroom applications provide a recording feature. Each class is recorded and stored on a server, which allows for instant playback of any class over the course of the school year. This can be extremely useful for students to review material and concepts for an upcoming exam. This also provides students with the opportunity to watch any class that they may have missed, so that they never have to fall behind. It also gives parents the ability to monitor any classroom to insure that they are satisfied with the education their child is receiving. In asynchronous online courses, students proceed at their own pace. If they need to listen to a lecture a second time, or think about a question for awhile, they may do so without fearing that they will hold back the rest of the class. Through online courses, students can earn their diplomas more quickly, or repeat failed courses without the embarrassment of being in a class with younger students. Students also have access to an incredible variety of enrichment courses in online learning, and can participate in college courses, internships, sports, or work and still graduate with their class. In many models, the writing community and the communication channels relate with the E-learning and the M-learning communities. Both the communities provide a general overview of the basic learning models and the activities required for the participants to join the learning sessions across the virtual classroom or even across standard classrooms enabled by technology. Many activities, essential for the learners in these environments, require frequent chat sessions in the form of virtual classrooms and/or blog meetings.

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Learning management system (LMS) and Learning content management system (LCMS)
A learning management system (LMS) is software used for delivering, tracking and managing training/education. LMSs range from systems for managing training/educational records to software for distributing courses over the Internet and offering features for online collaboration. A learning content management system (LCMS) is software for authontent (courses, reusable content objects). An LCMS may be solely dedicated to producing and publishing content that is hosted on an LMS, or it can host the content itself. The Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC) specification provides support for content that is hosted separately from the LMS. A LMS allows for teachers and administrators to track attendance, time on task, and student progress. LMS also allows for not only teachers and administrators to track these variables but parents and students as well. Parents can log on to the LMS to track grades. Students log on to the LMS to submit homework and to access the course syllabus and lessons.

Computer-aided assessment
Computer-aided Assessment (also but less commonly referred to as E-assessment), ranging from automated multiple-choice tests to more sophisticated systems is becoming increasingly common. With some systems, feedback can be geared towards a student's specific mistakes or the computer can navigate the student through a series of questions adapting to what the student appears to have learned or not learned. The best examples follow a Formative Assessment structure and are called "Online Formative Assessment". This involves making an initial formative assessment by sifting out the incorrect answers. The author/teacher will then explain what the pupil should have done with each question. It will then give the pupil at least one practice at each slight variation of sifted out questions. This is the formative learning stage. The next stage is to make a Summative Assessment by a new set of questions only covering the topics previously taught. Some will take this even further and repeat the cycle such as BOFA[32] which is aimed at the Eleven plus exam set in the UK. The term learning design has sometimes come to refer to the type of activity enabled by software such as the open-source system LAMS[33] which supports sequences of activities that can be both adaptive and collaborative. The IMS Learning Design specification is intended as a standard format for learning designs, and IMS LD Level A is supported in LAMS V2.elearning has been replacing the traditional settings due to its cost effectiveness.

Electronic performance support systems (EPSS)

Electronic performance support systems (EPSS) is a "computer-based system that improves worker productivity by providing on-the-job access to integrated information, advice, and learning experiences". 1991, Barry Raybould

Content issues
Content is a core component of E-learning and includes issues such as pedagogy and learning object re-use.

Pedagogical elements
Pedagogical elements are an attempt to define structures or units of educational material. For example, this could be a lesson, an assignment, a multiple choice question, a quiz, a discussion group or a case study. These units should be format independent, so although it may be in any of the following methods, pedagogical structures would not include a textbook, a web page, a video conference or Podcast. When beginning to create E-Learning content, the pedagogical approaches need to be evaluated. Simple pedagogical approaches make it easy to create content, but lack flexibility, richness and downstream functionality. On the other hand, complex pedagogical approaches can be difficult to set up and slow to develop, though they have the potential to provide more engaging learning experiences for students. Somewhere between these extremes is an ideal

E-learning pedagogy that allows a particular educator to effectively create educational materials while simultaneously providing the most engaging educational experiences for students.

Pedagogical approaches or perspectives

It is possible to use various pedagogical approaches for eLearning which include: social-constructivist this pedagogy is particularly well afforded by the use of discussion forums, blogs, wiki and on-line collaborative activities. It is a collaborative approach that opens educational content creation to a wider group including the students themselves. The One Laptop Per Child Foundation attempted to use a constructivist approach in its project[34] Laurillard's Conversational Model[35] is also particularly relevant to eLearning, and Gilly Salmon's Five-Stage Model is a pedagogical approach to the use of discussion boards.[36] Cognitive perspective focuses on the cognitive processes involved in learning as well as how the brain works.[37] Emotional perspective focuses on the emotional aspects of learning, like motivation, engagement, fun, etc.[38] Behavioural perspective focuses on the skills and behavioural outcomes of the learning process. Role-playing and application to on-the-job settings.[39] Contextual perspective focuses on the environmental and social aspects which can stimulate learning. Interaction with other people, collaborative discovery and the importance of peer support as well as pressure.[40] Mode Neutral Convergence or promotion of transmodal learning where online and classroom learners can coexist within one learning environment thus encouraging interconnectivity and the harnessing of collective intelligence. [41]

Reusability, standards and learning objects

Much effort has been put into the technical reuse of electronically-based teaching materials and in particular creating or re-using Learning Objects. These are self contained units that are properly tagged with keywords, or other metadata, and often stored in an XML file format. Creating a course requires putting together a sequence of learning objects. There are both proprietary and open, non-commercial and commercial, peer-reviewed repositories of learning objects such as the Merlot repository. A common standard format for e-learning content is SCORM whilst other specifications allow for the transporting of "learning objects" (Schools Framework) or categorizing metadata (LOM). These standards themselves are early in the maturity process with the oldest being 8 years old. They are also relatively vertical specific: SIF is primarily pK-12, LOM is primarily Corp, Military and Higher Ed, and SCORM is primarily Military and Corp with some Higher Ed. PESC- the Post-Secondary Education Standards Council- is also making headway in developing standards and learning objects for the Higher Ed space, while SIF is beginning to seriously turn towards Instructional and Curriculum learning objects. In the US pK12 space there are a host of content standards that are critical as well- the NCES data standards are a prime example. Each state government's content standards and achievement benchmarks are critical metadata for linking e-learning objects in that space. An excellent example of e-learning that relates to knowledge management and reusability is Navy E-Learning, which is available to Active Duty, Retired, or Disable Military members. This on-line tool provides certificate courses to enrich the user in various subjects related to military training and civilian skill sets. The e-learning system not only provides learning objectives, but also evaluates the progress of the student and credit can be earned toward higher learning institutions. This reuse is an excellent example of knowledge retention and the cyclical process of knowledge transfer and use of data and records.

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References
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"Using Web 2.0 Tools in the k-12 Classroom" Neal-Shuman Publishers Inc., 2009, p.3 [26] Bates, A. and Poole, G. Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/John Wiley, 2003 [27] OECD (2005) E-Learning in Tertiary Education: Where Do We Stand? Paris: OECD [28] Lowenthal, P. R., Wilson, B., & Parrish, P. (2009). Context matters: A description and typology of the online learning landscape. In M. Simonson (Ed.), 32nd Annual proceedings: Selected research and development papers presented at the annual convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Washington D. C.: Association for Educational Communications and Technology. [29] Whyte, Cassandra Bolyard (1989) Student Affairs-The Future.Journal of College Student Development.30.86-89. [30] Whyte, Cassandra B. and Lauridsen, Kurt (editor)(1980). An Integrated Learning Assistance Center.New Directions Sourcebook, Jossey-Bass, Inc.. [31] Diecker, Lisa; Lane, Allsopp, O'Brien, Butler, Kyger, Fenty (May 2009). "Evaluating Video Models of Evidence-Based Instructional Practices to Enhance Teacher Learning" (http:/ / tese. sagepub. com). Teacher Education and Special Education 32 (2): 180196. . Retrieved 9/17/2011. [32] PlanetBofa.com (http:/ / planetbofa. com/ ) [33] LamsFoundation.org (http:/ / www. lamsfoundation. org/ ) [34] Wiki.Laptop.org (http:/ / wiki. laptop. org/ go/ Constructivism) [35] Informal description of Laurillard's Model (http:/ / www. macs. hw. ac. uk/ ~rjr/ dolweb/ docs/ laurillardmoddoc. htm) [36] E-moderating: The Key to Teaching and Learning Online Gilly Salmon , Kogan Page, 2000, ISBN 0-7494-4085-6 [37] Bloom, B. S., and D. R. Krathwohl. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook 1 [38] Bth, J. A. (1982) "Distance Students' Learning Empirical Findings and Theoretical Deliberations" [39] Areskog, N-H. (1995) The Tutorial Process the Roles of Student Teacher and Tutor in a Long Term Perspective

E-learning
[40] Black, J. & McClintock, R. (1995) "An Interpretation Construction Approach to Constructivist Design." [41] Smith B, Reed P & Jones C (2008) Mode Neutral pedagogy. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-learning."

10

Further reading
Lipsitz, Lawrence, (Editor); Reisner, Trudi, The Computer and Education (http://books.google.com/ books?id=pFzxLUAnSS8C&printsec=frontcover), Englewood Cliffs, NJ : Educational Technology Publications, January 1973. Articles selected from Educational Technology magazine. Preston, Rob (May 16, 2011). "Down To Business: Higher Education Is Ripe For Technology Disruption" (http:// www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/careers/229500624). InformationWeek (UMB): 60. Retrieved 2011-05-31. Wolfe, C., & Wolfe, C. R. (2001). Learning and teaching on the world wide web. San Diego, Calif. ; London: Academic.

External links
European Foundation for Quality in eLearning (EFQUEL) (http://www.efquel.org/) CHIN Roundtable: E-learning in Museums - Outline and Final Report (http://www.pro.rcip-chin.gc.ca/ sommaire-summary/apprentissage_ligne-e-learning-eng.jsp) International eLearning Exhibition and Conference eLearnExpo held in Moscow, Russian Federation (http:// www.elearnexpo.ru/eng/) National Repository of Online Courses (NROC) (http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/)

11

Important Players
Moodle
Moodle

Moodle course screenshot with Firefox Original author(s) Developer(s) Martin Dougiamas Martin Dougiamas Moodle HQ Moodle Community 2.2 / December 5, 2011 PHP Cross-platform Course Management System GPLv3+ [2] [3] [1]

Stable release Written in Operating system Type License Website

moodle.org

Moodle (abbreviation for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a free source e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). As of October 2010 it had a user base of 49,952 registered and verified sites, serving 37 million users in 3.7 million courses.[4] Moodle was originally developed by Martin Dougiamas to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content, and is in continual evolution. The Moodle project comprises several distinct but related elements, namely the software. Moodle Pty Ltd [5] (also known as Moodle Headquarters or the Moodle Trust, based in Perth, Western Australia), an Australian company which performs the majority of the development of the core Moodle platform. the Moodle Community, an open network of over one million registered users who interact through the Moodle community website [3] to share ideas, code, information and free support. This community also includes a large number of non-core developers, with Moodle's free source license and modular design allowing any developer to create additional modules and features that has allowed Moodle to become a truly global, collaborative project in scope.

Moodle the Moodle Partner network, which forms the commercial arm of the Moodle environment and provides the bulk of the funding to Moodle Pty Ltd through the payment of royalties.

12

Features
Moodle has several features considered typical of an e-learning platform, plus some original innovations (like its filtering system).[6] Moodle is very similar to a learning management system. Moodle can be used in many types of environments such as in education, training and development, and business settings. Some typical features of Moodle are[7] Assignment submission Discussion forum Files download Grading Moodle instant messages Online calendar Online news and announcement (College and course level) Online quiz

Wiki Developers can extend Moodle's modular construction by creating plugins for specific new functionality. Moodle's infrastructure supports many types of plug-ins: activities (including word and math games) resource types question types (multiple choice, true and false, fill in the blank, etc) data field types (for the database activity) graphical themes authentication methods (can require username and password accessibility) enrollment methods content filters

Many freely-available third-party Moodle plugins make use of this infrastructure.[8] Moodle users can use PHP to write and contribute new modules. Moodle's development has been assisted by the work of open source programmers.[9] This has contributed towards its rapid development and rapid bug fixes. By default Moodle includes the TCPDF library that allows the generation of PDF documents from pages.

Deployment
Users can install Moodle from source, but this requires more technical proficiency than other automated approaches such as installing from a Debian package, deploying a ready-to-use TurnKey Moodle appliance[10] or using the Bitnami installer. Some free Moodle hosting providers allow educators to create Moodle-based online classes without installation or server knowledge. Some paid Moodle hosting providers provide value-added services like customization and content-development.

Moodle

13

Interoperability
Moodle runs without modification on Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, Mac OS X, NetWare and any other systems that support PHP and a database, including most webhost providers. Data goes in a single database. Moodle version 1.6 could use MySQL or PostgreSQL. Version 1.7, released November 2006, makes full use of database abstraction so that installers can choose one from many types of database servers such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. E-learning systems can have many dimensions of interoperability. Moodle's interoperability features include: authentication, using LDAP, Shibboleth, or various other standard methods (e.g. IMAP) enrollment, using IMS Enterprise among other standard methods, or by direct interaction with an external database quizzes and quiz questions, allowing import/export in a number of formats: GIFT (moodle's own format), IMS QTI, XML and XHTML (NB although export works very well, import is currently not complete). Moodle provides various types of questions - Calculated, Description, Essay, Matching, Embedded Answers, Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Numerical, Random Short-Answer Matching, True/False. resources, using IMS Content Packaging, SCORM, AICC (CBT), LAMS integration with other Content Management Systems such as Drupal or Postnuke (via third-party extensions) syndication, using RSS or Atom newsfeeds - external newsfeeds can be displayed in a course, and forums, blogs, and other features can be made available to others as newsfeeds. Moodle also has import features for use with other specific systems, such as importing quizzes or entire courses from Blackboard or WebCT. These import tools are not, however perfect. At the time of writing (Feb 2010), Moodle will not import Blackboard courses due apparently to some change in php code-releases.

Background
Origins
Martin Dougiamas, who has graduate degrees in computer science and education, wrote the first version of Moodle. Dougiamas started a Ph.D. to examine "The use of Open Source software to support a social constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reflective inquiry". Although how exactly social constructionism makes Moodle different from other eLearning platforms is difficult to show, it has been cited as an important factor by Moodle adopters.[11] [12] Other Moodle adopters, such as the Open University in the UK, have pointed out that Learning Management Systems can equally be seen as "relatively pedagogy-neutral".[13]

Pedagogical approach
The stated philosophy of Moodle[14] includes a constructivist and social constructionist approach to education, emphasizing that learners (and not just teachers) can contribute to the educational experience. Moodle supports an outcomes-oriented learning environment.

Origin of the name

The acronym Moodle stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (in the early years the "M" stood for "Martin's", named after Martin Dougiamas, the original developer). As well as being an acronym, the name was chosen because of the dictionary definition of Moodle[15] and to correspond to an available domain name.[16] "Moodle" is a trademark in many countries around the World registered to Martin Dougiamas. Only Moodle Partners may legally use the trademark to advertise any Moodle-related services such as hosting, customization, training and

Moodle so on.

14

Moodle statistics and market share

By 31 August 2011: Moodle had a user-base of 55,110 registered sites with 44,966,541 users in 4,763,446 courses in 214 countries and in more than 75 languages.[17] The site with the most users, moodle.org, has 66 courses and 1,090,234 users. Following a 5 million investment in 2005, The Open University, UK is the second-largest Moodle deployment by user-base, with 714,310 users and 6,093 courses. A comprehensive list of the top ten Moodle sites (by courses and by users) is maintained at moodle.org.[18]

Development
Moodle has continued to evolve since 1999 (since 2001 with the current architecture). Major improvements in accessibility and display flexibility were developed in 1.5. The current version is 2.0, which was released in November, 2010. It has been translated into 82 different languages. Not having to pay license fees or to limit growth, an institution can add as many Moodle servers as needed. The Open University of the UK is currently building a Moodle installation for their 200,000 users.[19] It is often known for individual departments of institutions to use the unlimited feature, such as the maths department of the University of York. The development of Moodle continues as a free software project supported by a team of programmers and an international user community, drawing upon contributions posted to the online Moodle Community website that encourages debate and invites criticism. Users can freely distribute and modify the software under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or any later version.[2]

Certification
Since 2006 there has been an official certification available for teachers using Moodle. Initially called the Moodle Teacher Certificate (MTC) this was renamed in 2008 to the Moodle Course Creator Certificate (MCCC). MCCC is available only through Moodle Partners, and through Central Certification Services [20]. MCCC for Moodle version 2.0 will be available from early in 2011. Discussion is ongoing regarding an official Moodle Administrators Certificate.

Moodle conferences
MoodleMoot is the name given to the meetings held by the Moodle community.[21] Such conferences take place regularly all over the world and are normally hosted by a university or other institution. They are typically supported by a Moodle Partner and some are preceded by a technical Unconference. Moodle Conference Center[22] has announcements of Annual Meetings and open MoodeMoots.

References
[1] "Standard Moodle Packages" (http:/ / download. moodle. org/ ). Moodle.org. . [2] "Moodle License" (http:/ / git. moodle. org/ gw?p=moodle. git;a=blob;f=COPYING. txt;h=94a9ed024d3859793618152ea559a168bbcbb5e2;hb=HEAD). . [3] http:/ / moodle. org [4] "Moodle stats page" (http:/ / moodle. org/ stats). Moodle.org. . [5] http:/ / moodle. com/

Moodle
[6] "E-learning" (http:/ / www. cpce-polyu. edu. hk/ itu/ new/ index. php?option=com_content& task=view& id=58& Itemid=149). http:/ / www. cpce-polyu. edu. hk/ itu/ new/ : Information Technology Unit (itu). . Retrieved 2011-03-01. "Moodle is a well-known e-learning platform in tertiary institutions. Many universities and colleges use Moodle as the online learning system in their daily teaching and learning. Moodle is a free source software it means developer can make modification based on their needs. CPCE decides to use Moodle as a e-learning platform for HKCC and SPEED from 2009/10 academic year onwards." [7] "E-Learning Features" (http:/ / www. cpce-polyu. edu. hk/ itu/ new/ index. php?option=com_content& task=view& id=58& Itemid=149). http:/ / www. cpce-polyu. edu. hk/ itu/ new/ : Information Technology Unit (itu). . Retrieved 2011-03-01. "Moodle serves as an online e-learning platform to facilitate the communications between teachers and students. Some typical features provided by Moodle are listed below." [8] "Modules and Plugins" (http:/ / moodle. org/ mod/ data/ view. php?id=6009). Moodle.org. . [9] "About Moodle" (http:/ / docs. moodle. org/ en/ About_Moodle). Moodle.org Documentation. . [10] "Moodle Appliance" (http:/ / www. turnkeylinux. org/ moodle). TurnKey Linux Virtual Appliance Library. . [11] Weller, M. (2006). VLE 2.0 and future directions in learning environments. Proceedings of the first LAMS Conference, Sydney [12] McMulli & Munroe (2004). "VMoodle at DCU" (http:/ / odtl. dcu. ie/ wp/ 2004/ odtl-2004-01. html). [13] Sclater, Neil (2008). A Large-scale Open Source eLearning Systems at the Open University (http:/ / connect. educause. edu/ Library/ Abstract/ LargeScaleOpenSourceELear/ 46878). Educase. [14] Moodle Philosophy (http:/ / docs. moodle. org/ en/ Philosophy) [15] "Moodle definition" (http:/ / www. allwords. com/ word-moodle. html). All Words. . [16] "The chicken or the egg" (http:/ / moodle. org/ mod/ forum/ discuss. php?d=27533#129848). Moodle.org Lounge. . [17] Current Moodle Statistics (http:/ / moodle. org/ stats) [18] Moodle Statistics (http:/ / moodle. org/ stats/ ) [19] "A Policy Dialogue Platform | Promoting Better Governance" (http:/ / www. egovmonitor. com/ node/ 3460). eGov monitor. 2005-11-08. . Retrieved 2009-06-27. [20] http:/ / www. moodlebites. com/ mod/ resource/ view. php?id=238 [21] MoodleMoot at moodle.org (http:/ / docs. moodle. org/ 20/ en/ MoodleMoot) [22] The Conference Center at moodle.org (http:/ / moodle. org/ course/ view. php?id=33)

15

External links
Moodle
Moodle (http://moodle.org/) Moodle plugin list (http://moodle.org/plugins) Moodle Course Creator Certificate (MCCC) area on Moodle.org (http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=48) Example of Moodle (https://pedtek.isi.edu/moodle/blog/index.php?userid=650)

Other
Moodle news (http://www.moodlenews.com/) Free learning/teaching moodle community (http://www.moodlesocial.com) Moodle on WikEd (http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Moodle) Official teacher certification - the Moodle (http://www.moodlebites.com/mod/resource/view.php?id=238/) Poodle (Portable Moodle) (http://www.maflt.org/products/poodle)

Blackboard Learning System

16

Blackboard Learning System

The Blackboard Learning System is a virtual learning environment and course management system developed by Blackboard Inc. Features include course management, a customizable open architecture, and a scalable design that allows for integration with student information systems and authentication protocols. It may be installed on local servers or hosted by Blackboard ASP Solutions. Its main purposes are to add online elements to courses traditionally delivered face-to-face and to develop completely online courses with few or no face-to-face meetings.

History
On Jan 21 1997, Stephen Gilfus and Dan Cane started a company called CourseInfo LLC and were developing a software product that would power online education and be scalable for wider institutional application. At the same time, Matthew Pittinsky and Michael Chasen formed Blackboard LLC and were contracted to help lead the formation of the Educause IMS standards group for online education technology. Recognizing the high demand for a sophisticated, easy-to-use, and affordable online education software platform, the two groups merged to form Blackboard Inc., which then developed the Blackboard Learning System. [1]

Overview
The Blackboard Learning System is a Web-based server software platform. Features include course management, a customizable open architecture, and a scalable design that allows for integration with student information systems and authentication protocols. It may be installed on local servers or hosted by Blackboard ASP Solutions. Its main purposes are to add online elements to courses traditionally delivered face-to-face and to develop completely online courses with few or no face-to-face meetings.

Functions
Communication Announcements: Professors and teachers may post announcements for students to read. These can be found under the announcement tab, or can be made to pop-up when a student accesses Blackboard. Chat: This function allows those students who are online to chat in real time with other students in their class section. Discussions: This feature allows students and professors to create a discussion thread and reply to ones already created. Mail: Blackboard mail allows students and teachers to send mail to one another. This feature supports mass emailing to students in a course. Content Course content: This feature allows teachers to post article, assignments, videos etc. Calendar: Teachers can use this function to post due dates for assignments and tests. Learning modules: This feature is often used for strictly online classes. It allows professors to post different lessons for students to access. Assessments: This tab allows professors to post quizzes and exams and allows students to access them anywhere there is an internet connection. Assignments: This features allows for assignments to be posted and for students to be able to submit assignments online Grade Book: Teachers and professors may post grades on Blackboard for students to view. Media Library: Videos and other media may be posted under this function.

Blackboard Learning System

17

Challenges
Over the many years of its development the Blackboard Learning has undergone several iterations. In addition academic institutions of all sizes have changed the way they use the Blackboard Learning System including the transitions from augmentation of traditional classroom learning to supporting full online and virtual campus capabilities. The Blackboard Learning System and much of the Blackboard product line has been challenged with: Maintaining the appropriate scalability for the increased level of usage by its customers. Providing seamless and uninterrupted migration paths from one version of the software to the other Supporting the tens of thousands of transaction enrollments and add drop capabilities that may happen during the span of the first two weeks of class Providing a refined first release product for its customers. Often it is best to wait 6 12 months before going to the next version of the Blackboard product. It typically takes this long for the development team to riddle out many of the real world scenarios. A few large schools have experienced transition and scalability challenges with Blackboard product within the first 6 months of usage. Providing feature parity between its new products and the end of life of other acquired software (WebCT and Angel Learning are examples) Meeting ongoing and dynamic demands of an ever expanding education market as well as supporting its over 3200 global customers. Much of the challenges above are typical to most online learning platforms found in the education space. However Blackboard seems to be more challenged based on its size, complexity of its system and the multitude of customers it is trying to cater to. Although the company does typically respond to its customers it often takes them longer than most would like due to their size. In addition, academic institutions themselves have been challenged with understanding how to appropriately implement and support teaching and learning technologies for online learning. The Educational technology Framework [2] is a tool used by several hundred academic institutions to develop an organizational tactical plan to support a successful implementation. Born out of experiences with implementing Blackboard technologies at 2000 institutions the ETF applies to all academic institutions implementing online learning technologies.

Criticism
Blackboard Inc has had several legal issues, including faulty patent rights claims.[3] A staff survey by the Western Washington University found increasing levels of dissatisfaction with Blackboard, particularly in the area of reliability [4] . McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada has replaced their Blackboard system after multiple problems during one year of use.[5] Citing numerous glitches and high costs, many universities are turning to the cheaper, open source alternative Moodle, including University of Montana,[6] Vassar College,[7] California State University, Long Beach,[8] and many other schools.[9]

Blackboard Learning System

18

References
[1] http:/ / www. uupinfo. org/ research/ working/ bradford. pdf [2] http:/ / www. gilfuseducationgroup. com/ wp-content/ uploads/ Educational-Technology-Framework1. pdf [3] "Blackboard: Bully or Misunderstood?" (http:/ / www. insidehighered. com/ news/ 2006/ 08/ 18/ patent). Inside Higher Ed. August 18, 2006. . Retrieved 19 September 2010. [4] Farquhar, J. (2011). Teachnology for Teaching Use and Satisfaction Survey (http:/ / west. wwu. edu/ atus/ blackboard/ assets/ Bb Satisfaction Report 2011. pdf) [5] McMaster University Daily News "A new learning management system" (http:/ / dailynews. mcmaster. ca/ story. cfm?id=6675) [6] Rabil, Lily. "Blackboard no match for Moodle" (http:/ / www. montanakaimin. com/ mobile/ news/ blackboard-no-match-for-moodle-1. 1596737). Montana Kaimin. . Retrieved 19 September 2010. [7] "Vassar to switch from Blackboard to Moodle" (http:/ / www. miscellanynews. com/ 2. 1576/ vassar-to-switch-from-blackboard-to-moodle-1. 1728215). April 22, 2009. . Retrieved 19 September 2010. [8] "BlackBoard to be replaced by new system" (http:/ / www. daily49er. com/ news/ blackboard-to-be-replaced-by-new-system-1. 2327920). Daily 49er. September 13, 2010. . Retrieved 19 September 2010. [9] Trotter, Andrew (June 13, 2008). "Blackboard vs. Moodle: Competition in course-management market grows" (http:/ / www. edweek. org/ dd/ articles/ 2008/ 06/ 09/ 01moodle. h02. html). Education Week. . Retrieved 19 September 2010.

19

Organizations
IMS Global
IMS Global Learning Consortium (usually known as ITIMS or IMS GLC) is a global, nonprofit, member organization that strives to enable the growth and impact of learning technology in the education and corporate learning sectors worldwide. IMS GLC members provide leadership in shaping and growing the learning industry through community development of interoperability and adoption practice standards and recognition of the return on investment from learning and educational technology. Their main activity is to develop interoperability standards and adoption practice standards for distributed learning, some of which like QTI and Content Packaging [1] are very widely used. Although the IMS has produced many good specifications, some criticism of it centers on the fact that, unlike most bodies working in the standards space, it requires large membership fees for organizations or individuals seeking to review or comment on its work.

Scope of IMS standards

The scope for IMS specifications and standards cover most of the data elements used in "distributed and collaborative learning." IMS specifications promote the adoption of learning and educational technology and allow selection of best of breed products that can be easily integrated with other such products. These include a wide variety of technologies that support or enhance the learning experience, such as web-based course management system, learning management systems, virtual learning environments, instructional management systems, student administrative systems, ePortfolios, assessment systems, adaptive tutoring systems, collaborative learning tools, web 2.0 social learning tools, learning object repositories, and so forth. These include technologies and products that support learning situations that involve support for collaborative learning involving learners and instructors. The learners may be in a traditional educational environment (i.e., a school classroom in a university), in a corporate or government training setting, or at home.

History
In 1997 the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative of Educause began a project to create a set of widely adopted standards for exchanging college learning content. The founding universities included California State University, University of Michigan, and University of North Carolina. The acronym IMS originally stood for Instructional Management Systems; but the full term was quickly dropped and now only IMS is used. While IMS got its start in higher education, it moved quickly into a much wider range of learning contexts, including corporate and government training and K-12 education.

IMS Global

20

Common Cartridge
Common Cartridge is a specification being developed by IMS. The Common Cartridge [2] (CC) standard distills state-of-the-art practice in online education and training into an easy-to-follow format for creating and sharing digital content. Common Cartridge benefits include: Greater choice of content: Enables collections of learning resources of various types and sources. Reduces vendor/platform lock-in: Establishes course cartridge native formats endorsed by educational publishers, and supports a wide variety of established content formats, eliminating platform lock-in. Greater assessment options: Explicitly supports the most widely used standards for exchanging assessment items. Increases flexibility, sharing and reuse: Fits within the educational context of enabling instructors to assemble lesson plans of various resources and publish those as reusable and changeable packages that are easy to create, share, and improve. The Common Cartridge format includes the following specifications: Content Packaging v1.2 Question & Test Interoperability v1.2 IMS Tools Interoperability Guidelines v1.0 IEEE Learning Object Metadata v1.0 SCORM v1.2 & 2004 (Essentially common cartridge specification v1.0 DOES NOT include SCORM. As stated in IMS CP 1.1.4 Best Practices and Implementation guide [3] SCORM was considered in development of this new standard) The Common Cartridge Alliance Common Cartridge standard.
[4]

is a community of institutions committed to supporting and adopting the

External links
Opening Up Online Learning [5] Inside Higher Ed, October, 2006 Latest Activities of IMS Global Learning Consortium [6] IMS Common Cartridge Working Group [2] Common Cartridge Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) [7] Common Cartridge Specification [8] Common Cartridge Roadmap [9]. MERLOT, 2007. Video on Common Cartridge [10] Sakai project Why Teachers' Unions Should Demand Support For Common Cartridge [11], Michael Feldstein, e-Literate IMS Global Web Site [12] Video report on Common Cartridge demonstration [10] IMS Common Cartridge roadmap [13] IMS Question & Test Interoperability [14] Specification (mailing list [15]) IMS Accessibility [16] Project Group IMS Learning Tools Interoperability [17] Working Group IMS Learning Object Discovery and Exchange [18] Project Group IMS Learning Information Services [19] Project Group

IMS Global

21

References
[1] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ content/ packaging/ index. html [2] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ commoncartridge. html [3] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ content/ packaging/ cpv1p1p4/ imscp_bestv1p1p4. html [4] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ cc/ alliance. html [5] http:/ / www. insidehighered. com/ news/ 2006/ 10/ 09/ cartridge [6] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ activities. html [7] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ cc/ ccfaqs. html [8] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ cc/ index. html [9] http:/ / conference. merlot. org/ 2007/ Wednesday/ CommonCartridge. ppt [10] http:/ / www. sakaiproject. org/ media2/ 2006/ altidemo06/ altidemo06. htm [11] http:/ / www. mfeldstein. com/ why_teachers_unions_should_demand_support_for_the_ims_common_cartridge_stan/ [12] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org [13] http:/ / www. adlaustralia. org/ idea2006/ presentations/ IMS%20IDEA%20Oct%202006. ppt [14] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ question/ [15] http:/ / lists. ucles. org. uk/ lists/ listinfo/ ims-qti [16] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ accessibility. html [17] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ toolsinteroperability2. cfm [18] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ lode. html [19] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ enterprise. cfm

22

Technical
Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee
The Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals. The AICC develops guidelines for aviation industry in the development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT, WBT, and related training technologies. AICC specifications are usually designed to be general purpose (not necessarily Aviation Specific) so that learning technology vendors can spread their costs across multiple markets and thus provide products (needed by the Aviation Industry) at a lower cost. This strategy has resulted in AICC specifications having broad acceptance and relevance to non-aviation and aviation users alike.

History
The AICC was formed in 1988 by Aircraft manufacturers (Boeing, Airbus, and McDonnell-Douglas) to address Airline concerns about non-standard computing (cost) issues arising from the proliferation of new multimedia training materials emerging at that time. In 1989, the AICC published computing platform recommendations for CBT, training media. A PC-platform was established as the primary delivery platform for CBT media. In 1992, the AICC produced a digital audio interoperability specification for DOS based platforms. This specification allowed multiple CBT vendors to use a single audio card. AICC audio drivers were produced for Elan, SoundBlaster(tm), WICAT, and other audio cards. A large number of older legacy CBT applications still use this specification today. In 1993, the AICC produced what is widely regarded as the first runtime interoperability specification for Learning Management Systems (LMS) a.k.a. CMI (Computer Managed Instruction) Systems. This AICC specification (CMI001 - AICC/CMI Guidelines For Interoperability [1]) was originally designed for CD-ROM/LAN (local file-based) operation and was updated in January 1998 to add a web-based interface called HACP (HTTP-based AICC/CMI Protocol). In September 1999, the CMI001 [1] specification was updated to add a Javascript API runtime interface. The runtime environment data model and API used in the SCORM specification is a derivative of this work.

Current
The AICC HACP standard for CMI is widely used by Learning Management Systems and other systems to call content and assessments. Although it is pre-XML, it is very robust and unambiguous and many consider it to be more secure and reliable than alternatives such as SCORM, especially for content or assessments hosted on web servers not collocated with the calling system. An emerging standard is the AICC PENS standard, which lets content creating tools send a manifest to an LMS easily. (See CMI010 - Package Exchange Notification Services [2]). The September 2006 AICC meeting [3] included a Plugfest where vendors demonstrated PENS interoperability. In November 2010, the AICC announced that it would begin work on a replacement of its existing CMI specification. [4]

Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee The AICC coordinates its efforts with other learning technology specifications organizations engaged in similar work such as IMS Global, OKI, ADL, IEEE/LTSC [5], LETSI, and ISO/SC36. [6]

23

External links
(Official) AICC Website [7] ISO/SC36 Website [8] IEEE/LTSC Website [9] Organizations Supporting AICC/PENS [10]

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] http:/ / aicc. org/ docs/ tech/ cmi001v4. pdf http:/ / aicc. org/ docs/ tech/ cmi010v1a. pdf http:/ / aicc. org/ docs/ meetings/ 18sep2006/ minutes. htm http:/ / aicc. org/ joomla/ dev/ index. php?option=com_content& view=article& id=151%3Apress-release-44& Itemid=9 http:/ / ieeeltsc. org http:/ / jtc1sc36. org http:/ / www. aicc. org/ http:/ / jtc1sc36. org/

[9] http:/ / ieeeltsc. org/ [10] http:/ / pens. lmstesting. com/ pages/ supporters. htm

Sharable Content Object Reference Model

Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a collection of standards and specifications for web-based e-learning. It defines communications between client side content and a host system called the run-time environment, which is commonly supported by a learning management system. SCORM also defines how content may be packaged into a transferable ZIP file called "Package Interchange Format".[1] SCORM is a specification of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative, which comes out of the Office of the United States Secretary of Defense. SCORM 2004 introduced a complex idea called sequencing, which is a set of rules that specifies the order in which a learner may experience content objects. In simple terms, they constrain a learner to a fixed set of paths through the training material, permit the learner to "bookmark" their progress when taking breaks, and assure the acceptability of test scores achieved by the learner. The standard uses XML, and it is based on the results of work done by AICC, IMS Global, IEEE, and Ariadne.

Compliance
A testing initiative was started in 1996. In December 2003, the US Department of Defense mandated that all its e-learning purchases must comply with SCORM standards. By May 2010, ADL had validated 301 SCORM-certified products [2] while 329 products were compliant.[3]

SCORM versions
SCORM 1.1
SCORM 1.1 is the first production version. It used a Course Structure Format XML file based on the AICC specifications to describe content structure, but lacked a robust packaging manifest and support for metadata. Quickly abandoned in favor of SCORM 1.2.

Sharable Content Object Reference Model

24

SCORM 1.2
This was the first version that was widely used. It is still widely used and is supported by most Learning Management Systems today.

SCORM 2004
This is the current version. It is based on new standards for API and content object-to-runtime environment communication, with many ambiguities of previous versions resolved. Includes ability to specify adaptive sequencing of activities that use the content objects. Includes ability to share and use information about success status for multiple learning objectives or competencies across content objects and across courses for the same learner within the same learning management system. A more robust test suite helps ensure good interoperability. SCORM 2004 editions 3rd Edition (October 2006) clarification of various conformance requirements and of the interaction between content objects and the runtime environment for sequencing; some new conformance requirements to improve interoperability. 4th Edition Released (March 31, 2009) more stringent interoperability requirements, more flexible data persistence.[4] SCORM 2004 specification books Overview introduces SCORM and describes how the other books relate Content Aggregation Model describes packaging of content and learning object Run-Time Environment describes runtime API and data model used for communication between content objects and learning management systems Sequencing and Navigation describes how sequencing between learning activities is defined and interpreted Compliance Requirements detailed list of the conformance requirements that are verified by the ADL SCORM conformance test suite.

SCORM timeline
January 1999 Executive Order 13111 signed tasking the DoD to develop common specifications and standards for e-learning across both federal and private sectors January 2000 SCORM Version 1.0 January 2001 SCORM Version 1.1 October 2001 SCORM Version 1.2 January 2004 SCORM 2004 (1st Edition) July 2004 SCORM 2004 (2nd Edition) June 2006 Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 1322.26 Requiring DoD Use of SCORM October 2006 SCORM 2004 (3rd Edition) March 2009 SCORM 2004 (4th Edition)

Sharable Content Object Reference Model

25

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] "Technical" (http:/ / www. scorm. com/ scorm-explained/ technical-scorm/ ). SCORM. . Retrieved 2011-08-17. (http:/ / www. adlnet. gov/ Technologies/ scorm/ Custom Pages/ Certified Products. aspx) (http:/ / www. adlnet. gov/ Technologies/ scorm/ Custom Pages/ SCORM Adopters. aspx) SCORM 2004 4th Edition Version 1.1 Overview (http:/ / legacy. adlnet. gov/ Technologies/ scorm/ SCORMSDocuments/ 2004 4th Edition/ Overview. aspx)

External links
Resources
ADL Guidelines for Creating Reusable Content with SCORM 2004 (http://legacy.adlnet.gov/Technologies/ scorm/SCORMSDocuments/SCORM Resources/Resources.aspx) SCORM Resource Portal: Product and Service Directory, News, Forums, Jobs, and whitepapers (http://www. conform2scorm.com/) Concise articles like "SCORM For Dummies" and "SCORM For Developers", graphical reference poster and tools to help with conformance (http://www.scorm.com/pages/resources.aspx) SCORM Developer Network (Redbird DevNet): SCORM-related News, Forums, Jobs, Documentation, and more... (http://www.scormdev.net) SCORM BRASIL (Portuguese): Forums, Cursos, Documentao, e mais... (http://www.scormbrasil.com.br) VSSCORM - a project to create a simple SCORM 1.2 interface. (http://www.vsscorm.net) (http://tle.tafevc.com.au/toolbox/access/Tasks.jsp) - library of hundreds of free SCORM objects. An initiative supported from the Australian commonwealth.

ADL Co-Lab Network

Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory Hub (Alexandria, Virginia) (http://www.adlnet.gov/About/ alexandria/default.aspx): The ADL Co-Lab Hub coordinates the operations of the ADL Co-Labs Joint Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory (Orlando, Florida) (http://www.adlnet.gov/About/ jointcolab/default.aspx): Supports the integration of training and technology for the DoD Corporate Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory (Memphis, Tennessee) (http://home. corporateadlcolab.org/): Facilitation of SCORM Implementation In Industry Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory (Madison, Wisconsin) (http://www.academiccolab. org): Supports the evaluation and testing of ADL tools to enhance Academia Advanced Distributed Learning Job Performance Lab (Alexandria, Virginia) (http://www.adlnet.gov/About/ JPTC/default.aspx): Their mission is to act as a catalyst for the advancement of research, development and implementation of dynamic capability-based job performance technology solutions across the Department of Defense United Kingdom Advanced Distributed Learning Partnership Laboratory (Telford, England) (http://www.adlnet. gov/About/Pages/UnitedKingdom/uklab.aspx): This UK Partnership Lab promotes the development and acceptance of global e-learning standards Canada Advanced Distributed Learning Partnership Laboratory (Ottawa, Canada) (http://www.adlnet.gov/ About/Pages/Canada/canadalab.aspx): Support ADL implementation with the Canadian DND Australia ADL Partnership Laboratory (Brisbane, Australia)] Latin American and Caribbean Regions ADL Partnership Laboratory (Ejidos de Huipulco, Mexico) (http://www. adlnet.gov/About/Pages/LatinCarib/latincarib.aspx) Korea ADL Partnership Laboratory (Seoul, Korea) (http://www.adlnet.gov/About/Pages/Korea/korealab. aspx)

Sharable Content Object Reference Model Norway ADL Partnership Laboratory (Oslo, Norway) (http://www.adlnet.gov/About/Pages/Norway/ norwaylab.aspx) Romania ADL Partnership Laboratory (Bucharest, Romania) (http://www.adlnet.gov/About/Pages/Romania/ romanialab.aspx)

26

QTI
The IMS Question and Test Interoperability specification (QTI) defines a standard format for the representation of assessment content and results, supporting the exchange of this material between authoring and delivery systems, repositories and other learning management systems. It allows assessment materials to be authored and delivered on multiple systems interchangeably. It is, therefore, designed to facilitate interoperability between systems[1] . The specification consists of a data model that defines the structure of questions, assessments and results from questions and assessments together with an XML data binding that essentially defines a language for interchanging questions and other assessment material. The XML binding is widely used for exchanging questions between different authoring tools and by publishers. The assessment and results parts of the specification are less widely used.

Background
QTI was produced by the IMS Global Learning Consortium, which is an industry and academic consortium that develops specifications for interoperable learning technology. QTI was inspired by the need for interoperability in question design, and to avoid people losing or having to re-type questions when technology changes. Developing and validating good questions is time consuming, and it's desirable to be able to create them in a platform and technology neutral format. QTI version 1.0 was materially based on a proprietary Questions Markup Language (QML) language defined by QuestionMark, but the language has evolved over the years and can now describe almost any reasonable question that one might want to describe. (QML is still in use by Questionmark and is generated for interoperability by tools like Adobe Captivate). The most widely used version of QTI at the time of writing is version 1.2, which was finalized in 2002. This works well for exchanging simple question types, and is supported by many tools that allow the creation of questions. Version 2.0 was released in 2005, with v2.1 due for release in 2008[2] . 2.0 addressed the item (individual question) level of the specification only, with 2.1 covering assessments and results as well as correcting errors which had become apparent in 2.0. Version 2.x is a significant improvement on earlier versions, defining a new underlying interaction model. It is also notable for its significantly greater degree of integration with other specifications (some of which did not exist during the production of v1): the specification addresses the relationship with IMS Content Packaging v1.2, IEEE Learning Object Metadata, IMS Learning Design, IMS Simple Sequencing and other standards such as XHTML. It also provides guidance on representing context-specific usage data and information to support the migration of content from earlier versions of the specification. Because v2.0 was limited to items only, and v2.1 has yet to be formally released by IMS (although two public drafts plus an addendum are currently available), uptake of v2.x has been slow to date. The delay between the release of 2.0 and 2.1 (over three years to date) may have hindered uptake to some extent, with developers reluctant to commit to v2.0 knowing that v2.1 is in development. The use of a profile of v1.2.1 in the IMS Common Cartridge specification may exacerbate this. A number of implementations are emerging, however, and uptake may increase once the specification is finally available in a stable form. In early 2009, the IMS Global Learning Consortium withdrew QTI 2.1, stating that "Adequate feedback on the specification has not been received, and therefore, the specification has been put back into the IMS project group process for further work."[3] The most recent version of QTI that is fully endorsed by IMS GLC is v1.2.1. This

QTI decision met with disapproval on the IMS-QTI mailing list.[4] A further clarification on the QTI 2.1 withdrawal acknowledged the work done on implementing the QTI 2.1 draft specification, and cited criticism on the lack of interoperability of IMS specifications as a reason for endorsing only IMS QTI 1.2.[5] A few weeks later IMS GLC reposted the QTI v2.1 draft specification on their website[6] with a warning that the specification is incomplete: Caution: The QTIv2.1PD Version 2 specification is incomplete in its current state. The IMS QTI project group is in the process of evolving this specification based on input from market participants. Suppliers of products and services are encouraged to participate by contacting Mark McKell at [e-mail address removed]. This specification will be superseded by an updated release based on the input of the project group participants. Please note that supplier's claims as to implementation of QTI v2.1 and conformance to it HAVE NOT BEEN VALIDATED by IMS GLC. While such suppliers are likely well-intentioned, IMS GLC member organizations have not yet put in place the testing process to validate these claims. IMS GLC currently grants a conformance mark to the Common Cartridge profile of QTI v1.2.1. [7]

27

Timeline
Date March 1999 February 2000 May 2000 August 2000 March 2001 January 2002 March 2003 Version 0.5 1.0 public draft 1.0 final release 1.01 1.1 1.2 1.2.1 addendum Initiation of working group Comments Internal to IMS

September 2003 2.0 charter January 2005 January 2006 July 2006 April 2008 early 2009 April 2009 2.0 final release 2.1 public draft 2.1 public draft version 2 2.1 public draft addendum 2.1 removed from website 2.1 reinstated on website

Applications with IMS QTI support

QTI

28

Name

QTI version 2.0 2.1 [8] [9] LMS LMS

Type of tool

Comment

Alphastudy ANGEL Learning Management Suite APIS QTIv2 Assessment Engine AQuRate ASDEL Assessment Tiger

also supports IMS-QTI 2.0 standard, SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 also supports IMS Common Cartridge [9]

[8]

2.0 draft [10] 2.1 2.1 2.1 [11] [12] [13]

Java library & demo application. authoring tool assessment delivery system Authoring and mobile assessment delivery LCMS

Incomplete. Author recommends using QTITools instead.

see QTITools see QTITools Advanced QTI 2.1 authoring - mobile QTI 2.1 rendering

ATutor

1.2, 2.1 [14] 1.2.1 [15]

Canvas Learning

Authoring tools and SCORM compatible item renderer available as middle-ware solutions.

Creators - Can Studios contributed to the development of the QTI specification. A number of LMS systems used the Canvas Learning Player to achieve compatibility with the Becta learning platform conformance regime. The system is currently being distributed to schools in the UK as a result of this integration work.

CCReader

1.2.1 CC Profile [16] 1.2 and [17] 2.0 1.2 and [18] 2.1 1.2 & 2.0 [19] [20] 2.0 [21] 1.2, 2.1 [22] 1.2 and [23] 2.0 1.2 [24]

Common Cartridge Viewer

Chamilo

LMS/LCMS

export QTI 1.2 & 2.0, import QTI 2.0 (1.2 disabled by default but available) (supports SCORM 1.2) Cognero imports QTI 1.2 and exports QTI 1.2 and 2.1 to allow content to work with other systems. Imports QTI 1.2 and 2.0.

Cognero

Assessment authoring and delivery system. Professional authoring tool Content-e. LMS

Content-e

DB Primary

Diploma

export QTI 1.2 & 2.1

Dokeos

LMS/LCMS

export QTI 1.2 & 2.0 (1.2 disabled by default but available) (supports SCORM 1.2) QTI 1.2 universal player - Adobe flash based

e-teach Q-Player

QTI 1.2 player. SCORM 1.2 and 2004 compliant VLE LMS LMS

it's learning ILIAS

2.1

[25]

import and export questions in QTI 2.1 format supports SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004

not stated [26] not stated [27] 2.1 [29]

Lectora

authoring tool

supports AICC, SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004

[28]

Mathqurate

authoring tool

see QTITools. Embedded Gecko engine and support for multiple interactions

QTI

29
Moodle LCMS supports adaptive questions; QTI 2.0 export is still unfinished

not stated [30]

Online Learning And QTI 1.2 [31] Training Onyx Editor (Elques) 1.2 and and Onyx Konverter 2.1 [32] Onyx Player and Onyx Reporter OWL Testing Software QTITools 2.1 [33]

LCMS

QTI 2.1 compliance can be achieved with ONYX as plugin

authoring tool and konverter

exports QTI 2.1 and QTI 1.2 (for LMS OLAT only); imports QTI 2.1, Tests from Blackboard and OLAT (kind of QTI 1.2 too); free version available QTI 2.1 import and export (report files); open-source; Onyx Reporter: Report Viewer for graphical visualization of QTI-Result-Files can import IMS QTI

modular assessment delivery system test management system

not stated [34] 2.1 [35]

collection of tools and libraries

Test authoring tool Spectatus procudes QTI 2.1 Exports and imports QTI 1.1

[36]

Question Bank QuestionMark Perception Question Writer 2.0 Publisher Edition Question Writer 3.5 Professional Respondus

1.1

[37] authoring tool and delivery system authoring tool

not stated [38] 1.2 [39]

can export IMS QTI, an online tool provides QTI 1.2 import

Exports as QTI 1.2 and SCORM 1.2

[40]

1.2

[41]

authoring tool

Exports as QTI 1.2 and SCORM 1.2 [43] VUE QTI export

[42]

Also specific QTI Export for Pearson

[44] 1.2 [45] 2.1 [46]

authoring tool

RM Test Authoring System Sakai

authoring tool

1.2

[47]

LMS assessment system mostly unavailable as of July 2008

[48] SToMP (Software 2.1 Teaching of Modular Physics) Studywiz 1.2 [49]

Virtual Learning Environment Module authoring tool

An optional module for creating and assigning QTI v1.2 questions to students. Available as of June 2008 only export

Wimba Create

QTI Lite [50]

Other software: QTI Migration Tool (University of Cambridge): converts QTI version 1.x data into QTI 2.0 content packages.[51]

QTI

30

References
[1] Effective Practice with e-Assessment guide, p.44 (http:/ / www. jisc. ac. uk/ media/ documents/ themes/ elearning/ effpraceassess. pdf) [2] QTI Update (http:/ / wiki. cetis. ac. uk/ Assessment_and_EC_SIGs_meeting_Feb_2008#QTI_Update) [3] IMS Global Learning Consortium: IMS Question & Test Interoperability Specification (http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ question/ index. html). Accessed March 29, 2009. [4] E-mail thread "QTI 2.1 draft specification withdrawn" (http:/ / lists. ucles. org. uk/ public/ ims-qti/ 2009-March/ 001456. html), starting March 27, 2009. [5] Rob Abel: Further clarification on the removal of QTI v2.1 from the IMS web site (http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ community/ forum/ messageview. cfm?catid=21& threadid=36& enterthread=y), on the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Question and Test Interoperability Forum, March 30, 2009. Accessed March 29, 2009. [6] rabel: We are reposting the QTI v2.1 (http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ community/ forum/ messageview. cfm?catid=21& threadid=41& enterthread=y). Question and Test Interoperability Forum, April 14, 2009. Accessed April 17, 2009. [7] IMS Global Learning Consortium: IMS Question & Test Interoperability Specification (http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ question/ index. html). Accessed April 17, 2009. [8] Alphastudy Online Learning and Knowledge portals (http:/ / www. alphastudy. com/ sites/ topic/ index. php?cid=ALPHASTUDYQUICKSTARTGUIDE). Accessed Jan 19, 2011. [9] ANGEL Learning Management Suite: Standards Leadership (http:/ / www. angellearning. com/ products/ lms/ standards. html). Accessed March 30, 2009. [10] Sourceforge.net: APIS QTIv2 Assessment Engine (http:/ / sourceforge. net/ projects/ apis). Accessed March 30, 2009. [11] AQuRate: A QTI-2.x Authoring Tool (http:/ / aqurate. kingston. ac. uk/ ). Accessed March 30, 2009. [12] ASDEL: assessment delivery system for QTIv2 questions (http:/ / www. asdel. ecs. soton. ac. uk/ ). Accessed March 30, 2009. [13] Assessment Tiger: Authoring, on-line and mobile assessment delivery (http:/ / www. assessmenttiger. com/ ). Accessed July 01, 2011. [14] ATutorATutor Learning Content Management System: Information (http:/ / www. atutor. ca/ atutor/ ). Accessed March 30, 2009. [15] Canvas Learning (http:/ / www. canvaslearning. com). Accessed August, 2009. [16] CCReader project in Sourceforge (http:/ / sourceforge. net/ projects/ ccreader). Accessed March 30, 2009. [17] Chamilo changelog (http:/ / campus. chamilo. org/ documentation/ changelog. html) [18] Cognero: Cognero Features (http:/ / www. cognero. com/ features. html). Accessed February 19, 2009 [19] Professional authoring tool content-e. (http:/ / eng. content-e. nl/ ) Accessed July, 2009. [20] iBoard content available in DB Primary (http:/ / www. e2bn. org/ services/ 120/ iboard-content-available-in-db-primary. html). Accessed March 30, 2009. [21] DB Primary's own Technical Overview (http:/ / www. getprimary. com/ tech_spec. html) does not mention QTI. [22] Diploma 6 (Windows) Release Notes (6.61 (Build 0087 - 8/8/2008)) (http:/ / www. brownstone. net/ support/ Dip6-ReleaseNotes. asp). Accessed March 30, 2009. [23] Dokeos code (no other reference available) (http:/ / dokeos. svn. sourceforge. net/ viewvc/ dokeos/ trunk/ dokeos/ main/ exercice/ export/ ) [24] e-teach: (http:/ / www. e-teach. ch/ qplayer. php). Accessed nov. 07, 2010. [25] it's learning: Importing and exporting (https:/ / www. itslearning. com/ Ntt/ Help/ en-GB/ Default_Left. htm#StartTopic=Adding). Accessed June 19, 2009. [26] ILIAS France (http:/ / ilias-france. info/ ilias. htm). Accessed March 30, 2009. [27] Lectora X New Features (http:/ / www. trivantis. com/ uk/ lectora-pro-suite?quicktabs_tab=features). Accessed July 29, 2010. [28] Lectora Supports eLearning Standards (http:/ / www. trivantis. com/ products/ elearningstandards. html). Accessed July 29, 2010. [29] Mathqurate: Maths-enabled QTI-2.1 item authoring (http:/ / aqurate. kingston. ac. uk/ mathqurate/ ). Accessed April 3, 2009. [30] Development:Question engine - MoodleDocs (http:/ / docs. moodle. org/ en/ Question_engine). Accessed March 30, 2009. [31] OLAT Feature List and Some Screenshots (http:/ / www. olat. org/ website/ en/ html/ about_features. html). Accessed March 30, 2009. [32] Onyx Testsuite (http:/ / onyx. bps-system. de/ ). Accessed October 07, 2010 (in German). [33] Onyx Testsuite (http:/ / onyx. bps-system. de/ ). Accessed October 07, 2010 (in German). [34] OWL Test Conversion Service (http:/ / www. owlts. com/ test-conversion. html). Accessed March 30, 2009. [35] SourceForge.net: QTItools (http:/ / sourceforge. net/ projects/ qtitools/ ). Accessed March 30, 2009. [36] Paul Neve: " Spectatus - QTI 2.1 test authoring tool (http:/ / lists. ucles. org. uk/ public/ ims-qti/ 2010-February/ 001571. html)", IMS-QTI mailing list, February 26, 2010. Accessed April 14, 2010. [37] (http:/ / www. speedwell. co. uk/ page/ 13/ questionbank. htm). [38] Questionmark - Windows Based Authoring - Question Types (http:/ / www. questionmark. com/ us/ perception/ authoring_windows_qm_qtypes. aspx). Accessed March 30, 2009. [39] Publisher's Legacy Software Page (http:/ / www. questionwriter. com/ pricing/ custom-development. html). Accessed March 31, 2009. [40] Question Writer 2.0 Publisher Edition Manual (http:/ / downloads. centralquestion. com/ QuestionWriterManual. pdf). Accessed March 31, 2009. [41] Question Writer Blog Announcement (http:/ / www. questionwriterblog. com/ archives/ 2009/ 05/ question_writer_34. html). Accessed May 18, 2009. [42] Question Writer Features Description (http:/ / www. questionwriter. com/ features. html). Accessed May 18, 2009.

QTI
[43] Question Writer Blog Entry on Feature (http:/ / www. questionwriterblog. com/ archives/ 2009/ 06/ qti_for_pearson_vue. html). Accessed July 29, 2009. [44] Respondus Plug-in for Moodle (http:/ / www. respondus. com/ update/ 2007-11-c. shtml). Accessed March 30, 2009. [45] The Respondus Version 3.5 page (http:/ / www. respondus. com/ products/ respondus. shtml) does not mention the QTI version. [46] RM: Test Authoring System (http:/ / www. rm. com/ generic. asp?cref=GP1002551). Accessed March 31, 2009. [47] Sakai: SAMigo/Test and Quizzes (http:/ / bugs. sakaiproject. org/ confluence/ display/ SAM/ Home). Accessed March 30, 2009. [48] SToMP: An Overview (http:/ / www. stomp. ac. uk/ ). Accessed March 31, 2009. [49] Studywiz QT Assessment (http:/ / www. europe. studywiz. com/ ?page_id=72). Accessed April 03, 2009. [50] Wimba Create Brochure (http:/ / www. wimba. com/ assets/ resources/ wimbaCrBrochure_HE. pdf). Accessed March 30, 2009. [51] (http:/ / code. google. com/ p/ qtimigration/ ). Accessed November 28, 2011.

31

External links
IMS Global Learning Consortium: IMS Question & Test Interoperability Specification (http://www.imsglobal. org/question) TOIA (Technologies for Online Interoperable Assessment) (http://www.toia.ac.uk) - this project ended in 2007 and software is no longer available. QTI Tools (http://www.qtitools.org/) JISC CETIS Assessment special interest group (http://jisc.cetis.ac.uk/domain/assessment) JISC CETIS wiki: Assessment tools, projects and resources (http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/ Assessment_tools,_projects_and_resources) IMS Question & Test Interoperability mailing list (http://lists.ucles.org.uk/lists/listinfo/ims-qti)

Content package
A content package is a file containing content and metadata. A content package is used in e-learning to define some learning content or an assessment that can be delivered, for example by a Learning Management System. It's a standard way of describing learning content that can be read by many programs. The most widely used content packaging format is that defined by IMS Global, which uses an XML manifest file called imsmanifest.xml wrapped up inside a zip file. The learning content itself is either included in the zip file if it is HTML or other media that can run on its own, or else is referenced as a URL from within the manifest. The IMS format was used by SCORM to define their packaging format, and typically every SCORM content object (SCO) is defined by a content package. The AICC also define a content package format for material that can be called by the widely used AICC HACP standard. Their format consists of four comma separated ASCII files that define details about the learning content including a URL.

Content package

32

External links
AICC website [1] IMS Content Packaging [2]

References
[1] http:/ / www. aicc. org [2] http:/ / www. imsglobal. org/ content/ packaging/

Learning object metadata

Learning Object Metadata is a data model, usually encoded in XML, used to describe a learning object and similar digital resources used to support learning. The purpose of learning object metadata is to support the reusability of learning objects, to aid discoverability, and to facilitate their interoperability, usually in the context of online learning management systems (LMS).

A schematic representation of the hierarchy of elements in the LOM data model

The IEEE 1484.12.1 2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata is an internationally-recognised open standard (published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association, New York) for the description of learning objects. Relevant attributes of learning objects to be described include: type of object; author; owner; terms of distribution; format; and pedagogical attributes, such as teaching or interaction style.

IEEE 1484.12.1 2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata

In brief
The IEEE working group that developed the standard defined learning objects, for the purposes of the standard, as being any entity, digital or non-digital, that may be used for learning, education or training." This definition has struck many commentators as being rather broad in its scope, but the definition was intended to provide a broad class of objects to which LOM metadata might usefully be associated rather than to give an instructional or pedagogic definition of a learning object. IEEE 1484.12.1 is the first part of a multipart standard, and describes the LOM data model. The LOM data model specifies which aspects of a learning object should be described and what vocabularies may be used for these descriptions; it also defines how this data model can be amended by additions or constraints. Other parts of the standard are being drafted to define bindings of the LOM data model, i.e. define how LOM records should be represented in XML and RDF (IEEE 1484.12.3 and IEEE 1484.12.4 respectively). This article focuses on the LOM data model rather than issues relating to XML or other bindings. IMS Global Learning Consortium is an international consortium that contributed to the drafting of the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (together with the ARIADNE Foundation [1]) and endorsed early drafts of the data model as part of the IMS Learning Resource Meta-data specification (IMS LRM, versions 1.0 1.2.2). Feedback and suggestions from the implementers of IMS LRM fed into the further development of the LOM, resulting in some drift between version 1.2 of the IMS LRM specification and what was finally published at the LOM standard.

Learning object metadata Version 1.3 of the IMS LRM specification realigns the IMS LRM data model with the IEEE LOM data model and specifies that the IEEE XML binding should be used. Thus, we can now use the term 'LOM' in referring to both the IEEE standard and version 1.3 of the IMS specification. The IMS LRM specification also provides an extensive Best Practice and Implementation Guide, and an XSL transform that can be used to migrate metadata instances from the older versions of the IMS LRM XML binding to the IEEE LOM XML binding.

33

Technical details
How the data model works
The LOM comprises a hierarchy of elements. At the first level, there are nine categories, each of which contains sub-elements; these sub-elements may be simple elements that hold data, or may themselves be aggregate elements, which contain further sub-elements. The semantics of an element are determined by its context: they are affected by the parent or container element in the hierarchy and by other elements in the same container. For example, the various Description elements (1.4, 5.10, 6.3, 7.2.2, 8.3 and 9.3) each derive their context from their parent element. In addition, description element 9.3 also takes its context from the value of element 9.1 Purpose in the same instance of Classification. The data model specifies that some elements may be repeated either individually or as a group; for example, although the elements 9.3 (Description) and 9.1 (Purpose) can only occur once within each instance of the Classification container element, the Classification element may be repeated - thus allowing many descriptions for different purposes. The data model also specifies the value space and datatype for each of the simple data elements. The value space defines the restrictions, if any, on the data that can be entered for that element. For many elements, the value space allows any string of Unicode character to be entered, whereas other elements entries must be drawn from a declared list (i.e. a controlled vocabulary) or must be in a specified format (e.g. date and language codes). Some element datatypes simply allow a string of characters to be entered, and others comprise two parts, as described below: LangString items contain Language and String parts, allowing the same information to be recorded in multiple languages Vocabulary items are constrained in such a way that their entries have to be chosen from a controlled list of terms - composed of Source-Value pairs - with the Source containing the name of the list of terms being used and the Value containing the chosen term DateTime and Duration items contain one part that allows the date or duration to be given in a machine readable format, and a second that allows a description of the date or duration (for example mid summer, 1968). When implementing the LOM as a data or service provider, it is not necessary to support all the elements in the data model, nor need the LOM data model limit the information which may be provided. The creation of an application profile allows a community of users to specify which elements and vocabularies they will use. Elements from the LOM may be dropped and elements from other metadata schemas may be brought in; likewise, the vocabularies in the LOM may be supplemented with values appropriate to that community.

Learning object metadata

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Requirements
The key requirements for exploiting the LOM as a data or service provider are to: Understand user/community needs and to express these as an application profile Have a strategy for creating high quality metadata Store this metadata in a form which can be exported as LOM records Agree a binding for LOM instances when they are exchanged Be able to exchange records with other systems either as single instances or en masse.

Related specifications
There are many metadata specifications; of particular interest is the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (commonly known as Simple Dublin Core, standardised as ANSI/NISO Z39.85 2001), which provides a simpler, more loosely-defined set of elements with some overlap with the LOM, and which is useful for sharing metadata across a wide range of disparate services. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is also working on a set of terms which allow the Dublin Core Element Set to be used with greater semantic precision (Qualified Dublin Core). The Dublin Education Working Group aims to provide refinements of Dublin Core for the specific needs of the education community. Details of Dublin Core can be found at the Dublin Core website [2]. Many other education-related specifications allow for LO metadata to be embedded within XML instances, such as: describing the resources in an IMS Content Package or Resource List; describing the vocabularies and terms in an IMS VDEX (Vocabulary Definition and Exchange) file; and describing the question items in an IMS QTI (Question and Test Interoperability) file. Details of these can be found at the IMS Global website [3]. The IMS Vocabulary Definition and Exchange (VDEX) specification has a double relation with the LOM, since not only can the LOM provide metadata on the vocabularies in a VDEX instance, but VDEX can be used to describe the controlled vocabularies which are the value space for many LOM elements. LOM records can be transported between systems using a variety of protocols, perhaps the most widely used being OAI-PMH.

Application profiles
UK LOM Core For UK Further and Higher Education, the most relevant family of application profiles are those based around the UK LOM Core [4] . The UK LOM Core is currently a draft schema researched by a community of practitioners to identify common UK practice in learning object content, by comparing 12 metadata schemas. UK LOM is currently legacy work, it is not in active development. CanCore CanCore provides detailed guidance for the interpretation and implementation of each data element in the LOM standard.[5] These guidelines constitute a 250-page document, and have been developed over three years under the leadership of Norm Friesen, and through consultation with experts across Canada and throughout the world. These guidelines are also available at no charge from the CanCore Website [6].

Learning object metadata ANZ-LOM ANZ-LOM [7] is a metadata profile developed for the education sector in Australia and New Zealand. The profile provides interpretations of metadata structures and illustrates how to apply controlled vocabularies, especially using the "classification" element. It is supported by detailed examples of learning resource metadata, including regional vocabularies. The ANZ-LOM profile was first published by The Le@rning Federation (TLF) in January, 2008. Vetadata The Australian Vocational Training and Education (VET) sector uses an application profile of the IEEE LOM called Vetadata [8]. The profile contains five mandatory elements, and makes use of a number of vocabularies specific to the Australian VET sector. This application profile was first published in 2005. The Vetadata and ANZ-LOM profiles are closely aligned. NORLOM NORLOM [9] is the Norwegian LOM profile. The profile is managed by NSSL Standardization of Learning Technologies) ISRACore ISRACORE [11] is the Israeli LOM profile. The Israel Internet Association (ISOC-IL [12]) and Inter University Computational Center (IUCC [13]) have teamed up to manage and establish an e-learning objects database. SWE-LOM SWE-LOM [14] is the Swedish LOM profile that is managed by IML [15] at Ume University as a part of the work with the national standardization group TK450 at Swedish Standards Institute. TWLOM TWLOM [16] is the Taiwanese LOM profile that is managed by Industrial Development and Promotion of Archives and e-Learning Project [17] Others Other application profiles are those developed by the Celebrate project[18] and the metadata profile that is part of the SCORM reference model.[19]
[10]

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(The Norwegian Secretariat for

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] http:/ / www. ariadne-eu. org/ http:/ / dublincore. org/ http:/ / imsglobal. org/ http:/ / www. cetis. ac. uk/ profiles/ uklomcore Norm Friesen et al. (2003-01-20). "CanCore Guidelines: Introduction" (http:/ / cancore. athabascau. ca/ en/ guidelines. html). Athabasca University. . Retrieved 2009-02-23. [6] http:/ / cancore. athabascau. ca/ en/ [7] http:/ / www. thelearningfederation. edu. au/ metadata [8] http:/ / e-standards. flexiblelearning. net. au/ vetadata/ index. htm [9] http:/ / www. itu. no/ nssl/ NORLOM [10] http:/ / www. nssl. no [11] http:/ / www. iucc. ac. il/ lo/ repository_en. htm [12] http:/ / www. isoc. org. il/ [13] http:/ / www. iucc. ac. il/ [14] http:/ / www. swe-lom. se [15] http:/ / www. iml. umu. se [16] http:/ / standard. teldap. tw/ node/ 3

Learning object metadata

[17] http:/ / idp. ncu. edu. tw/ english/ [18] European Schoolnet, CELEBRATE Application Profile (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20071225053548/ http:/ / www. eun. org/ ww/ en/ pub/ celebrate_help/ application_profile. htm) (2003). [19] ADL, SCORM (http:/ / www. adlnet. gov/ capabilities/ scorm#tab-learn).

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External links
E-mail Lists
The CETIS Metadata and Digital Repository special interest group (http://metadata.cetis.ac.uk/) has two email lists: The SIG list (http://jiscmail/lists/CETIS-METADATA.html) will keep you up to date on all SIG activities and spec development related to metadata and digital repositories The LOM-cataloguing list (http://jiscmail/lists/LOM-CATALOGUING.html) is for queries relating to the creation and management of LOM descriptions.

Metadata Editors
Reload (http://www.reload.ac.uk/) includes an open-source editor for IMS LRM. Curriculum Online Tagging Tool (http://www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/SupplierCentre/taggingtool.htm) is used for creating metadata for online resource made available to schools in England. LomPad (https://sourceforge.net/projects/lompad/) Lompad is a metatagging tool for learning object. It is bilingual(Fr,En) supports the IEEE-lom spec and SCORM, CANCORE and Normetic profiles.

Repositories/Catalogues
Learning Resource Exchange (http://lreforschools.eun.org) is provided by European schoolnet together with 16 Ministries of Education from Europe. It offers almost 30 000 learning objects and assets, in more than 20 languages. Desire2Learn Learning Repository (http://www.desire2learn.com/learningrepository/) is a repository system with rich support for IEEE LOM, Dublin Core, CanCore, and other customisable and templatable profiles. It also supports harvesting of metadata from other repository/catalogue systems. It is used by hundreds of educational and commercial organisations. Intrallect intraLibrary (http://www.intrallect.com/products) is a commercial repository system, with rich support for the IEEE LOM, including customisable application profiles The Xtensis Open Architecture is a foundation for building customised learning object repository and learning content management systems. HarvestRoad Hive (http://www2.harvestroad.com.au/cgi-bin/hr/loadframes_tmp.cgi?lcms) is a commercial federated digital repository system (based out of Australia), i.e. it is designed share content across multiple repositories. The Jorum project (http://www.jorum.ac.uk) uses Intrallect intraLibrary (http://www.intrallect.com/ products) for its ongoing service. The National Learning Network, using Xtensis, is a UK repository of over 2000 learning objects, commissioned by Becta and the LSC. www.utdanning.no/laering (http://utdanning.no/laering/) (Norwegian), is a Norwegian repository under the Norwegian Ministry of Education. Over 5000 Learning objects Kursnavet (http://kursnavet.cfl.se) (Swedish), is a repository containing around 11 000 (2007) unique learning objects, free of use non-commersial. From the Swedish Agency for Flexible Learning, CFL (http://www.cfl.se). LearnAlberta.ca is a Canadian learning object repository maintained by Alberta Education, the Province of Alberta's education Ministry.

Learning object metadata The Learning Object Repository Network (http://lorn.flexiblelearning.net.au) (LORN) is Australia's national learning object repository network for the vocational education and training (VET) sector. It contains nearly 3000 learning objects. Agrega is Spain's national learning object repository network. It contains nearly 100.000 learning objects. Spindeln (http://itforpedagoger.skolverket.se/hitta_material/) (the Spider), is a Swedish learning object repository brokerage service that connects a number of Swedish LORs. Spindeln is provided by the Nat. Agency for Education. North Carolina Learning Object Repository - The k-20 learning object repository used by the State of North Carolina and managed by the North Carolina Community College System. EQUELLA ( www.equella.com (http://www.equella.com)) is a digital repository implemented by the editorial giant Pearson that integrates with various learning management systems, supports IMS packages and all metadata schemas including IEEE LOM.

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Resources on the Internet

(http://cancore.athabascau.ca/en/) is a thorough element-by-element guide to implementing the IEEE LOM. IMS Global Learning Consortium Learning resource meta-data specification (http://www.imsglobal.org/ metadata/). XML Binding Specification (http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/files/IEEE_1484_12_03_d8_submitted.pdf). Final draft for LOM standard (15 July 2002 / PDF) (http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/files/ LOM_1484_12_1_v1_Final_Draft.pdf). LOM Java API (http://sourceforge.net/projects/lom-j/). A mapping between the IEEE LOM and IMS Learning Resource Metadata (http://www.intrallect.com/support/ metadata/ims2lom_metadata_mapping.htm) Metadata? Thesauri? Taxonomies? Topic Maps! Making sense of it all (http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/ materials/tm-vs-thesauri.html)

Learning management system

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Learning management system

A learning management system (commonly abbreviated as LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content. A robust LMS should be able to do the following:[1] centralize and automate administration use self-service and self-guided services assemble and deliver learning content rapidly consolidate training initiatives on a scalable web-based platform support portability and standards personalize content and enable knowledge reuse.

LMSs range from systems for managing training and educational records, to software for distributing courses over the Internet with features for online collaboration. Corporate training use LMSs to automate record-keeping and employee registration. Student self-service (e.g., self-registration on instructor-led training), training workflow (e.g., user notification, manager approval, wait-list management), the provision of on-line learning (e.g., Computer-Based Training, read & understand), on-line assessment, management of continuous professional education (CPE), collaborative learning (e.g., application sharing, discussion threads), and training resource management (e.g., instructors, facilities, equipment), are dimensions to Learning Management Systems. Some LMSs are Web-based to facilitate access to learning content and administration. LMSs are used by regulated industries (e.g. financial services and biopharma) for compliance training. They are also used by educational institutions to enhance and support classroom teaching and offering courses to a larger population of learners across the globe. Some LMS providers include "performance management systems", which encompass employee appraisals, competency management, skills-gap analysis, succession planning, and multi-rater assessments (i.e., 360 degree reviews). Modern techniques now employ Competency-based learning to discover learning gaps and guide training material selection. For the commercial market, some Learning and Performance Management Systems include recruitment and reward functionality.

Characteristics
LMSs cater to educational, administrative, and deployment requirements. While an LMS for corporate learning, for example, may share many characteristics with a VLE, or virtual learning environment, used by educational institutions, they each meet unique needs. The virtual learning environment used by universities and colleges allow instructors to manage their courses and exchange information with students for a course that in most cases will last several weeks and will meet several times during those weeks. In the corporate setting a course may be much shorter in length, completed in a single instructor-led event or online session. The characteristics shared by both types of LMSs include: Manage users, roles, courses, instructors, facilities, and generate reports Course calendar Learning Path Student messaging and notifications Assessment and testing handling before and after testing

Display scores and transcripts Grading of coursework and roster processing, including wait listing Web-based or blended course delivery

Learning management system Characteristics more specific to corporate learning, which sometimes includes franchisees or other business partners, include: Auto enrollment (enrolling Students in courses when required according to predefined criteria, such as job title or work location) Manager enrollment and approval Boolean definitions for prerequisites or equivalencies Integration with performance tracking and management systems Planning tools to identify skill gaps at departmental and individual level Curriculum, required and elective training requirements at an individual and organizational level Grouping students according to demographic units (geographic region, product line, business size, etc.) Assign corporate and partner employees to more than one job title at more than one demographic unit

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Technical aspects
Most LMSs are web-based, built using a variety of development platforms, like Java/J2EE, Microsoft .NET or PHP. They usually employ the use of a database like MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle as back-end. Although most of the systems are commercially developed and have commercial software licenses there are several systems that have an open-source license.

Learning content management system (LCMS)

A learning content management system (LCMS) is a related technology to the learning management system in that it is focused on the development, management and publishing of the content that will typically be delivered via an LMS. An LCMS is a multi-user environment where developers may create, store, reuse, manage, and deliver digital learning content from a central object repository. The LMS cannot create and manipulate courses; it cannot reuse the content of one course to build another. The LCMS, however, can create, manage and deliver not only training modules but also manage and edit all the individual pieces that make up a catalog of training. LCMS applications allow users to create, import, manage, search for and reuse small units or "chunks" of digital learning content and assets, commonly referred to as learning objects. These assets may include media files developed in other authoring tools, assessment items, simulations, text, graphics or any other object that makes up the content within the course being created. An LCMS manages the process of creating, editing, storing and delivering e-learning content, ILT materials and other training support deliverables such as job aids. LCMS have the ability to assemble and consolidate learning objects into lengthier "learning paths" or learning experiences that are personalized to a learner's profile, job description, assessment results, or requests. [2] By separating Content, Style, and Flow, and integrating extensibility, an extended Learning Content Management System allows courseware authors to leverage their learning content and present it in countless different ways for a wide variety of target platforms and in a remarkably short timeframe.1 Drawbacks to Learning Management Systems Certain learning tasks are well suited for an LMS (centralized functions like learner administration and content management). Learning itself is different - it is not a process to be managed. Learning is by nature multi-faceted and chaotic. Organizations that now lock into enterprise-level systems will be able to do an excellent job of delivering courses. They won't, however, be positioning themselves well for informal learning, performance support, or knowledge management. The concept is simple: one tool can't do it all without losing functionality. The more feature-rich an individual tool becomes, the more it loses its usefulness to the average user. Connected specialization, modularization, and decentralization are learning foundations capable of adjusting to varied information climate changes.2

Learning management system

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Learning Management Systems compared to Learning Content Management Systems

Some systems have tools to deliver and manage instructor-led synchronous and asynchronous online training based on learning object methodology. These systems are called Learning Content Management Systems or LCMSs. LCMSs provide tools for authoring and reusing or re-purposing content (mutated learning objects, or MLOs) as well as virtual spaces for student interaction (such as discussion forums, live chat rooms and live web-conferences). Despite this distinction, the term LMS is often used to refer to both an LMS and an LCMS, although the LCMS is a further development of the LMS. Due to this conformity issue, the acronym CLCIMS (Computer Learning Content Information Management System) is now widely used to create a uniform phonetic way of referencing any learning system software based on advanced learning technology methodology. In essence, an LMS is software for planning, delivering, and managing learning events within an organization, including online, virtual classroom, and instructor-led courses. For example, an LMS can simplify global certification efforts, enable entities to align learning initiatives with strategic goals, and provide a means of enterprise-level skills management. The focus of an LMS is to manage students, keeping track of their progress and performance across all types of training activities. It performs administrative tasks, such as reporting to instructors, HR and other ERP systems but isnt used to create course content. By contrast, an LCMS is software for managing learning content across an organization's various training development areas. It provides developers, authors, instructional designers, and subject matter experts the means to create and re-use e-learning content and reduce duplicated development efforts. In the remote AICC hosting approach, an LCMS may host the content in a central repository and allow multiple LMSs to access it. Primary business problems an LCMS solves are centralized management of an organization's learning content for efficient searching and retrieval, productivity gains around rapid and condensed development timelines, productivity gains around assembly, maintenance and publishing / branding / delivery of learning content. Criticism of LMS is that it is not content centric. in this sense the technology is used for organizational control rather than the empowerment of the learner. The platform is usually poor in its content, and is part of a hierarchical bureaucratic (Max Weber) rather than socially oriented system. A/R/D/T is a term referring to its implementation in complex organizations sometimes replacing regular web sites Rather than developing entire courses and adapting them to multiple audiences, an LCMS provides the ability for single course instances to be modified and republished for various audiences maintaining versions and history. The objects stored in the centralized repository can be made available to course developers and content experts throughout an organization for potential reuse and repurpose. This eliminates duplicate development efforts and allows for the rapid assembly of customized content. To look at this another way, an LMS is learnercentric. It focuses on e-learning process management and content delivery. In essence, an LMS is software for planning, delivering and managing learning events within an organization, including online, virtual classroom, and instructor-led courses. For example, an LMS can simplify global certification efforts, enable entities to align learning initiatives with strategic goals and provide a means for enterprise-level skills management. The focus of an LMS is to manage students, keeping track of their progress and performance across all types of training activities. It performs administrative tasks, such as reporting to instructors, HR and other ERP systems but it isnt used to create course content. An LCMS is contentcentric. Here, the focus is on the authoring and management of e-learning reusable content. By contrast, LCMS solutions are ideally suited to create content-centric learning strategies, supporting multiple methods for gathering and organizing content, leveraging content for multiple purposes, and operation for mission critical purposes. LCMS technology can either be used in tandem with an LMS, or as a standalone application for learning initiatives that require rapid development and distribution of learning content.

Learning management system Rather than developing entire courses and adapting them to multiple audiences, an LCMS is designed for managing learning content across an organization's various training development areas. It provides developers, authors, instructional designers, and subject matter experts the means to create and re-use e-learning content and reduce duplicated development efforts. An LCMS provides the ability for single course instances to be modified and republished for various audiences maintaining versions and history. The objects stored in the centralized repository can be made available to course developers and content experts throughout an organization for potential reuse and repurpose. This allows for the rapid assembly of customized content. In addition, Brandon Hall believes that: when LCMS technology is appropriately applied and matched to an orchestrated e-learning strategy, with a complete instructional design plan for designing and using learning objects, great efficiencies can and will be achieved, such as: The ability to make instantaneous, company-wide changes to critical learning content Rapid and productive content development efforts Seamless collaboration among subject matter experts and course designers The ability to create multiple, derivative versions of content applicable to different audiences from senior management to line-level workers Access to find and reuse learning content, just-in-time and just enough Ultimate reusability of content by making it available through a wide array of output types such as structured e-learning courses, CD-ROM courses, learning material available from a Palm device or PocketPC, print-based learning for use in classroom settings, and so on.

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Learning management industry

In the relatively new LMS market, commercial vendors for corporate and education applications range from new entrants to those that entered the market in the nineties. In addition to commercial packages, many open source solutions are available. LMSs represent an $860 million market, made up of more than 60 different providers. The six largest LMS product companies constitute approximately 50% of the market. In addition to the remaining smaller LMS product vendors, training outsourcing firms, enterprise resource planning vendors, and consulting firms all compete for part of the learning management market. Approximately 40 percent of U.S. training organizations reported that they have an LMS installed, a figure that has not changed significantly over the past two years. The small business market offers the greatest opportunity for growth, as only 36 percent of these companies are using an LMS. Many of these businesses would like a low-cost, easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain system but, as yet, they are not willing to make the commitment. An LMS is still a nontrivial investment in money and resources.[3] According to a 2009 report by American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) 91 percent of ASTD respondents are using LMS's in their organizations, with more than half purchasing rather than building their systems, and one-fifth of respondents opting to go with a hosted platform. And whether built or bought, the majority of respondents are satisfied with their current LMS, with 22.2 percent very satisfied, 31.1 percent satisfied, and 25.6 percent somewhat satisfied. Still, some 13.3 said they were unsatisfied, and 8.8 said they were very unsatisfied.[4] Most buyers of LMSs utilize an authoring tool to create their e-learning content, which is then hosted on an LMS. In many cases LMSs include a primitive authoring tool for basic content manipulation. For advanced content creation buyers must choose an authoring software that integrates with their LMS in order for their content to be hosted. There are authoring tools on the market, which meet AICC and SCORM standards and therefore content created in tools such as these can be hosted on an AICC or SCORM certified LMS. By May 2010, ADL had validated 301 SCORM-certified products [5] while 329 products were compliant.[6]

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Trends
Another upcoming trend in this technology is Channel Learning where organizations are sharing online contents and learning from their partner firms. According to a survey by trainingindustry.com, for many buyers channel learning is not their number one priority, but often there is a gap when the HR department oversees training and development initiatives, where the focus is consolidated inside traditional corporate boundaries. Software technology companies are at the front end of this curve, placing higher priority on channel trainings. Today the biggest trend in the e-learning market is for these systems to be integrated with Talent Management Systems'. A talent management software serves towards the process of recruiting, managing, assessing, developing and maintaining an organizations most important resources. Bersin research shows that in 2009 more than 70 percent of large companies have an LMS already and almost one third of these companies are considering replacing or upgrading these systems with integrated talent management systems.

References
[1] Ellis, Ryann K. (2009), Field Guide to Learning Management Systems (http:/ / www. astd. org/ NR/ rdonlyres/ 12ECDB99-3B91-403E-9B15-7E597444645D/ 23395/ LMS_fieldguide_20091. pdf), ASTD Learning Circuits, [2] "Internet Time Group Learning Content Management Systems" (http:/ / internettime. com/ Learning/ lcms/ ). . [3] Bersin, Josh; Howard, Chris; OLeonard, Karen; Mallon, David (2009), Learning Management Systems 2009 (http:/ / www. bersin. com/ Lib/ Rs/ Details. aspx?docid=10339576), Bersin & Associates, [4] http:/ / www. astd. org/ LC/ 2009/ 0509_LMS2009. htm [5] http:/ / www. adlnet. gov/ Technologies/ scorm/ Custom%20Pages/ Certified%20Products. aspx [6] http:/ / www. adlnet. gov/ Technologies/ scorm/ Custom%20Pages/ SCORM%20Adopters. aspx

1 http:/ / www. learningsolutionsmag. com/ articles/ 771/ extended-learning-content-management, John DiGiantomasso, October 17, 2011 2 http:/ / www. elearnspace. org/ Articles/ lms. htm, Learning Management Systems: The wrong place to start learning, George Siemens, 2004

Bibliography
Expertus; TrainingOutsourcing (August 30, 2006), Survey 1: Channel Partner Training (http://www. trainingindustry.com/uploadedFiles/Our_Community/List_of_Sponsors/Elite_Sponsors/Expertus- Channel Partner Training Survey Results.pdf), Training Challenges Survey Series, conducted by Expertus and TrainingOutsourcing.com Levensaler, Leighanne; Laurano, Madeline (2009), Talent Management Systems 2010 (http://www.bersin.com/ Lib/Rs/Details.aspx?Docid=103311599), Bersin & Associates

External links
Free Software Directory: Education (Free Software Foundation) (http://directory.fsf.org/category/educ/)

List of learning management systems

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List of learning management systems

The following is a list of learning management systems.

Open source learning management systems

aTutor Canvas by Instructure Chamilo Claroline DoceboLMS Dokeos eFront Fedena ILIAS Moodle OLAT

Sakai WeBWorK

Proprietary learning management systems

Absorb LMS Alphastudy Blackboard Learning System CCNet CERTPOINT Systems Inc. Coggno Cornerstone OnDemand Desire2Learn DNDLearn eCollege GeoLearning GlobalScholar Glow (Scottish Schools National Intranet) Gyrus Systems HotChalk Informetica Intellum, Inc. iQpakk it's learning ITWorx CLG (Connected Learning Gateway) JoomlaLMS Learn.com LearnForce

Meridian Knowledge Solutions Plateau Systems QuestionMark

List of learning management systems Saba Software Sclipo SharePointLMS Skills Optimiser (eLearning Industry Association - "eLearning System of 2009") SSLearn Thinking Cap LMS Vitalect WebStudy Learning LMS see also Category:Learning management systems

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Historical
ANGEL Learning (acquired by Blackboard in May 2009) CourseInfo LLC WebCT (acquired by Blackboard in February 2006)

Authoring system
The "Intelligent tutoring system" research community uses the term authoring system to refer to a computer based system that allows a general group (including non-programmers) to create (or author) content for intelligent tutoring systems. While a few intelligent tutoring systems have been successfully created, they are very costly to construct. In the development of educational software, an Authoring System is a program that allows a non-programmer to easily create software with programming features. The programming features are built in but hidden behind buttons and other tools, so the author does not need to know how to program. Generally Authoring Systems provide lots of graphics, interaction, and other tools educational software needs. An authoring system usually includes an authoring language, a programming language built (or extended) with functionality for representing the tutoring system. The functionality offered by the authoring language may be programming functionality for use by programmers or domain representation functionality for use by subject experts. There is overlap between authoring languages with domain representation functionality and domain-specific languages. While true Authoring Systems, with easy, effective use by a domain area specialist like an English teacher, may be few and far between, many educators can and do use commercial products such as Adobe's Dreamweaver and Flash, and Microsoft's Power Point to create tutorials for their students.

Authoring tool
An authoring tool is a software package which developers use to create and package content deliverable to end users. Though authoring tools have a range of uses, they are commonly used to create e-learning modules. These modules are generally written to conform to some international standard, such as SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) or AICC (CBT) (Aviation Industry CBT Committee). Distribution of content created with authoring tools also varies. Distribution methods include: web, kiosk, interactive CD-ROM, and executable file. Since the term is somewhat general, many programs can be considered authoring tools, including Flash, and PowerPoint. However, only a small group of programs specifically include support for e-learning content standards including e2train Composica, Macromedia (Adobe) Authorware, Director, Mohive, Lectora, Composer FX, and iSpring Presenter.

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Concepts
Online learning community
An online learning community is a public or private destination on the Internet that addresses the learning needs of its members by facilitating peer-to-peer learning. Through social networking and computer-mediated communication, people work as a community to achieve a shared learning objective. Learning objectives may be proposed by the community owner or may arise out of discussions between participants that reflect personal interests. In an online learning community, people share knowledge via textual discussion (synchronous or asynchronous), audio, video, or other Internet-supported mediums. Blogs blend personal journaling with social networking to create environments with opportunities for reflection. Much literature promotes online learning communities as environments conducive to communities of practice as described by Etienne Wenger. eTwinning is a European online community operated by European schoolnet comprising more than 50,000 registered teachers.

Categories of online learning communities

Types of online learning communities include e-learning communities (groups interact and connect solely via technology) and blended learning communities (groups utilize face-to-face meetings as well as online meetings). Based on Riel and Pollin (2004), intentional online learning communities may be categorized as knowledge-based, practice-based, and task-based. Online learning communities may focus on personal aspects, process, or technology. They may use technology and tools in many categories: synchronous (such as instant messaging) asynchronous (such as message boards and Internet forums) blogs (such as Blogger_(service)) course management (such as , Dokeos, eFront, Claroline, Moodle, Chamilo or Lectureshare) collaborative (such as wikis) social networking (such as Del.icio.us and Flickr) social learning

References
Barab, S.; Duffy, T. (2000). "From Practice Fields to Communities of Practice" [1]. D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.), Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments. LEA. Bryant, S. L., Forte, A., & Bruckman, A. (2005). Becoming Wikipedian: transformation of participation in a collaborative online encyclopedia. Conference on Supporting Group Work. Proceedings of the 2005 international ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work, Florida. Hill, J., Raven A., (2000) ITFORUM PAPER #46 - Online Learning Communities: If You Build Them, Will They Stay? Posted on ITFORUM October 10, 2000 - http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper46/paper46.htm. Kaplan, S. (2002). Building Communities -- Strategies for Collaborative Learning, ASTD's Source for E-Learning - http://www.astd.org/LC/2002/0802_kaplan.htm Resta, P & LaFerriere, T. (2007). Technology in Support of Collaborative Learning, Educational Psychology Review, 19:6583.

Online learning community Riel, M., & Polin, L. (2004). Online learning communities: Common ground and critical differences in designing technical environments. In Barab, R. Kling & J. Gray H. (Eds.), Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning (pp.1650). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, Etienne (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity [2]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-66363-2.

46

References
[1] http:/ / inkido. indiana. edu/ research/ onlinemanu/ papers/ commun. pdf [2] http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=heBZpgYUKdAC

Virtual learning environment

Defined largely by usage, the term virtual learning environment (VLE) has most, if not all, of the following salient properties: It is Web-based It uses Web 2.0 tools for rich 2-way interaction It includes a content management system It models real-world education by integrating a set of equivalent virtual concepts for tests, homework, classes, classrooms, etc., and perhaps even museums and other external academic resources Virtual learning environments are frequently utilized in distance learning, but they may be used equally well when integrated with a physical learning environment.[1]

Overview
A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a set of teaching and learning tools designed to enhance a student's learning experience by including computers and the Internet in the learning process. The principal components of a VLE package include curriculum mapping (breaking curriculum into sections that can be assigned and assessed), student tracking, online support for both teacher and student, electronic communication (e-mail, threaded discussions, chat, Web publishing), and Internet links to outside curriculum resources. A student will normally work over the Internet and a VLE provides a collection of tools such as those for assessment (particularly of types that can be marked automatically, such as multiple choice), communication, uploading of content, return of students' work, peer assessment, administration of student groups, collecting and organizing student grades, questionnaires, tracking tools, etc. New features in these systems include wikis, blogs, RSS and 3D virtual learning spaces. VLEs are often used in schools and other educational establishments in order to make the learning experience more interactive. While originally created for distance education, VLEs are now most often used to supplement traditional face to face classroom activities, commonly known as Blended Learning. These systems usually run on servers, to serve the course to students Multimedia and/or web pages. In some programs, such as Elluminate, a virtual learning environment can be similar to a face-to-face classroom environment in that it allows direct communication with the teacher. Students can use emoticons to raise their hand, show that they are confused, show that they understand what the teacher is saying, and even give applause for something that the teacher says. Students are also able to talk to the teacher when called on. In many of these virtual learning environments the students are able to write on the virtual classroom chalkboard. This allows them to show their work for the rest of the class to see. Students can also be split up into groups in order to work with each other and discuss topics that the teacher introduces. Many virtual learning environments give teachers the ability to share

Virtual learning environment multimedia files such as video and audio files as well as the ability to transfer important documents (Word, PDF,etc.) directly to students. In 'Virtually There', a book and DVD pack given out freely to schools by the Yorkshire and Humber Grid for Learning Foundation (YHGfL), Professor Stephen Heppell writes in the foreword: "Learning is breaking out of the narrow boxes that it was trapped in during the 20th century; teachers' professionalism, reflection and ingenuity are leading learning to places that genuinely excite this new generation of connected young school students and their teachers too. VLEs are helping to make sure that their learning is not confined to a particular building, or restricted to any single location or moment."[2]

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Similar terms
A VLE is a computer program that facilitates computerized learning or e-learning. Such e-learning systems are sometimes also called Learning Management System (LMS), Content Management System (CMS), Learning Content Management System (LCMS), Managed Learning Environment (MLE), Learning Support System (LSS), Online Learning Centre (OLC), OpenCourseWare (OCW), or Learning Platform (LP); it is education via computer-mediated communication (CMC) or Online Education. A more correct term may be a virtual environment for learning, rather than virtual learning environment. This removes any ambiguities and identifies that it is the environment which is virtual and not the learning. The term virtual may also contribute to confusion, suggesting that the learning is not real or authentic. In the United States, CMS and LMS are the more common terms, however LMS is more frequently associated with software for managing corporate training programs rather than courses in traditional education institutions. In the United Kingdom and many European countries, the terms VLE and MLE are favored; however, it is important to realize that these are two very different things. A VLE can be considered a subsystem of an MLE, whereas MLE refers to the wider infrastructure of information systems in an organization that support and enable electronic learning on a wider scale. In fact a rather pedantic reading of the term MLE could be extended to encompass the physical environment in which learning takes place (i.e. a school). Also the use of VLE avoids confusion with the use of LMS to mean "Library Management System" (which is more commonly referred to as Integrated Library System, or ILS, in the United States). Becta, in the UK, have coined the term learning platform to cover both MLE and VLE as used in the schools sector. 'The term learning platform describes a broad range of ICT systems used to deliver and support learning. Through a learning platform, hardware, software and supporting services are brought together to enable more effective ways of working within and outside the classroom. At the heart of any learning platform is the concept of a personalized online learning space for the pupil. Action research case studies were compiled during a four year ICT Test Bed project between 2002 and 2006.'[3] This space should offer teachers and pupils access to stored work, e-learning resources, communication and collaboration with peers, and the facility to track progress.'[4] . Many local education authorities have their own version such as the Newcastle VTLE, or the Durham Learning Gateway. These can be accessed by children either through a webpage such as[5] or link on school websites.[6]

Virtual learning environment

48

Facilities
A VLE should make it possible for a course designer to present to students, through a single, consistent, and intuitive interface, all the components required for a course of education or training. Although logically it is not a requirement, in practice VLEs always make extensive use of computers and the Internet. A VLE should implement all the following elements: The syllabus for the course Administrative information including the location of sessions, details of pre-requisites and co-requisites, credit information, and how to get help A notice board for up-to-date course information Student registration and tracking facilities, if necessary with payment options Basic teaching materials. These may be the complete content of the course, if the VLE is being used in a distance learning context, or copies of visual aids used in lectures or other classes where it is being used to support a campus-based course. Additional resources, including reading materials, and links to outside resources in libraries and on the Internet. Self-assessment quizzes which can be scored automatically Formal assessment procedures Electronic communication support including e-mail, threaded discussions and a chat room, with or without a moderator Differential access rights for instructors and students Production of documentation and statistics on the course in the format required for institutional administration and quality control All these facilities should be capable of being hyperlinked together Easy authoring tools for creating the necessary documents including the insertion of hyperlinks - though it is acceptable (arguably, preferable) for the VLE to be designed allowing standard word processors or other office software to be used for authoring. In addition, the VLE should be capable of supporting numerous courses, so that students and instructors in a given institution (and, indeed, across institutions) experience a consistent interface when moving from one course to another.

Popularity
Universities and other institutions of higher and further education are increasingly turning to VLEs in order to: Economize on the time of teaching staff, especially when they are also involved in research and administration. The extent of the economy over traditional "talk-and-chalk" teaching is not yet clear, but for instructors without web development expertise, using a VLE absorbs less time and produces a more professional result. Provide a service for students who increasingly look to the internet as the natural medium for finding information and resources.

Open University Support System

Ensure that quality control requirements are met by providing a standard vehicle for collecting the required information Facilitate the integration of distance and campus-based learning or of learning on different campuses.

Virtual learning environment For example, accredited institutions such as Chapman College University, Touro University, and Adams State College offer online, on-demand teacher training courses for educators to earn graduate credit and/or masters degrees.[7] In the UK schools are being encouraged to make use of learning platforms. The DCSF in the UK government has published an eStrategy[8] outlining priorities that include every learner in schools having access to an online learning space and e-portfolio.[9] Virtual learning environments also have become popular among younger students. Pennsylvania has a number of cyber charter schools available to offer students a choice in their education. The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School is the largest one in Pennsylvania with an enrollment of 10,000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.[10] . PA Cyber students can create a schedule of virtual (synchronous) and self paced (asynchronous) courses.[11] VLEs (also known as Virtual Learning Environments) continue to climb in the K-12 community and UK schools, such Ouston Junior School that uses the Durham Learning Gateway. The advantage of this educational tool raises its popularity daily because of the following: Accessibility- If taking an Asynchronous curriculum, student has the availability to access the course after office hours. For Synchronous & Asynchronous instruction, the student has the flexibility of being in the safety of their own home. Interactivity- There is much evidence to show that students benefit from actively engaging with their course[12] . More specifically, the advantages relate to feedback, practice and customization. Communication-This element is must be increased in a VLE. It helps the student to feel part of a learning community. Tools used are bulletin boards, being able to play-back a session, chatting, email, and instruction & announcements are current due to the live instructor.[13]

49

Transferring course content

Most VLEs support Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) as a standard way to upload, launch and track courses. There are no commonly used standards that define how the learner's performance within a course should be transferred from one VLE to another. Some institutions have attempted to combat this problem by agreeing to share content through open standards, such as those defined by the IMS Global Consortium. Local bodies such as in the schools sector in the UK the DCSF via Becta have additionall defined a learning platform "conformance framework" to encourage interoperability.[14] Virtual Learning Environments are not limited only to students and learners in graduate level studies. There are many virtual learning environments being created at all times, especially due to the increased popularity of online public education for students in grades k-12. One example of a virtual learning environment for some of the youngest learners is coined with the name: Little Lincoln. "Little Lincoln is an interactive and engaging standards-based curriculum that combines rich multimedia with comprehensive offline activities. Little Lincoln is currently offered for Early Kindergarten, Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade students. Little Lincoln Third Grade will be available for the 2011-2012 academic year."[15] This online learning environment allows for the students to utilize innovative technology while progressing through standards based curriculum. It is just one of many virtual learning environments available at this time. The growth of online learning environments continues to grow as students in PA continue to choose charter schools. There appear to be a variety of reasons as to why students are choosing cyber school over traditional brick and mortar schools. The reasons vary from peer pressure to the need for flexibility to health issues.

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Assessing Virtual Learning Environments

In 2005, Scott Walker and Barry Fraser developed a method of assessment for assessing the psychosocial impact of virtual learning environment. In order to constructed and develop the virtual learning environment as a viable means of education, educators must have a tool to use when researching the effectiveness of the virtual learning. This assessment tool, known as the Distance Education Learning Environment Survey (DELES) is accessible to students anywhere.[16] The survey covers the following criteria: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Instructor Support Student Interaction and Collaboration Personal Relevance Authentic Learning Active Learning Student Autonomy

The research of Harnish and Reeves focuses on the overall system of the virtual learning environment.[17] This systematic research is based on the following criteria: 1. Training 2. Implementation 3. System Usage 4. Communication 5. Support

Systems available
For those wishing to deliver elearning there are many free open source and proprietary VLEs available for use. On-demand elearning services are also a popular choice because they can be deployed in minutes and do not require instructors and institutions to run their own servers. Many VLEs are placed on a web server. In a typical VLE there are one or more programs or languages that provides the user (Teacher-Student) interface, and which interacts with a database. For example, a VLE might use PHP as its web language/program, with MySQL as a database. VLEs are increasingly found in new niches. These include new emerging technologies, as well as specialized markets. A VLE can be deployed on a USB drive as a child, which synchronizes from time to time with its web-based parent. VLEs can be used for training or in something as specialized as to meet ISO 9000 certification requirements.

Virtual world learning environments

Emerging technologies include Sloodle, a merge of Second Life and Moodle, which integrates virtual worlds and course management.[18] This early development approach hints at new options for enabling learning in a social, immersive, and interactive way. Another 3D virtual learning environment called Edusim brings a lessons driven 3D virtual environment to the classroom interactive whiteboard surface allowing the direct manipulation of 3D virtual objects. Umgumbo is an immersive 3D VLE set in a Newtonian simulation of the solar system. Still in development, Umgumbo will allow collaborative and interactive learning within personalized 3D spaces, including educational gaming, and is delivered from a single external website.

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Brain Based Learning and its application for the Virtual Learning Environment
Brain based learning or brain-compatible learning theory focuses on concepts that create an optimal learning environment to maximize attainment and retention of information. Successful application is dependent upon everyone involved in the learning process - online course developers, educators and student to understand the structure of the brain and focus on student learner's needs and styles to create brain based learning environments, materials and instruction in a fun, meaningful, personally enriching way.[19] Brain based learning is much better than traditional lecture techniques. However the teacher must be aware of how to implement the techniques into the online learning environment. Designers of educational tools must be artistic in their creation of brain-friendly environments. Instructors need to realize that the best way to learn is not through lecture, but by participation in realistic environments that let learners try new things safely.[20] [21]

Proper Ways of Using Brain Based Learning in the Virtual Classroom

Brain based learning is a topic that is challenging teachers, administrators, and neuroscientists to see what is best for students. By providing specific feedback, stimulating environments, and real life examples to students they will be more engaged and active in the classroom. A major proponent of virtual schools is that they provide students with an environment that is effective to them. Funderstanding states, Because every brain is different, educators should allow learners to customize their own environments (Funderstanding, 1998 - 2008).[22] By allowing the students and parents to choose the environment that is best for them. In addition, Crain states, Children who developed a firm sense of trust in their caretakers can afford to leave them and independently explore the environment (Crain, 1992). In the future, students will feel more comfortable to eventually leave their normal setting. Some students may be too nervous and anxious in a regular classroom so they are not learning. The virtual classrooms also provide more technology features than a traditional school setting. Nellie states, Technology can cater to these neuroscience brain-based findings in the computer lab as well as for online learning courses. Various Microsoft tools such as PowerPoint presentations, Excel, Word processor and other software with multimedia functions can be used by the teacher and students instead of using conventional outdated class tools (Nellie Deutsch, 2003). One specific example that can be used is a PowerPoint presentation for class. Creating an About Me lesson allows the students to express themselves through PowerPoint. By doing this the students were able to learn how to use PowerPoint to expand their learning.

Virtual Experiences in all Environments through Virtual Field Trips and Special Programs
Pearson states In today's cyberage, the Internet can extend the educational value of field trips to levels previously unimaginable. Virtual field tripsfield trips taken onlinecan take a student to locations too far away to travel to or too expensive to visit. Virtual field trips can take a student back in time, into outer space, or into the microscopic world.[23] Virtual learning is no longer just for students enrolled in online courses. Students who attend traditional brick & mortar schools also have the opportunity to learn virtually. Today traditional students utilize a number of Web 2.0 tools including Virtual Field Trips. Virtual Field Trips (VFTs) offer a Virtual Learning experience for all teaching environments. This is an ideal tool for online teachers and traditional teachers who are facing district budget cuts that simply do not allow for field trips. VTFs allow students to participate in a stimulating environment that applies the classroom learning to real-life experiences. VTFs allow teachers to break the restraints of the classroom walls and provide a stimulating environment to enhance learning that otherwise may not be achieved. Special programs can and often do enhance virtual learning environments. While learning virtually, there is still something that needs to be said for hands-on learning. These programs are as unique almost as customizable as the

Virtual learning environment school itself. Designed to foster interconnectivity among students and families while providing opportunities not traditionally found in public schools, special programs can challenge, entertain, and educate while fulfilling mandatory educational requirements. These programs include: High School Clubs, Family Link (a parent and student group that organizes events such as bowling nights, hayrides, mom's day out, movies, picnics, and coffee house nights just to name a few), PA Cyber ++ (for Art & Music outreach in the community), the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) Program, the STARR (Student Tasks of Academic Rigor and Responsibility) Program, Title I Coaching (a federally funded skills-based re-teaching) Program, and the Student Assistance Program (SAP). For more information on these programs in a specific cyber charter school, log onto PA Cyber's homepage.www.pacyber.org [24][25] The Student Assistance Program (SAP)www.sap.state.pa.us/ [26] is a program that collaborates with PA Department of Education, PA Department of Public Welfare, and the PA Department of Health to identifying and removing the social barriers of learning for students and their families. The primary goal is to resource and help the student overcome these barriers in order that they may achieve, remain in school, and advance. SAP consists of a specially trained team that identifies these barriers and makes the appropriate recommendations and resources available to the student and their family. The SAP program not only works with school based resources but community resources as well.[27]

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List of some virtual learning environments

Learning management systems
Cornerstone OnDemand - Learning and Talent Management Systems Alphastudy - a web and mobile enabled LMS Claroline Desire2Learn JoomlaLMS - a LMS based on Joomla platform LAMS - the Learning Activity Management System LearnForce - e3Learning learning management system RCampus - a course and ePortfolio management system Saba - learning management system and social learning SharePointLMS - a LMS based on MS SharePoint ITWorx_CLG Moodle

Course management systems

CCNet Coggno - e-learning software platform and courseware creation toolkit Blackboard Learning System

Free software and open source Course Management Systems

Chamilo Claroline Democrasoft Dokeos eFront

ILIAS Moodle

Virtual learning environment Sakai

53

Virtual learning environment

Alphastudy - Learning and knowledge portals Moodle - An open source (free) modular php virtual learning software Blackboard - A family of virtual learning software Democrasoft - Collaborize Classroom - A free online learning platform for teachers and students CyberExtension - Virtual Managed Learning Environment Desire2Learn - A suite of learning software Elluminate Live - An interactive classroom environment FirstClass - Messaging and communications solution Heritage Key Virtual historical environments, such as Tutankhamuns tomb. Instructure - A full-featured, open-source learning platform itslearning - Norwegian Learning Environment, delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS), market leader in Norway, Sweden and UK. Mingoville - Introduction to the English language. Age 8 to 12 (Virtual World and Language games) RCampus A Learning and ePortfolio Management System with both personal and institutional access Saba Centra - Part of a Human Capital Development System with Social Learning and Realtime Collaboration capabilities SpicyNodes - Create and share radial maps (related to concept maps and mind maps) WebCT - (Now a part of Blackboard) Software applications designed to enhance teaching and learning WebTrain - Virtual live classes, enrollment, attendance, attention monitoring. School VLE - Managed Virtual Learning Environment for Primary Schools

Other descriptions
Apex Learning - K-12 online course service and AP test study ATutor - LCMS Dokeos - elearning and course management web application eCollege - comprehensive eLearning solution Pass-port - a commercial ePortfolio and assessment system that includes a course management component Spiral Universe - student information system

References
[1] Dillenbourg, Pierre. "Virtual learning environments" (http:/ / tecfa. unige. ch/ tecfa/ publicat/ dil-papers-2/ Dil. 7. 5. 18. pdf). EUN Conference 2000: Learning in the new millennium: Building new education strategies for schools. . [2] Virtually There, Yorkshire and Humber Grid for Learning Foundation, UK. [3] Evaluation of the ICT Test Bed Project, Final Report 2007 [4] DCSF Making IT Personal leaflet, March 2006 [5] http:/ / www. newcastle-schools. org. uk [6] http:/ / www. ouston-jun. durham. sch. uk/ dlgpupilsite/ [7] http:/ / www. kdsi. org [8] eStrategy (http:/ / www. dcsf. gov. uk/ publications/ e-strategy/ ), DCSF (http:/ / www. dcsf. gov. uk/ ), UK government. [9] e-portfolio (http:/ / www. dcsf. gov. uk/ readwriteplus/ raisingstandards/ glossary/ word. cfm?word=238), DCSF, UK government. [10] http:/ / www. pittsburghmagazine. com/ Pittsburgh-Magazine/ October-2010/ Great-Places-to-Work-Large-Companies/ [11] http:/ / www. pacyber. org/ curriculum. jsp [12] http:/ / cde. athabascau. ca/ online_book/ [13] http:/ / www. ukcle. ac. uk/ resources/ enhancing-learning-through-technology/ using-the-vle/ [14] Becta (http:/ / industry. becta. org. uk/ ), UK. [15] http:/ / www. littlelincoln. org/

Virtual learning environment

[16] Fraser, B. & Walker, S. (2005). "Development and validation of an instrument for assessing distance education learning environments in higher education: The Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES)". Learning Environment Research. 8 (3) [17] Harnish, D., & Reeves, P. (2000). "Issues in the evaluation of large-scale two-way interactive distance learning systems". International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 6 (3), 267-281. [18] Livingstone, D.; Kemp, J.. "Integrating Web-Based and 3D Learning Environments: Second Life Meets Moodle" (http:/ / www. upgrade-cepis. org/ issues/ 2008/ 3/ up9-3-Livingstone. pdf). UPGRADE (European Journal for the Informatics Professional) 9 (3): 814. . [19] Lucas, R. W. (2004). The creative training idea book: Inspired tips and techniques for engaging and effective learning. New York: AMACOM [20] [http://www.funderstanding.com/brain_based_learning.cfm [21] "Brain-Based Learning: Possible Implications for Online Instruction" (http:/ / www. itdl. org/ journal/ Sep_05/ article03. htm), Stephanie A. Clemons, International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, Volume 2, No. 9 (September 2009), ISSN 1550-6908 [22] "Brain-based Learning" (http:/ / www. funderstanding. com/ content/ brain-based-learning), Funderstanding, accessed 16 September 2011 [23] "Why Use Virtual Field Trips?" (http:/ / www. phschool. com/ eteach/ professional_development/ virtual_field_trips/ essay. html), Dr. Scott Mandel, Pearson Education, Prentice Hall eTeach [24] http:/ / www. pacyber. org [25] www.pacyber.org [26] http:/ / www. sap. state. pa. us/ [27] www.sap.state.pa.us

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[ ("Techtarget.com")'What is virtual learning environment' (http:/ / whatis. techtarget. com/ definition/ 0,,sid9_gci866691,00.html)]

Further reading
Morgan, G. (2003). Faculty Use of Course Management Systems (http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ ers0302/rs/ers0302w.pdf). 2, Retrieved November 27, 2005, from Paulsen, M. F. 2003. Online Education and Learning Management Systems - Global Elearning in a Scandinavian Perspective. Oslo: NKI Forlaget. Popat, K, MacLean, H, Heppell, S. (2007). Virtually There : Learning Platforms - YHGfL/Cleveratom ISBN 987-0-9556006-0-9 Weller, M. (2007). Virtual Learning Environments: Using, choosing and developing your VLE - London. Routledge. Moult, R. R. (2005). Learning to listen: Using ICT to capture pupils perceptions and help the teacher to respond p19 (http://www2.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/other_research_reports/Learner_Engagement.pdf) Moult, R. R. (2005). Case study: Childrens online comments help inform teachers planning at Sunnybrow Primary School, Durham p52 (http://www2.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/handbooks/ digital_inclusion3.pdf) Seale J. (2009). A Research Briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning Phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (http://www.tlrp.org/docs/DigitalInclusion.pdf)

Digital content creation

55

Digital content creation

Digital Content Creation (DCC) is a modern term denoting the creation and modification of digital content, such as animation, audio, graphics, images and video, as part of the production process before presentation in its final medium. This large field encompasses many segments such as 3D graphics, audio editing, compositing, authoring, etc. There are other terms available such as creative media or multimedia production, but they also apply to processes not done digitally, such as drawing paintings by hand or producing in the sense of financing a project. DCC best describes the software used in connection with output produced by the user and the DCC industry as a whole.

External links
List of available tools from the OGRE wiki [1]

References
[1] http:/ / www. ogre3d. org/ wiki/ index. php/ DCC_Tools

Asynchronous learning
Asynchronous learning is a student-centered teaching method that uses online learning resources to facilitate information sharing outside the constraints of time and place among a network of people[1] . Asynchronous learning is based on constructivist theory, a student-centered approach that emphasizes the importance of peer-to-peer interactions[2] . This approach combines self-study with asynchronous interactions to promote learning, and it can be used to facilitate learning in traditional on-campus education, distance education, and continuing education. This combined network of learners and the electronic network in which they communicate are referred to as an asynchronous learning network[1] . The online learning resources used to support asynchronous learning include email, electronic mailing lists, threaded conferencing systems, online discussion boards, wikis, and blogs. Course management systems such as CampusCruiser LMS [3], Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle, and Sakai, have been developed to support online interaction, allowing users to organize discussions, post and reply to messages, and upload and access multimedia [4] . These asynchronous forms of communication are sometimes supplemented with synchronous components, including text and voice chat, telephone conversations, videoconferencing, and even meetings in virtual spaces such as Second Life, where discussions can be facilitated among groups of students [4] .

History
The roots of asynchronous learning trace their beginnings to the end of the 19th century, when formalized correspondence education (or distance learning) first took advantage of the postal system to bring physically remote learners into the educational fold. The 1920s and 30s saw the introduction of recorded audio, desynchronizing broadcasting and revolutionizing the mass dissemination of information. The first significant distribution of standardized educational content took place during World War II; the branches of the U.S. military produced hundreds of training films, with screenings numbering in the millions[5] . Online asynchronous learning began with schools and universities substantial investment in computer technology in the early 1980s. With seminal applications such as Seymour Paperts Logo (programming language), students were able to learn at their own pace, free from the synchronous constraints of a classroom lecture[6] . As computers entered more households and schools began connecting to the nascent Internet, asynchronous learning networks

Asynchronous learning began to take shape. These networks augmented existing classroom learning and led to a new correspondence model for solitary learners. Using the Web, students could access resources online and communicate asynchronously using email and discussion boards. The 1990s saw the arrival of the first telecampuses, with universities offering courses and entire degree plans through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous online instruction [7] [8] . Today, advanced multimedia and interactivity have enhanced the utility of asynchronous learning networks and blurred the divide between content-creator and content-consumer. New tools like class blogs and wikis are creating ever-richer opportunities for further asynchronous interaction and learning.

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Development of an asynchronous community

Though the social relationships integral to group learning can be developed through asynchronous communication, this development tends to take longer than in traditional, face-to-face settings [9] . The establishment of an asynchronous community takes time and effort and tends to follow a projected course of five stages, as described by Waltonen-Moore et al.: 1. Introductions- This might include a full biography or a short "getting-to-know" you series of questions. Through this step, community members begin to see one another as human beings and begin to make a preliminary, emotive connection with the other members of the community. This step is often characterized by emotive or extravagant language and represents group members' attempts to make themselves known as living individuals behind the emotionless technology medium [10] . 2. Identify with the group- Members begin to communicate with one another by reference to their commonalities as group members and seek to either establish or make known norms for successful membership. If this sense of group identity is not established, the likelihood of poor participation or attrition increases [10] . 3. Interact- Members will start interacting with one another in reference to the community's established focus and begin to share information with one another [10] . If the community is an online learning course, then students will begin to discuss course content. 4. Group cohesion and individual reflection- members of the group will begin to validate one anothers' ideas and opinions while, at the same time, being reflective of their own[10] . 5. Expansive questioning- Now feeling completely comfortable within the environment, focused upon the content, and respectful of other group members' thoughts and experiences, members will begin to not only post facts and deeply-held beliefs, but will actually start to 'think out loud,' allowing other group members to take part in their personal meaning-making and self-directed inquiry [10] . Asynchronous communities that progress efficiently through these stages tend to share at least three common attributes: First, the community has an active facilitator who monitors, guides, and nurtures the discourse[10] . Unguided communities tend to have difficulty progressing beyond the second stage of development, because group members can become distracted from the community's intended purpose. Second, rather than seeking to take on the role of an instructor or disseminator of knowledge, the facilitator recognizes that knowledge is an individual construct that is developed through interaction with other group members [10] . Thus, facilitators within successful communities tend not to be pedantic, but supportive. And third, successful asynchronous communities permit a certain amount of leniency for play within their discourse [10] . That is, communities that insist upon being overly stringent on etiquette and make no room for the social development that comes from play seem to drive away participants. Rather than enriching discourse on the targeted topic, such attitudes have a negative impact on group identity development and individual comfort levels which will, in turn, decrease overall involvement.

Asynchronous learning

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Roles of instructors and learners

Online learning requires a shift from a teacher-centered to student-centered environment where the instructor must take on multiple new roles. The constructivist theory that supports asynchronous learning demands that instructors become more than dispensers of knowledge; it requires that they become instructional designers, facilitators, and assessors of both grades and their teaching methods [11] . As instructional designers, emphasis is placed on establishing the curriculum, methods and the media through which the content will be effectively delivered. Once the design is in place and executed, the instructor must then facilitate the communication and direct the learning. Establishing a communal spirit is vital, requiring much time commitment from the instructor, who must spend time reading, assessing, reinforcing, and encouraging the interaction and learning that is happening [12] . The student-centered nature of asynchronous online learning requires students to be actively involved with and take more responsibility for their own learning. In addition to their normal duties as learners, students are required to: become proficient with the technology required for the course; use new methods of communication with both peers and instructors; strengthen their interdependency through collaboration with their peers[13] .

Strengths of asynchronous learning

Asynchronous learning's greatest benefit to students is the freedom it gives them to access the course and its instructional materials at any time they choose and from any location with an Internet connection[1] . This allows for accessibility for diverse student populations, ranging from traditional, on-campus students, to working professionals, to international students in foreign countries. Asynchronous learning environments provide a high degree of interactivity between participants who are separated both geographically and temporally and afford students many of the social benefits of face-to-face interaction[1] . Since students can express their thoughts without interruption, they have more time to reflect on and respond to class materials and their classmates than in a traditional classroom[12] . Research shows that the time required to initially design an asynchronous course is comparable to that of a traditional synchronous course[4] . However, most asynchronous courses have the potential to reach far more students than a traditional course and course-wide updates or modifications can be disseminated far more quickly and efficiently than traditional lecture models. Schifter notes that a perceived additional workload is a significant barrier to faculty participation in distance education and asynchronous learning, but that perception can be mitigated through training and experience with teaching in these environments[13] . Another advantage of asynchronous learning (and, as technology develops, many synchronous learning environments) is that there is a record of nearly everything that occurs in that environment. All materials, correspondence, and interactions can be electronically archived. Participants can go back and review course materials, lectures, and presentations, as well as correspondence between participants. This information is generally available at any time to course participants.

Weaknesses of asynchronous learning

Asynchronous learning environments pose several challenges for instructors, institutions, and students. Course development and initial setup can be costly. Institutions must provide a computer network infrastructure, including servers, audio/visual equipment, software, and the technical support needed to develop and maintain asynchronous learning environments. Technical support includes initial training and setup, user management, data storage and recovery, as well as hardware repairs and updates[14] . Research indicates faculty members who are hesitant to teach

Asynchronous learning in asynchronous learning environments are so because of a lack of technical support provided by their institutions [13] . However, for faculty to teach successfully in an asynchronous learning environment, they must be technically adept and comfortable enough with the technological tools to optimize their use. To participate in asynchronous learning environments, students must also have access to computers and the Internet. Although personal computers and web access are becoming more and more pervasive every day, this requirement can be a barrier to entry for many students and instructors. Students must also have the computer/technology skills required to participate in the asynchronous learning program. Also this is good for a successful online degree. ==See also==, E-learning Blended learning Synchronous learning Networked learning

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References
[1] Mayadas, F. (1997, March). Asynchronous learning networks: a sloan foundation perspective. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 1. [2] Wu, D., Bieber, M., & Hiltz, S. (2008, Fall). Engaging students with constructivist participatory examinations in asynchronous learning networks. Journal of Information Systems Education, 19(3), 321-330. [3] http:/ / www. campuscruiser. com/ Products-Solutions/ Products/ CampusCruiser-LMS. aspx [4] Bourne, J.R. (1998, September). Net-learning: strategies for on-campus and off-campus network-enabled learning. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 2(2). [5] Reiser, Robert. (2001, June). A History of instructional design and technology: Part II: A history of instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49.2. [6] Logothings Web. Retrieved October 15, 2008, from http:/ / logothings. wikispaces. com [7] UTTC Overview and Mission. UT Telecampus. Retrieved October 15, 2008, from http:/ / telecampus. utsystem. edu/ aboututtc/ organizationoverview/ mission. aspx [8] Shah, Angela. (1999, August). College going online. Austin American Statesman, B1. [9] Cox, B, & Cox, B. (2008, Summer). Developing interpersonal and group dynamics through asynchronous threaded discussions. Education. Retrieved October 09, 2008, from http:/ / web. ebscohost. com. ezproxy. lib. utexas. edu/ ehost/ [10] Waltonen-Moore, S., Stuart, D., Newton, E., Oswald, R., & Varonis, E. (2006, Summer). From virtual strangers to a cohesive online learning community: the evolution of online group development in a professional development course. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 14.2. Retrieved October 09, 2008, from http:/ / web. ebscohost. com. ezproxy. lib. utexas. edu/ ehost/ [11] McQuiggan, C. A. (2007, Fall). The role of faculty development in online teachings potential to question teaching beliefs and assumptions. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 10. Retrieved October 11, 2008, from http:/ / www. westga. edu/ ~distance/ ojdla/ fall103/ mcquiggan103. htm [12] Shea, P. J., Pickett, A. M., & Pelz, W. E. (2003). A follow-up investigation of "teaching presence" in the SUNY Learning Network. Journal for Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7, 61-80. [13] Garrison, D. R. (2004). Student role adjustment in online communities of inquiry: model and instrument validation. Journal for Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8, 61-74. [14] Palmer, S., Holt, D., & Bray, S. (2008). Does the discussion help? the impact of a formally assessed online discussion on nal student results. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(5), 847858.

External links
The Sloan-C International Conference on Asynchronous Learning (http://www.aln.ucf.edu/) ALTMODES-Alternative Modes of Delivery: Asynchronous Learning (http://www.csd.uwa.edu.au/altmodes/ of_delivery/asynchronous_learning.html)

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Intelligent tutoring system

An intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is any computer system that provides direct customized instruction or feedback to students, i.e. without the intervention of human beings, whilst performing a task.[1] Thus, ITS implements the theory of learning by doing. An ITS may employ a range of different technologies. However, usually such systems are more narrowly conceived of as artificial intelligence systems, more specifically expert systems made to simulate aspects of a human tutor. Intelligent Tutor Systems have been around since the late 1970s, but increased in popularity in the 1990s.

The structure of an ITS system

Intelligent tutoring systems consist of four different subsystems or modules: the interface module, the expert module, the student module, and the tutor module. The interface module provides the means for the student to interact with the ITS, usually through a graphical user interface and sometimes through a rich simulation of the task domain the student is learning (e.g., controlling a power plant or performing a medical operation). The expert module references an expert or domain model containing a description of the knowledge or behaviors that represent expertise in the subject-matter domain the ITS is teachingoften an expert system or cognitive model. An example would be the kind of diagnostic and subsequent corrective actions an expert technician takes when confronted with a malfunctioning thermostat. The student module uses a student model containing descriptions of student knowledge or behaviors, including his misconceptions and knowledge gaps. An apprentice technician might, for instance, believe a thermostat also signals too high temperatures to a furnace (misconception) or might not know about thermostats that also gauge the outdoor temperature (knowledge gap). A mismatch between a student's behavior or knowledge and the expert's presumed behavior or knowledge is signaled to the tutor module, which subsequently takes corrective action, such as providing feedback or remedial instruction. To be able to do this, it needs information about what a human tutor in such situations would do: the tutor model. An intelligent tutoring system is only as effective as the various models it relies on to adequately model expert, student and tutor knowledge and behavior. Thus, building an ITS needs careful preparation in terms of describing the knowledge and possible behaviors of experts, students and tutors. This description needs to be done in a formal language in order that the ITS may process the information and draw inferences in order to generate feedback or instruction. Therefore a mere description is not enough; the knowledge contained in the models should be organized and linked to an inference engine. It is through the latter's interaction with the descriptive data that tutorial feedback is generated.

Use in practice
All this is a substantial amount of work, even if authoring tools have become available to ease the task.[2] This means that building an ITS is an option only in situations in which they, in spite of their relatively high development costs, still reduce the overall costs through reducing the need for human instructors or sufficiently boosting overall productivity. Such situations occur when large groups need to be tutored simultaneously or many replicated tutoring efforts are needed. Cases in point are technical training situations such as training of military recruits and high school mathematics. One specific type of intelligent tutoring system, Cognitive Tutors, has been incorporated into mathematics curricula in a substantial number of United States high schools, producing improved student learning outcomes on final exams and standardized tests.[3] Intelligent tutoring systems have been constructed to help students learn geography, circuits, medical diagnosis, computer programming, mathematics, physics, genetics, chemistry, etc. Intelligent Language Tutoring Systems (ILTS), e.g. this[4] one, teach natural language to first or second language learners. ILTS requires specialized natural language processing tools such large dictionaries, and morphological and grammatical analyzers with acceptable coverage.

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ITS conference
The Intelligent Tutoring Systems conference was typically held every other year in Montral (Canada) by Claude Frasson and Gilles Gauthier in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000; in San Antonio (US) by Carol Redfield and Valerie Shute in 1998; in Biarritz (France) and San Sebastian (Spain) by Guy Gouardres and Stefano Cerri in 2002; in Maceio (Brazil) by Rosa Maria Vicari and Fbio Paraguau in 2004; in Jhongli (Taiwan) by Tak-Wai Chan in 2006. The conference was recently back in Montreal in 2008 (for its 20th anniversary) by Roger Nkambou and Susanne Lajoie. ITS'2010 was held in Pittsburgh (US) by Jack Mostow, Judy Kay, and Vincent Aleven. The International Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) Society (http:/ / iaied. org) publishes The International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education (IJAIED) and produces the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education every odd numbered year. The American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)(www.aaai.org) sometimes has symposia and papers related to intelligent tutoring systems. A number of books have been written on ITS including three published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bibliography
Books
Nkambou, Roger; Bourdeau, Jacqueline; Mizoguchi, Riichiro, eds (2010). Advances in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Springer. ISBN3642143628. Woolf, Beverly Park (2009). Building Intelligent Interactive Tutors. Morgan Kaufmann. ISBN978-0-12-373594-2. Evens, Martha; Michael, Joel (2005). One-on-one Tutoring by Humans and Computers. Routledge. ISBN9780805843606. Polson, Martha C.; Richardson, J. Jeffrey, eds (1988). Foundations of Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN0805800530. Psotka, Joseph; Massey, L. Dan; Mutter, Sharon, eds (1988). Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Lessons Learned. Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN0805800239. Wenger, Etienne (1987). Artificial Intelligence and Tutoring Systems: Computational and Cognitive Approaches to the Communication of Knowledge. Morgan Kaufmann. ISBN0934613265. Brown, D.; Sleeman, John Seely, eds (1982). Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Academic Press. ISBN0126486808.

Papers
Intelligent Tutoring Systems: An Historic Review in the Context of the Development of Artificial Intelligence and Educational Psychology [5] Intelligent Tutoring Systems: The What and the How [6] Freedman, Reva; Ali, Syed S.; McRoy, Susan (2000). "What is an Intelligent Tutoring System?" [7]. Intelligence 11 (3): 1516. doi:10.1145/350752.350756. Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Using AI to Improve Training Performance and ROI [8] A Framework for Model-Based Adaptive Training [9]

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References
[1] Joseph Psotka, Sharon A. Mutter (1988). Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Lessons Learned. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN0805801928. [2] For an example of an ITS authoring tool, see Cognitive Tutoring Authoring Tools (http:/ / ctat. pact. cs. cmu. edu/ ) [3] Koedinger, K. R.; Corbett, A. (2006). "Cognitive Tutors: Technology bringing learning science to the classroom". In Sawyer, K.. The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. Cambridge University Press. pp.6178. OCLC62728545. [4] Shaalan, Khalid F. (February 2005). "An Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning System for Arabic Learners" (http:/ / www. informaworld. com/ smpp/ content~db=all?content=10. 1080/ 09588220500132399). Computer Assisted Language Learning: An International Journal (Taylor & Francis Group Ltd.) 18 (1 & 2): 81108. doi:10.1080/09588220500132399. . [5] http:/ / www. cse. msu. edu/ rgroups/ cse101/ ITS/ its. htm [6] http:/ / www. astd. org/ LC/ 2000/ 0200_ong. htm [7] http:/ / www. cs. niu. edu/ ~freedman/ papers/ link2000. pdf [8] http:/ / www. stottlerhenke. com/ papers/ ITS_using_AI_to_improve_training_performance_and_ROI. pdf [9] http:/ / www. ruleworks. co. uk/ mobat/ index. htm

External links
Intelligent Tutoring Systems (http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/tutor.html) in the AI topics website (http:// www.aaai.org/AITopics/) of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (http://www.aaai. org/) The 10th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (http://sites.google.com/site/its2010home/ ) - Bridges to Learning - Pittsburgh (2010) The 9th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (http://gdac.dinfo.uqam.ca/its2008/) Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Past and Future - Montreal (2008) The 8th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (http://www.its2006.org/) (2006) The 2007 Artificial Intelligence in Education conference (http://www.isi.edu/AIED2007/). MERLOT - Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (http://www.merlot.org/) The Wolfram Demonstrations Project site (http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/)

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Integrated Learning Systems

Integrated learning systems are hardware/software solutions designed to deliver instructional content. The effective delivery of that content is measured, monitored, and maintained with an array of assessment and management tools that may also be part of that system. Integrated learning systems are generally associated with educational/academic environments, but are also deployed within private industry, for example, as a way to introduce employees to new, mission critical systems and software applications. As opposed to static online help or even animated tutorials, integrated learning systems are highly interactive and are designed to provide feedback as to progress and grasp of the subject matter at hand. Built-in tools further allow executive management or instructors and trainers to monitor and measure a student's progress.

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Related articles
E-learning Maturity Model
The E-Learning Maturity Model (eMM) in software engineering is a model to assess the capability of e-learning processes.

Overview
eMM is a quality improvement framework based on the ideas of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE) methodologies. The underlying idea that guides the development of the eMM is that the ability of an institution to be effective in any particular area of work is dependent on their capability to engage in high quality processes that are reproducible and able to be extended and sustained as demand grows. The eMM provides a set of thirty-five processes, divided into five process areas, that define a key aspect of the overall ability of institutions to perform well in the delivery of e-learning. Each process is selected on the basis of its necessity in the development and maintenance of capability in e-learning. All of the processes have been created after a programme of research and testing, conducted internationally.

History
The eMM is being trialled in the Higher Education Academy Benchmarking Pilot, by the University of Manchester. Additional projects applying the eMM are underway supported by the Scottish Funding Council in Scotland and ACODE in Australia. Development and application of the eMM in New Zealand was supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Education Tertiary E-Learning Research Fund. Version 2 of eMM has changed considerably from the Version 1 of 2003. The eMM and associated documentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

E-learning Maturity Model Topics

Key idea
The key idea underlying the dimension concept is holistic capability. Rather than the eMM measuring progressive levels, it describes the capability of a process from these five synergistic perspectives. An organization that has developed capability on all dimensions for all processes will be more capable than one that has not. Capability at the higher dimensions that is not supported by capability at the lower dimensions will not deliver the desired outcomes; capability at the lower dimensions that is not supported by capability in the higher dimensions will be ad-hoc, unsustainable and unresponsive to changing organizational and learner needs.

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Five dimensions of eMM

Capability in each process is described by a set of practices organised by dimension. The eMM supplements the CMM concept of maturity levels, which describe the evolution of the organisation as a whole, with dimensions. The five dimensions of the eMM are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Delivery Planning Definition Management Optimisation

External links
eMM [1]

References
[1] http:/ / www. utdc. vuw. ac. nz/ research/ emm/ index. shtml

Learning object
A learning object is "a collection of content items, practice items, and assessment items that are combined based on a single learning objective".[1] The term is credited to Wayne Hogins when he created a working group in 1994 bearing the name [2] though the concept was first described by Gerard in 1967.[3] Learning objects go by many names, including content objects, chunks, educational objects, information objects, intelligent objects, knowledge bits, knowledge objects, learning components, media objects, reusable curriculum components, nuggets, reusable information objects, reusable learning objects, testable reusable units of cognition, training components, and units of learning. Learning objects offer a new conceptualization of the learning process: rather than the traditional "several hour chunk", they provide smaller, self-contained, re-usable units of learning.[4] They will typically have a number of different components, which range from descriptive data to information about rights and educational level. At their core, however, will be instructional content, practice, and assessment. A key issue is the use of metadata. Learning object design raises issues of portability, and of the object's relation to a broader learning management system.

Definitions
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) defines a learning object as "any entity, digital or non-digital, that may be used for learning, education or training".[5] Chiappe defined Learning Objects as: "A digital self-contained and reusable entity, with a clear educational purpose, with at least three internal and editable components: content, learning activities and elements of context. The learning objects must have an external structure of information to facilitate their identification, storage and retrieval: the metadata."[6] The following definitions focus on the relation between learning object and digital media. RLO-CETL, a British inter-university Learning Objects Center, defines "reusable learning objects" as "web-based interactive chunks of e-learning designed to explain a stand-alone learning objective".[7] Daniel Rehak and Robin Mason define it as "a

Learning object digitized entity which can be used, reused or referenced during technology supported learning".[8] Adapting a definition from the Wisconsin Online Resource Center, Robert J. Beck suggests that learning objects have the following key characteristics: Learning objects are a new way of thinking about learning content. Traditionally, content comes in a several hour chunk. Learning objects are much smaller units of learning, typically ranging from 2 minutes to 15 minutes. Are self-contained each learning object can be taken independently Are reusable a single learning object may be used in multiple contexts for multiple purposes Can be aggregated learning objects can be grouped into larger collections of content, including traditional course structures Are tagged with metadata every learning object has descriptive information allowing it to be easily found by a search[4]

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Components
The following is a list of some of the types of information that may be included in a learning object and its metadata: General Course Descriptive Data, including: course identifiers, language of content (English, Spanish, etc.), subject area (Maths, Reading, etc.), descriptive text, descriptive keywords Life Cycle, including: version, status Instructional Content, including: text, web pages, images, sound, video Glossary of Terms, including: terms, definition, acronyms Quizzes and Assessments, including: questions, answers Rights, including: cost, copyrights, restrictions on Use Relationships to Other Courses, including prerequisite courses Educational Level, including: grade level, age range, typical learning time, and difficulty. [IEEE 1484.12.1:2002]

Metadata
One of the key issues in using learning objects is their identification by search engines or content management systems. This is usually facilitated by assigning descriptive learning object metadata. Just as a book in a library has a record in the card catalog, learning objects must also be tagged with metadata. The most important pieces of metadata typically associated with a learning object include: 1. objective: The educational objective the learning object is instructing 2. prerequisites: The list of skills (typically represented as objectives) which the learner must know before viewing the learning object 3. topic: Typically represented in a taxonomy, the topic the learning object is instructing 4. interactivity: The Interaction Model of the learning object. 5. technology requirements: The required system requirements to view the learning object.

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Mutability
A mutated learning object is, according to Michael Shaw, a learning object that has been "re-purposed and/or re-engineered, changed or simply re-used in some way different from its original intended design". Shaw also introduces the term "contextual learning object", to describe a learning object that has been "designed to have specific meaning and purpose to an intended learner".[9]

Portability
Before any institution invests a great deal of time and energy into building high-quality e-learning content (which can cost over $10,000 per classroom hour),[10] it needs to consider how this content can be easily loaded into a Learning Management System. It is possible for example, to package learning objects with SCORM specification and load it at Moodle Learning Management System. If all of the properties of a course can be precisely defined in a common format, the content can be serialized into a standard format such as XML and loaded into other systems. When you consider that some e-learning courses need to include video, mathematical equations using MathML, chemistry equations using CML and other complex structures the issues become very complex, especially if the systems needs to understand and validate each structure and then place it correctly in a database.

Criticism
In 2001, David Wiley criticized learning object theory in his paper, The Reusability Paradox [11] which is summarized by D'Arcy Norman [12] as, If a learning object is useful in a particular context, by definition it is not reusable in a different context. If a learning object is reusable in many contexts, it isnt particularly useful in any. In Three Objections to Learning Objects and E-learning Standards [13], Norm Friesen, Canada Research Chair in E-Learning Practices at Thompson Rivers University, points out that the word neutrality in itself implies a state or position that is antithetical ... to pedagogy and teaching.

References
[1] Cisco Systems, Reusable information object strategy (http:/ / www. cisco. com/ warp/ public/ 779/ ibs/ solutions/ learning/ whitepapers/ el_cisco_rio. pdf), [2] Gerard, R.W. (1967), "Shaping the mind: Computers in education", In N. A. Sciences, Applied Science and Technological Progress (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=BTcrAAAAYAAJ), [3] Polsani, P. (2003), "Use and abuse of reusable learning objects", (http:/ / journals. tdl. org/ jodi/ rt/ printerFriendly/ 89/ 88. ), [4] Beck, Robert J., "What Are Learning Objects?" (http:/ / www4. uwm. edu/ cie/ learning_objects. cfm?gid=56), Learning Objects, Center for International Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, , retrieved 2008-04-29 [5] Learning Technology Standards Committee 2002, p.45 [6] Chiappe, Segovia & Rincon 2007, p.8. [7] "Learning Objects" (http:/ / www. rlo-cetl. ac. uk/ joomla/ index. php?option=com_content& task=view& id=235& Itemid=28), RLO-CETL: Reusable Learning Objects, , retrieved 2008-04-29. [8] Rehak & Mason 2003, p.?? [9] Shaw 2003 [10] Rumble, Greville. 2001. The Cost and Costing of Networked Learning. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, Volume 5, Issue 2. [11] http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20041019162710/ http:/ rclt. usu. edu/ whitepapers/ paradox. html [12] http:/ / www. darcynorman. net/ 2003/ 08/ 21/ addressing-the-reusability-paradox/ [13] http:/ / learningspaces. org/ n/ papers/ objections. html

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Further reading
Beck, Robert J. (2009), "What Are Learning Objects?", Learning Objects, Center for International Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, (http://www4.uwm.edu/cie/learning_objects.cfm?gid=56), retrieved 2009-10-23. Learning Technology Standards Committee (2002) (PDF), Draft Standard for Learning Object Metadata. IEEE Standard 1484.12.1 (http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/files/LOM_1484_12_1_v1_Final_Draft.pdf), New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, retrieved 2008-04-29. Rehak, Daniel R.; Mason, Robin (2003), "Engaging with the Learning Object Economy", in Littlejohn, Allison, Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to E-Learning, London: Kogan Page, pp.2230, ISBN9780749439491. Shaw, Michael (October, 2003), "(Contextual and Mutated) Learning Objects in the Context of Design, Learning and (Re)Use" (http://www.shawmultimedia.com/edtech_oct_03.html), Teaching and Learning with Technology, retrieved 2008-04-29 Chiappe, Andres.; Segovia, Yasbley; Rincon, Yadira (2007), "Toward an instructional design model based on learning objects" (http://www.springerlink.com/content/u84w63873vq77h2h/ ?p=41be7fbeef9648ee9b554f1835112005&pi=6), in Boston, Springer, Educational Technology Research and Development, Boston: Springer, pp.671681, ISBN1042-1629(Print)1556-6501(Online)Spanish Draft available in Blog de Andrs Chiappe - Objetos de Aprendizaje(http://andreschiappe.blogspot.com/2007/09/ que-es-un-objeto-de-aprendizaje-what-is.html), retrieved 2008-08-21. Northrup, Pamela (2007) (Book), Learning Objects for Instruction: Design and Evaluation, USA: Information Science Publishing. Hunt, John P.; Bernard, Robert (2005), "An XML-based information architecture for learning content", IBM developerWorks, (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita9a), retrieved 2005-08-05.

External links
The Learning Objects (http://www4.uwm.edu/cie/learning_objects.cfm?gid=55) at Milwaukee's Center for International Education.

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MLearning
The term M-Learning, or "mobile learning", has different meanings for different communities. Although related to e-learning and distance education, it is distinct in its focus on learning across contexts and learning with mobile devices. One definition of mobile learning is: Any sort of learning that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies.[1] In other words mobile learning decreases limitation of learning location with the mobility of general portable devices. The term covers: learning with portable technologies including but not limited to handheld computers, MP3 players, notebooks and mobile phones. M-learning focuses on the mobility of the learner, interacting with portable technologies, and learning that reflects a focus on how society and its institutions can accommodate and support an increasingly mobile population. There is also a new direction in MLearning that adds mobility of the instructor and includes creation of learning materials "on-the-spot, "in the field" using predominately smartphone with special software such as AHG Cloud Note. Using mobile tools for creating learning aides and materials becomes an important part of informal learning. M-learning is convenient in that it is accessible from virtually anywhere. M-Learning, like other forms of E-learning, is also collaborative; sharing is almost instantaneous among everyone using the same content, which leads to the reception of instant feedback and tips. M-Learning also brings strong portability by replacing books and notes with small RAMs, filled with tailored learning contents. In addition, it is simple to utilize mobile learning for a more effective and entertaining experience.

History
Pre-1970s
Arguably the first instance of mobile learning goes back as far as 1901 when Linguaphone released a series of language lessons on wax cylinders. This was followed up in later years as technology improved, to cover compact cassette tapes, 8 track tape, and CDs[2]

1970s, 1980s
Alan Kay and his colleagues in the Learning Research Group at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center [PARC] propose the Dynabook as a book-sized computer to run dynamic simulations for learning. Their interim Dynabooks are the first networked workstations

1990s
In May 1991, Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) in partnership with Orange Grove Middle School of Tucson, Arizona, use mobile computers connected by wireless networks for the 'Wireless Coyote' project.[3] Universities in Europe and Asia develop and evaluate mobile learning for students. Palm corporation offers grants to universities and companies who create and test the use of Mobile Learning on the PalmOS platform. Knowledgility creates the first mobile learning modules for CCNA, A+ and MCSE certification using the core tools that later became LMA.

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2000s
The European Commission funds the major multi-national MOBIlearn and M-Learning [4] projects. Companies were formed that specialize in three core areas of mobile learning. 1. Authoring and publishing 2. Delivery and Tracking 3. Content Development Conferences and trade shows were created to specifically deal with mobile learning and handheld education, including: mLearn, WMUTE, and IADIS Mobile Learning international conference series, ICML in Jordan, Mobile Learning in Malaysia, Handheld Learning in London, SALT Mobile in USA.

Analysis (costs / benefits, forecast)

Value
The value of mobile learning[5] --Tutors commented on the value of mobile learning as follows. It is important to bring new technology into the classroom. It will be more light weight device compare to books, PCs, etc. Mobile learning could be utilised as part of a learning approach which uses different types of activities (or a blended learning approach). Mobile learning supports the learning process rather than being integral to it. Mobile learning needs to be used appropriately, according to the groups of students involved. Mobile learning can be a useful add-on tool for students with special needs. However, for SMS and MMS this might be dependent on the students specific disabilities or difficulties involved. Good IT support is needed. Mobile learning can be used as a hook to re-engage disaffected youth. It is necessary to have enough devices for classroom use .

Challenges
Technical challenges include Connectivity and battery life Screen size and key size[6] Ability for authors to visualize mobile phones for delivery Possibilities to meet required bandwidth for nonstop/fast streaming Number of file/assets' formats supported by a specific device Content security or copyright issue from authoring group Multiple standards, multiple screen sizes, multiple operating systems Reworking existing e-Learning materials for mobile platforms

Social and educational challenges include Accessibility and cost barriers for end users: Digital divide. How to assess learning outside the classroom How to support learning across many contexts Content's security (or) pirating issues Frequent changes in device models/technologies/functionality etc.

Developing an appropriate theory of learning for the mobile age Conceptual differences between e- and m-learning Design of technology to support a lifetime of learning[7] [8]

MLearning Tracking of results and proper use of this information No restriction on learning timetable Personal and private information and content No demographic boundary Disruption of students' personal and academic lives[9] Access to and use of the technology in developing countries[10]

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Growth
Over the past ten years mobile learning has grown from a minor research interest to a set of significant projects in schools, workplaces, museums, cities and rural areas around the world. The mLearning community is still fragmented, with different national perspectives, differences between academia and industry, and between the school, higher education and lifelong learning sectors. Current areas of growth include: Testing, surveys, job aids and just-in-time (J.I.T.) learning Location-based and contextual learning Social-networked mobile learning Mobile educational gaming

Deliver M-Learning to cellular phones using two way SMS messaging and voice-based CellCasting (podcasting to phones with interactive assessments) According to a report by Ambient Insight in 2008, "the US market for Mobile Learning products and services is growing at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.7% and revenues reached $538 million in 2007. The data indicate that the demand is relatively immune from the recession."[11] The findings of the report indicate that the largest demand throughout the forecast period is for custom development services, content conversion, and media services and that the healthcare sector accounts for 20% of the total US market for mobile learning.

Future
Technologies currently being researched for mobile learning include:[12] Location aware learning Point-and-shoot learning with camera phones and 2D codes Near Field Communications (NFC) secure transactions Sensors and accelerometers in mobile devices in behavioral based learning Mobile content creation (including user generated content) Games and simulation for learning on mobile devices Context-aware ubiquitous learning Augmented reality on mobile devices

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Delivery
While many think of mobile learning as delivering eLearning on small form factor devices, or often referred to as eLearning lite, it has the potential to do much more than deliver courses, or parts of courses. It includes the use of mobile/handheld devices to perform any of the following: Deliver Education/Learning Foster Communications/Collaboration Conduct Assessments/Evaluations Provide Access to Performance Support/Knowledge Capture Evidence of Learning Activity

Today, any number of portable devices can quickly and easily deliver and support these functions. Cell or smartphones, multi-game devices, personal media players (PMPs), personal digital assistants (PDAs), or wireless single-purpose devices can help deliver coaching and mentoring, conduct assessments and evaluations (e.g., quizzes; tests; surveys/polls; and certifications), provide on-the-job support and access to information, Smartphones are one of the platforms used for mobile learning. education and references, and deliver podcasts, update alerts, forms and checklists. In these ways, mobile learning can enhance and support more traditional learning modes, making it more portable and accessible. Mobile devices can also serve as powerful data collection tools and facilitate the capture of user created content.[12] New mobile technology, such as hand-held cellular based devices, is playing a large role in redefining how we receive information. The recent advances in mobile technology are changing the primary purpose of mobile devices from making or receiving calls to retrieving the latest information on any subject. "Numerous agencies including the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Intelligence community, and law enforcement are utilizing mobile technology are utilizing mobile technology for information management." [13]

Approaches
In the classroom
Students using handheld computers, PDAs, smartphones or handheld voting systems (such as clickers) in a classroom or lecture room (Tremblay 2010). Students using mobile devices(such as a Pocket PC) in the classroom to enhance group collaboration among students and instructors.

For blended learning

Mobile learning can provide support that enhances training in a corporate business or other classroom environment. Class management The mobile phone (through text SMS notices) can be used especially for distance education or with students whose course requires them to be highly mobile and in particular to communicate information regarding availability of assignment results, venue changes and cancellations, etc. It can also be of value to business people e.g. sales representatives who do not wish to waste time away from their busy schedules to attend formal training events. Podcasting Podcasting consists of listening to audio recordings of lectures, and can be used to review live lectures (Clark & Westcott (2007) and to provide opportunities for students to rehearse oral presentations. Podcasts may also provide

MLearning supplemental information to enhance traditional lectures (McGarr 2009) (Steven & Teasley 2009). Psychological research suggests that university students who download podcast lectures achieve substantially higher exam results than those who attend the lecture in person, but only in cases in which students take notes (Callaway & Ewen 2009). Podcasts maybe be delivered using syndication, although it should be noted that this method of delivery is not always easily adopted (Lee, Miller & Newnham 2009).

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Outdoor
Learning in museums or galleries with handheld or wearable technologies Learning outdoors, for example on field trips. Continuous learning and portable tools for military personnel.

At work
On the job training for someone who accesses training on a mobile device "just in time" to solve a problem or gain an update.

Lifelong learning and self-learning

The use of personal technology to support informal or lifelong learning, such as using handheld dictionaries and other devices for language learning. Mobile technologies and approaches, i.e. Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL), are also used to assist in language learning. For instance handheld computers, cell phones, but also podcasting (Horkoff Kayes2008) have been used for helping people to acquire a language.

Other
Improving levels of literacy, numeracy and participation in education amongst young adults. Using the communication features of a mobile phone as part of a larger learning activity (e.g.: sending media or texts into a central portfolio, or exporting audio files from a learning platform to your phone)

Technologies
Mobile devices and personal technologies that can support mobile learning, include: E-book Handheld audio and multimedia guides, in museums and galleries Handheld game console, modern gaming consoles such as Sony PSP or Nintendo DS Personal audio player, e.g. for listening to audio recordings of lectures (podcasting) Personal Digital Assistant, in the classroom and outdoors Tablet computer UMPC, mobile phone, camera phone and SmartPhone

Technical and delivery support for mobile learning: 3GP For compression and delivery method of audiovisual content associated with Mobile Learning GPRS mobile data service, provides high speed connection and data transfer rate Wi-Fi gives access to instructors and resources via internet Authoring: Learning Mobile Author, e.g. for authoring and publishing WAP, Java ME and Smartphone

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References
[1] "Guidelines for learning/teaching/tutoring in a mobile environment" (http:/ / www. mobilearn. org/ download/ results/ guidelines. pdf). MOBIlearn. October 2003. pp. 6. . Retrieved June 8, 2009. [2] "Mobile Learning Community" (http:/ / trainandgo. blogspot. com/ 2010/ 01/ mobile-learning-in-cortina. html). Mobile Learning History. 2010. . [3] Wireless Coyote (http:/ / portal. acm. org/ citation. cfm?id=155062) Wayne C. Grant. (1993). Wireless Coyote: A Computer-Supported Field Trip, Communications of the ACM - Special issue on technology in K12 education, Volume 36 Issue 5, May 1993, 57-59 [4] http:/ / www. m-learning. org/ archive [5] Mobile learning in practice:Piloting a mobile learning teachers toolkit in further education colleges.C.Savill etc.,p8 [6] Maniar, N.; Bennett, E., Hand, S. & Allan, G (2008). "The effect of mobile phone screen size on video based learning". Journal of Software 3 (4): 5161. [7] Sharples, M. (2000). "The design of personal mobile technologies for lifelong learning". Computers & Education 34 (3-4): 177193. doi:10.1016/S0360-1315(99)00044-5. [8] Moore, J. (2009). "A portable document search engine to support off-line mobile learning" (http:/ / eprints. ecs. soton. ac. uk/ 17441/ ). Proceedings of IADIS International Conference Mobile Learning. Barcelona, Spain. . [9] Masters, K.; Ng'ambi D. (2007). "After the broadcast: disrupting health sciences students' lives with SMS". Proceedings of IADIS International Conference Mobile Learning. Lisbon, Portugal. pp.171175. ISBN978-972-8924-36-2. [10] Masters, K. (2005). "Low-key m-learning: a realistic introduction of m-learning to developing countries" (http:/ / www. fil. hu/ mobil/ 2005/ Masters_final. pdf). Seeing, Understanding, Learning in the Mobile Age. Budapest, Hungary, April 2005. . [11] Adkins, S.S. (December 2008). "The US Market for Mobile Learning Products and Services: 2008-2013 Forecast and Analysis" (http:/ / www. ambientinsight. com/ Resources/ Documents/ AmbientInsight_2008-2013_US_MobileLearning_Forecast_ExecutiveOverview. pdf). Ambient Insight. pp. 5. . Retrieved June 8, 2009. [12] "Mobile Learning Update" (http:/ / masieweb. com/ p7/ MobileLearningUpdate. pdf). Learning Consortium Perspectives. 2008. pp. 3, 513, 17. . Retrieved June 9, 2009. [13] Chet Hosmer, Carlton Jeffcoat, Matthew Davis, Thomas McGibbon "Use of Mobile Technology for Information Collection and Dissemination" (http:/ / www. thedacs. com/ techs/ abstract/ 518055), Data & Analysis Center for Software, March 2011

Bibliography
Callaway, Ewen (18 February 2009). "'iTunes university' better than the real thing" (http://www.newscientist. com/article/dn16624-itunes-university-better-than-the-real-thing.html). New Scientist. Clark, S.; Westcott, M.; Taylor, L. (2007). "Using short podcasts to reinforce lectures" (http://science.uniserve. edu.au/pubs/procs/2007/08.pdf). The University of Sydney Symposium, 28 September 2007. Horkoff, Hank; Kayes, Jonathan M. (2008). "Language Learning by iPod: An Emerging Model" (http://www. masie.com/Research-Articles/language-learning-by-ipod-an-emerging-model.htm). The MASIE Center. Lee, M. J. W.; Miller, C.; Newnham, L. (2009). "Podcasting syndication services and university students: Why don't they subscribe?". The Internet and Higher Education 12 (1): 5359. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2008.10.001. McGarr, Oliver (2009). "A review of podcasting in higher education: Its influence on the traditional lecture" (http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet25/mcgarr.htm). Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 25 (3): 309321. Steven, Lonn; Teasley, Stephanie D. (2009). "Podcasting in higher education: What are the implications for teaching and learning?". The Internet and Higher Education 12 (2): 8892. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2009.06.002. Tremblay, Eric (2010). "Educating the Mobile Generation using personal cell phones as audience response systems in post-secondary science teaching" (http://www.editlib.org/p/32314). Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 29(2), 217-227. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Learning pathway

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Learning pathway
The chosen route, taken by a learner through a range of (commonly) e-learning activities, which allows them to build knowledge progressively. With learning pathways, the control of choice moves away from the tutor to the learner. "The sequence of intermediate steps from preconceptions to target model form what Scott (1991) and Niedderer and Goldberg (1995) have called a learning pathway. For any particular topic, such a pathway would provide both a theory of instruction and a guideline for teachers and curriculum developers" (Clement 2000). "Interactive courseware aids learners to access information and tools by which they can construct personalized transitions between the information to be accessed and their own cognitive structures. The process of navigation enables learners to experience the content of interactive courseware. Learning pathways also reveal the learning trails while learners traverse any interactive environment. Since learners have unique knowledge structures based upon their experiences and abilities, the ways that they choose to access, interact, and interrelate messages in interactive courseware also vary. Studies on pathways help us to explore and explain human behaviors during learning processes" (Jih 1996). This is one definition of a Learning Pathway or Learning Path. It focuses primarily on elearning. A more popular view in business training is to define a Learning Pathway as the ideal sequence of learning activities that lead to proficiency. By looking at learning as this type of complete process rather than a single event, it enables finding new ways to drive out time, waste and variability in training leading to improved results and reduced costs.[1]

Notes and references

[1] Rosenbaum,S. (2004) Learning Paths: Increase profits by reducing the time it takes to get employees up-to-speed. (Pfeiffer and ASTD Press) (http:/ / www. elearning-engineering. com/ learning-paths. htm)

Clement, J. (2000). "Model based learning as a key research area for science education". International Journal of Science Education 22 (9): 10411053. Jih, H.J. (1996). "The impact of learners pathways on learning performance in multimedia Computer Aided Learning". Journal of Network and Computer Applications 19 (4). Rosenbaum,S. (2004) Learning Paths: Increase profits by reducing the time it takes to get employees up-to-speed. (Pfeiffer and ASTD Press)

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CLCIMS
CLCIMS, or Computer Learning Content Information Management System, is used in the eLearning sector to define a SCORM compliant learning environment. The abbreviation has been adopted due to the way that it can be pronounced phonetically (effectively "click-hymns"). SCORM assumes the existence of a suite of services called by some a "Learning Management System" and by others a "Learning Content Management System", and formerly called a "Computer Managed Instruction" system. These services may also be called a "Learning Support Environment" by some vendors. CLCIMS is emerging as a way to encompass all of these terms by learning content developers. CLCIMS also refers to CLCIMS 1.0, as the specification number is normally omitted. As other suites of services appear that are SCORM compliant they will be incorporated into the wide CLCIMS definition and the version number will be changed and the more general CLCIMS definition will informally refer to the most recent version.

Asymetrix
Asymetrix (later called Asymetrix Learning Systems Inc.[1] ) was a US computer software company. The company was founded by Microsoft founder Paul Allen in 1984, and produced a number of software products covering web, presentation, and e-learning markets. In 2004 it became part of SumTotal Systems. Asymetrix headquarters were in Bellevue, Washington. The first ten years were spent on R&D. The company produced a number of Windows software packages including ToolBook, Asymetrix 3D F/X (a tool for creating 3d graphics and animation, later called Asymetrix Web 3D)[2] , and Compel (a graphical presentation and prototyping program).[3] Asymetrix also produced a variety of screen savers for a short period. In the late 1990s the company started developing learning management software. Titles included Asymetrix Librarian and the e-Learning Network - an early software as a service product. In June 1998 Asymetrix held an initial public offering, selling three million shares at a price of $11 per share, and was listed on the Nasdaq exchange with the ticker symbol ASYM.[4] In 1999 the company was renamed as click2learn.com.[1] The company went on to acquire many other companies and products in the e-learning space. One company acquired was Meliora which made Ingenium, another e-learning software product. In 2003 the company announced its intention to merge with its competitor Docent, with click2learn's shareholders receiving slightly more than half of the stock in the merged company.[5] [6] The merger completed in 2004,[7] . The combined company is now known as SumTotal Systems and is headquartered in Mountain View, California. At the time of the merger, click2learn employed over 300 people and Docent a further 170.[5]

References
[1] "Asymetrix renamed click2learn.com" (http:/ / seattle. bizjournals. com/ seattle/ stories/ 1999/ 10/ 11/ daily3. html), Puget Sound Business Journal, October 11, 1999 [2] "Asymetrix Web3D 2 review" (http:/ / designer-info. com/ Writing/ asymetrix_web3d_2. htm), Tom Arah, Designer-Info.com [3] "Design and Implementation Considerations for an Interactive Multimedia Kiosk: Where to Start" (http:/ / www. ascilite. org. au/ conferences/ adelaide96/ papers/ 04. html), Cranston, Clayton, and Ferrands, Central Queensland University, 1996 [4] "Asymetrix generates little enthusiasm after IPO at $11", Wall Street Journal, ( article mirror (http:/ / www. faqs. org/ abstracts/ Business-general/ Microsoft-and-Compaq-align-strategie-in-the-corporate-computing-market. html)) [5] "Click2Learn, Docent ink merger pact" (http:/ / archives. infotech. indiatimes. com/ articleshow/ 256185. cms), IndiaTimes, 29 October 2003 [6] "Docent and Click2learn to Merge" (http:/ / www. internetnews. com/ xSP/ article. php/ 3096741/ Docent+ and+ Click2learn+ to+ Merge+ . htm), Michael Singer, Internetnews.com, October 22, 2003

Asymetrix
[7] "Docent and Click2learn complete merger and launch SumTotal Systems" (http:/ / www. trainingreference. co. uk/ news/ lm040322. htm), 22nd March 2004, trainingreference.com

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External links
SumTotal Systems (http://www.sumtotalsystems.com) company website Asymetrix alumni page (http://www.tosolini.com/alumni) Gallery of renders (http://cedesign.net/3d/index.htm) done with Asymetrix 3D

History of virtual learning environments

A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers in the management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance learning. In North America, a virtual learning environment is often referred to as a "learning management system" (LMS).

Pre-1940s
1728: March 20, Boston Gazette contains an advertisement from Caleb Phillipps, "Teacher of the New Method of Short Hand," advising that any "Persons in the Country desirous to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston."[1] 1840: Isaac Pitman begins teaching shorthand, using Great Britain's Penny Post.[1] 1874: Institutionally sponsored distance education began in the United States in 1874 at the Illinois Wesleyan University.[1] 1890: International Correspondence Schools (ICS) is launched by newspaperman Thomas J. Foster in Scranton, Pennsylvania and becomes the world's largest study-at-home school. 1883: The Correspondence University of Ithaca, New York (a correspondence school) was founded in 1883.[1] 1892: The term distance education was first used in a University of WisconsinMadison catalog for the 1892 school year.[2] 1906-7: The University of WisconsinExtension[3] was founded;[4] the first true distance learning institution. 1909: The Machine Stops a short story by E. M. Forster, which describes an audio/visual communication network being used to deliver a lecture on Australian music to a remote audience.[5]
Pressey Testing Machine (exterior)

Pressey Testing Machine (interior)

1920s: Sidney Pressey, an educational psychology professor at Ohio State University, develops the first "teaching machine."[6] This device offered drill and practice exercises, and multiple choice questions. 1929: M.E. LaZerte, Director of the School of Education, University of Alberta, developed a set of instructional devices for teaching and learning. For example, he "developed several devices and methods to minimize instructor/testor involvement, so as to increase the likelihood of gathering data in a consistent manner." One mechanical device that he developed was the "problem cylinder" which could present a problem to a student and check whether the steps to a solution given by the student were correct.[7]

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1940s
1945 Vannevar Bush describes a hypertext-like device called the "memex" in his article As we may think[8] in The Atlantic. 1948 Norbert Wiener writes about human-machine communications in his landmark book "Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine" (MIT Press, 1948).

1950s
1953
The University of Houston offers the first televised college credit classes via KUHT, the first public television station in the United States. The live telecasts ran from 13 to 15 hours each week, making up about 38% of the program schedule. Most courses aired at night so that students who worked during the day could watch them. By the mid-1960s, with about one-third of the station's programming devoted to education, more than 100,000 semester hours had been taught on KUHT.[9]

19531956
B. F. Skinner develops "programmed instruction"[10] and an updated "teaching machine".[11]

1956
Gordon Pask and Robin McKinnon-Wood develop SAKI, the first adaptive teaching system to go into commercial production. SAKI taught keyboard skills and it optimized the rate by which a trainee keyboard operator learned by making the difficulty level of the tasks contingent on the learner's performance. As the learner's performance improved the rate of teaching increased and instructional support was delayed.[12]

19561958
Harvey White, a physics professor at U.C. Berkeley, produced 163 high school physics lessons at Pittsburgh's PBS station WQED that were broadcast into public schools in the area. Each 30 minute lesson was also filmed and subsequently distributed to dozens of educational/public television stations. In the academic year 1957 1958, White's television physics course was used in many thousands of public school classrooms across the nation in which over 100,000 students were enrolled. This course already made evident two important characteristics of distance education that carry over to contemporary online instruction: enormous economies of scale and higher labor productivity of the classroom based teacher/tutor/facilitator.

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1957
Frank Rosenblatt invented the "perceptron" in 1957 at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in an attempt to understand human memory, learning, and cognitive processes.[13] This was the beginning of machine learning.

1958
Charles Bourne and Douglas Engelbart publish an article in DATAMATION magazine that outlines the requirements of and a proposal for a National Technical Information Service for the USA.[14]

1959
Rath, Anderson, and Brainerd reported a project using an IBM 650 to teach binary arithmetic to students.[15] The University of Chicago first produces Sunrise Semester, a series of courses delivered via broadcast television.[16]

1960s
1960
PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) system developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The rights to PLATO are now owned by PLATO Learning, which delivers managed course content over the Internet. The PLATO system featured multiple roles, including students who could study assigned lessons and communicate with teachers through on-line notes, instructors, who could examine student progress data, as well as communicate and take lessons themselves, and authors, who could do all of the above, plus create new lessons. There was also a fourth type of user, called a multiple, which was used for demonstrations of the PLATO system.[17] Project Xanadu, the first known attempt at implementing a hypertext system, founded by Ted Nelson. Teaching Machines Inc, a group of psychologists produced a series of programmed learning texts. The texts were based on the work of B.F. Skinner, breaking complicated tasks to a one-step-at-a-time activity (terminal learning objectives). Grolier and TMI marketed Min-Max (a teaching machine) with machine programs and programmed text books.

1962
Douglas Engelbart publishes his seminal work, "Augmenting Human Intellect: a conceptual framework".[14] In this paper, he proposes using computers to augment training. With his colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute, Engelbart started to develop a computer system to augment human abilities, including learning. The system was simply called the oNLine System (NLS), and it debuted in 1968. The initial concept of a global information network should be given to J.C.R. Licklider in his series of memos entitled "On-Line Man Computer Communication, written in August 1962. However, the actual development of the internet must be given to Lawrence G. Roberts of MIT.

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1963
Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, the first graphical user interface for a computer, and publishes a description of it in his PhD. dissertation at MIT.[18] The first computer for instruction is installed at Orange Coast College, California. The OCC program leads the way. Bernard Luskin serves as director of the first teacher education program funded by the Federal Government under the Educational Professions Development Act to train develop the national curriculum for data processing and train the first 100 teachers. A chapter in the Daily Express Science Annual, entitled Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning, describes interactive teaching machines and shows photos of a number of systems including The Grundy Tutor,[19] The Auto Tutor and the Empirical Tutor.[20] These electronic devices present frames of information followed by questions, and branch to other frames depending on the button pressed by the learner. The article states that the Auto Tutor was designed by Norman Crowder, an American psychologist. It describes a British machine, the Empirical Tutor thus: "In addition to the printed programme it can use film sequences, slide projectors, tape recorders or even real apparatus, which the student may use to help him to decide how to answer the question in the frame". The article also refers to a language teaching system developed by Professor Rand Morton of Michigan University. A science fiction story in the same Annual, by Brian Aldiss, predicts mobile learning, wearable computing, braincomputer interfaces, the development of personal computing in the nineteen-seventies, and concern over global warming.[21] [22] Douglas Engelbart invents the computer mouse, and a prototype[23] is constructed by Bill English.[24] Engelbart was awarded a patent in 1970 for an improved version of the mouse.[25]

1964
The first authoring system for developing lessons and courses on a computer system is produced. The PLATO compiler allowed the development of various forms of teaching logic for fields varying from mathematics to the behavioral sciences.[26] The Computer Assisted Instruction Laboratory is established at Pennsylvania State University, College of Education.[27] The Altoona Area School District in Pennsylvania began to use computers to instruct students.[27]

1965
A five year study of the impact of the PLATO system is published.[26] Here are some highlights: The results of exploratory queuing studies show that the system could teach as many as a thousand students simultaneously, while still allowing each student to proceed through the material independently. The PLATO system had two different ways to teach tutorial logic where the system presented facts and examples, and then asked questions on the materials presented, and inquiry logic where the student could request and organize appropriate information from the computer. The presentation of materials (slide selector) was called an electronic book. The store of information in the system was called an electronic blackboard. PLATO had a sophisticated help system, whereby different types of wrong answers resulted in the student being sent different help sequences. A rudimentary spell checker was included in the system. A comment page allowed the student to comment on the lessons at any time. An instructor page allowed the instructor to communicate with the student. A perfect workbook recorded student responses to questions, as well as kept a record of each button the student pushed and the time at which he or she pushed it. These records were stored on magnetic tape for later statistical analysis. IBM, via its subsidiary Science Research Associates, Inc., introduces COURSEWRITER[28] for the IBM 1500,[29] an online interactive CAI system in the 1960s. The system included course management features and roles for the users such as instructor, manager, and student, and allowed intercommunication among them. Stanford University participated in the research and development that predated the IBM 1500s release.

History of virtual learning environments Ted Nelson uses the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in his paper Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate.[30] Research in the field of computer assisted instruction began in France at the universities in Paris, Grenoble and Toulouse.[31] The Department of Industrial and Vocational Education at the University of Alberta purchased a "Fabritek transistorized training computer" to teach students in electronics courses.[7]

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1967
The Division of Educational Research Services was formed at the University of Alberta, and this unit immediately acquired an electronic optical examination scoring machine, and an IBM magnetic tape typewriter. It shared an IBM 360/67 computer with the rest of the university, and used it mostly for statistical analysis.[7] The CAN (Completely Arbitrary Name) authoring language is developed by staff at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). "The initial design goal was to provide a lesson authoring language which could be used by classroom instructors with limited knowledge of computing."[32] The first CAI application is written in APL for the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. It consisted of an arithmetic drill program that "automatically adjusted its level of difficulty as a function of the student's rate of success".[7]

1968
An IBM 1500 system was installed at the University of Alberta, where on-line courses included cardiology training for the University's medical school. This system was finally taken out of service on April 10, 1980, after twelve years of operation. Over 20,000 people had used the system in that interval, and programming was available for 17 university courses. The instructional operating system of the IBM 1500 had a registration system, bookmarking, authoring, and progress reports all built-in.[7] Alan Kay, a graduate student at the University of UTAH, proposes the FLEX language. The FLEX Machine, a computer running the FLEX language is the first attempt to develop an object-oriented programming-based personal computer.[33] Douglas Engelbart and 17 of his colleagues demonstrate the new oNLine System (NLS) at the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco.[34] The MITRE Corporations begins development of their Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled, Information Television (TICCIT) system. It is described as a computer based system of instruction that is "low-cost, high quality education that is completely individualized."[35]

1969
The US Department of Defense commissions ARPANET (and thus the Internet as we know it).[36] Stanford University broadcasts 12 Stanford engineering courses on two channels via the Stanford Instructional Television Network (SITN).[37] The first Associate Committee on Instructional Technology is formed at the National Research Council of Canada.[38] Karl L. Zinn published a report entitled "Comparative study of languages for programming interactive use of computers in instruction" - EDUCOM Research Memorandum RM-1469.[39] R. Allan Avner and Paul Tenczar publish a manual for TUTOR, the authoring language of the PLATO system.[40] The Language Information Network and Clearinghouse System (LINCS) Project of the Center for Linguistics at the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC was developed as a computerized information management system to facilitate the transfer of scientific information within the language science community.[41]

History of virtual learning environments Beginning of a seven year project called Project Solo or Soloworks in Pittsburgh, USA. The group put out 33 newsletters over the course of the project. This is an early example of student controlled, individualized use of computers in education. The idea of going "solo" was that the student was in charge of his or her own learning. However, the limitations of the approach were also recognized, and the group ended up proposing a "Community of Learning" model in 1976.[42] The Merit Computer Network interconnects the mainframe computers at three large universities - University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University. The Merit Network facilitated instructional uses of computing facilities among the three institutions.[43] [44]

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1970s
1970
The Havering Computer Managed Learning System was developed in London, England. By 1980 it had been used by over 10,000 students and 100 teachers in applications that included science technology, remedial mathematics, career guidance, and industrial training.[45] Flanagan reports on Project Plan, where computers were used for learning management, though a student-centric model that integrated information on students past achievement, interests, etc. to develop an individualized plan of study which served to guide the learner through a series of Teacher Learning Units. This was implemented though a medium-sized computer and terminals in the schools.[46] Bernard Luskin received his PhD. in 1970. The title of his doctoral dissertation was An Identification and Examination of Obstacles to the Development of Computer Assisted Instruction, U.C.L.A. Luskin was an important pioneer and advocate for computers in higher education in California in the 1970s and 1980s.[47] California funded a two year project to determine the potential needs of distance education in the future. Under the direction of Dr. Bernard Luskin, this consortium of all community and state colleges in California developed a broad plan of action, one that predicted many of the technological innovations we use today.[48] Computers first used in elementary schools in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.[49] National Science Foundation (NSF) funded three initial projects for the study of "Natural Language Processing." These projects included the University of California, Irvine Physics Computer Development Project, headed by Alfred Bork and Research Assistant, Richard L. Ballard. The Mitre Ticcit Project conducted at the University of Texas, later moved to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and its sister project called the PLATO Project, was conducted at the University of Illinois, Champaign. Over 140 natural language dialog programs were created between 1970 and 1978. UCI's Physics Computer Development Project conducted approximately 55 educational programs and spearheaded development throughout the UC system. Initial projects were conducted on Teletype model 33, paper tape punch machine that operated at a 110 baud rate.[50]

1971
The MITRE Corporation begins a year-long demonstration of the TICCIT system among Reston, Virginia cable television subscribers. Interactive television services included informational and educational demonstrations using a touch-tone telephone. The National Science Foundation refunds the PLATO project and funds MITRE's proposal to modify its TICCIT technology as a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system to support English and algebra at community colleges. MITRE subcontracts instructional design and courseware authoring tasks to the University of Texas at Austin and Brigham Young University. Project EXTEND was set up in Michigan as a "small college consulting service for instructional computing."[51] It offered programming support and faculty development to those university instructors who wanted to get involved with computer-based instruction.[52] University of Delaware forms Project DELTA (Delaware Total Approach to Education). The project provides Computer Aided Instruction to high school students throughout Delaware utilizing instructional material served

History of virtual learning environments from a central DEC PDP-11/70.[53] Ivan Illich describes computer-based "learning webs" in his book Deschooling Society.[54] Among the features of his proposed system are Reference Services to Educational Objects which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning. Skill Exchanges which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at which they can be reached. Peer-Matching a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry. Reference Services to Educators-at-Large who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self-descriptions of professionals, paraprofessionals, and free-lancers, along with conditions of access to their services.

82

1972
Patrick Suppes, professor at Stanford University, developed computer-based courses in Logic and Set Theory that were offered to Stanford undergraduates from 1972 to 1992. The Learning Research Group is formed at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California. It is led by Alan Kay, who advanced the idea of a graphical user interface (GUI) by inventing icons for folders, menus, and overlapping windows. Kay and his group envisioned a computer for teaching and learning that they called the "KiddiKomputer [55]", to be programmed using the Smalltalk language they had developed. While Kay could see many educational uses for this computer, he had four initial projects in mind: 1) Teaching thinking skills, 2) Teaching modeling through the simulation of systems, 3) Teaching interface skills, and 4) Tracking what children would do with the computer outside school hours, when left to their own devices. Second level projects for teaching children with a computer included 1) Computer evaluation, 2) Iconic programming, especially for children under 8. Kay and his colleagues started teaching programming to children and adults in 1973. First Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Calgary, Alberta.[38] The Project Outreach Report is issued by the California Higher Education Commission. This report leads the way to legislation where public funds may be used for non-classroom based instruction and provides funds to produce the model telecourse, Contemporary California Issues, that is the course that serves as the model for modern distance learning programs. Project Outreach director was Bernard Luskin, Vice Chancellor, Coast Community Colleges.

1973
The National Development Program in Computer Assisted Learning was set up in the UK in January, 1973.[56] A report written for the University of Michigan described the educational uses of computers at the university. These included "drill, skills practice, programmed and dialog tutorials, testing and diagnosis, simulation, gaming, information processing, computation, problem solving, model construction, graphic display, the management of instructional resources, and the presentation and display of materials."[57] An integrated student information system at Trinity University in Texas maintained data on about 1,500 variables. These included all student academic and personal data, all faculty data that dealt with courses and teaching, all course data in regards to student, faculty and class meeting times and days, enrollments, buildings, and the college calendar and catalog. There was also "an interaction course management system".[58] As a post-doc at Carnegie-Mellon University, Jay Warner needed to teach undergraduate metallurgy students how to use new software that would calculate phase diagrams (graphical representations of metal states/phases as a function of composition and temperature) based on thermodynamic properties. He wrote a CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction) module that, however crudely, used some of the principles discussed in this article. A frame, or paragraph of information, was presented, and the machine branched to different follow-up frames and

History of virtual learning environments questions depending on the response to the embedded questions. The whole thing was written in FORTRAN IV. It proved useful; students could then use the software without close attendance by the instructor. This work was in no way as dramatic as the other accomplishments of the day, however it does show that by this time CAL was not restricted to studies of learning methods.

83

1974
Murray Turoff founded the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center at NJIT and over the next 15 years conducts an immense amount of research on Computer-mediated communication (CMC) with Starr Roxanne Hiltz. Much of this is on its applicability to the "Virtual Classroom", including field trials in the 1980s. The specifications for EIES 2 are particularly seminal - note in particular the material on roles, resources and hypertext.[59] Launched in June 1974, Creative Computing was the first computer magazine for general readers and hobbyists. The Jan-Feb 1976 issue had an article on "Learning with Computer Games". An "international school" was held in a remote Italian resort to explore the state of the art of computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Direct connections with computers in Italy and the United States made it possible to demonstrate a variety of existing CAI systems. Papers describing the use of CAI in five sets of educational institutions were presented.[60]

1975
The NSF-funded TICCIT Project begins testing English and algebra courseware at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Virginia, and at Phoenix College, part of the Maricopa County Community College District system in Phoenix, Arizona. The modified TICCIT system supports 128 student terminals made of modified television sets providing text and graphics in seven colors, digital audio, and a video switching device to embed video into the computer generated instruction. A specialized keyboard allows students to control their own progress through the courseware, which includes both tutorials, drills, and testing.[61] What is interesting about TICCIT is that it was based on a learner controlled command language that allowed the user to manipulate his or her own sequencing and development of learning strategies.[62] COMIT was a sophisticated system of computer-assisted instruction developed jointly by IBM and the University of Waterloo in Canada. It emphasized unique audiovisual capabilities of the television set and light pens. The project ran until 1978.[63] The Michigan Terminal System (MTS), a computer time-sharing operating system developed at the University of Michigan, included a program called CONFER developed by Robert Parnes that gave it the capabilities of computer conferencing.[64]

1976
Edutech Project of Encinitas California (now Digital ChoreoGraphics of Newport Beach, CA) develops DOTTIE, a TV Set-Top device linking the home TV to online services such as CompuServ and The Source via a common household telephone. Development of the language Pop11 (derived from the Edinburgh AI language Pop2) and its teaching tools starts at the University of Sussex. This later evolved into Poplog.[65] Development of the KOM computer conferencing system begins at Stockholm University. See Jacob Palme's history of KOM [66] First experimental developments at the Open University of what became the Cyclops system [67] - then called a telewriting or audio-graphic system but nowadays would be called a whiteboard system - under two separate teams in the Faculties of Mathematics (Read and Bacsich) and Technology (Pinches and Liddell) - the first team focusing on storage on cassette tape of digital data to drive VDUs, the second focusing on transmission of

History of virtual learning environments handwriting over telephone lines. There were similar developments under way in the US and France.[68] Coastline Community College, having no physical campus, became the first Virtual College in the United States. Distance learning pioneer Bernard Luskin is founding president.[69] Second Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Quebec City, Quebec.[38] Open University in the UK sets up the CICERO project with three courses taught online.[70] A report by Karl L. Zinn at the University of Michigan describes computer-based conferencing, computer-based seminars, computer-assisted curriculum development, computer-based committees, and computer-based proposal preparation.[71] Coastline Community College is launched as a college beyond walls. This is the first community college to be launched with no campus, centering on telecourses and community facilities. Founding president Bernard Luskin coins the slogan, "The community is the campus, the citizens are the students.

84

1977
With the Canadian federal Department of Communications, TVOntario (TVO) pioneered the use of satellites for educational teleconferencing and direct-to-home transmission through the Hermes project. The experiment allowed students in California and Toronto to interact via electronic classrooms.[72] The Communications Research Center of the Canadian federal government's Department of Communications developed Telidon, a second generation videotext system that was used in field trials in several educational settings.[73] Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) provides Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) tutorials for its BASIC programming language on DEC PDP computers. At the UK Open University, the software and hardware teams developing telewriting systems merged to form the Cyclops project and gained funding, initially internally, later from UK government sources. There is little trace of Cyclops now on the Open University web site except for a slide in a historical presentation of the background to the Lyceum system.[74] [75]

1978
Pathlore (as part of Legent Corp.) started developing CBT solutions. In 1995 it became divested from Legent. Its PHOENIX [76] software delivered "virtual classrooms" to many corporate networks. Pathlore was acquired by SumTotal Systems in 2005.[77] The National Science Foundation releases its evaluation of the MITRE TICCIT project demonstration, giving a mixed review of the success of using the computer-television system as the primary source of instruction for English and algebra. The Defense Research Institute in Sweden released the KOM computer conferencing system which (at its peak) had a thousand users[78]

1979
Prestel, claimed by BT as "the world's first public viewdata service", was opened in London in September, running on a cluster of minicomputers. It had been conceived in the early 1970s by Samuel Fedida of the Post Office Research Laboratories at Dollis Hill, London. Similar developments were under way in France (Teletel) and Canada (Telidon). Only those active at the time will remember the sense of euphoria and opening of possibilities in what would now be called the e-business and e-learning worlds. (Sadly, the concept was premature, although in France it had most success.) A number of mainframe, minicomputer and even micro-computer based systems and services were later developed in educational circles of which perhaps the best known were OPTEL, Communitel, ECCTIS and NERIS.[79]

History of virtual learning environments In Canada, groups including TVOntario, Athabasca University, the University of Victoria, and the University of Waterloo participated in Telidon [80] experiments during the late 70s and early 80s. Telidon, an alphageometric videotex information system used set-top boxes with TV sets, or subsequently software decoders running on PCs (Apple II, MAC, and PC decoders were available) to display text and graphics. The intent was to demonstrate and develop educational applications for videotex and teletext systems. This work continued until 1983 [81], when the Telidon coding structure became a North American standard - ANSI T500 - NAPLPS (North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax). The Athabasca University educational Telidon project used a Unix path structure which allowed the storage of information pages in the file system tree. This is now the universal storage method for pages on the internet. As described, the system had the ability to create separate user groups with different access privileges, and to implement "action scripts" to access system functions, including email and dynamic content generation. The AU system was described in Abell, R.A. "Implementation of a Telidon System Using UNIX File Structures" in Godfrey, D. and Chang, E. (eds) The Telidon Book, Reston Publishing Company, Reston, VA, 1981) An article by Karl L. Zinn in Educational Technology describes the uses of microcomputers at the University of Michigan. Uses included "word processing, extending laboratory experience, simulation, games, tutorial uses, and building skills in computing."[82]

85

1980s
1980
Successmaker is a K-12 learning management system with an emphasis on reading, spelling and numeracy. According to the Pearson Digital Learning website [83], the South Colonie Central School District in Albany, New York "has been using SuccessMaker since 1980, and in 1997 the district upgraded the software to SuccessMaker version 5.5." The Open University begins a pilot trial of a viewdata (videotex) system OPTEL, on a DEC-20 mainframe. This had been conceived by Peter Zorkoczy even before the launch of the national Prestel system in 1979 and was locally specified and coded (in COBOL) by Peter Frogbrook (RIP) and Gyan Mathur (RIP). One of the main motivations was its applicability to online learning. It was available via dial-up from home, and later in the 1980s via telnet(!) on the X.25 and internet networks. There were individual user codes and passwords, giving different access rights; the one generic access code was regularly attacked by hackers even in these far-off days, as URLs still on the web attest. The system is overviewed in "Viewdata-Style Delivery Mechanisms for CAL", CAL Research Group Technical Report No. 11. [84] Seymour Papert at MIT publishes "Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas". (New York: Basic Books). This book inspired a number of books and dissertations on "microworlds" and their impact on learning. The idea of managing teaching resources using a computer is described in a paper by J.M. Leclerc and S. Normand from the University of Montreal. Their system was programmed in BASIC, and used a computer to track documents, human resources, structured activities, and places for training and observation. Evaluation activities were also available in the system.[85] The University of Montreal offered CAF, a computer system that taught written French. Graduated groups of questions were generated according to individual indicators. Students went through the system at their own pace.[86] TLM (The Learning Manager) was released in 1980 and included distinct roles for students, instructors, educational assistants, and administrators. The system could be accessed remotely by dial-up as a student or an instructor using a terminal emulator. The system had a sophisticated test bank capability and generated tests and practice activities based on a learning objective data structure. Instructors and students could communicate through the terminal. Instructors could lock out students or post messages. Originally called LMS (Learning Management System), TLM was used extensively at SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) and Bow

History of virtual learning environments Valley College, both located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.[87]

86

1981
School of Management and Strategic Studies at the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La Jolla, California starts an online program.[88] University of Sussex, UK, implements Poplog, an interactive learning environment for AI and computing students. It includes hyperlinked teaching materials, an extensible text editor, multiple programming languages and interactive demonstrations of AI programs.[89] Field trials begin of the Cyclops whiteboard system in the East Midlands Region of the Open University and run for two years. The evaluation was funded by a grant from British Telecom and allowed the evaluation Director Tony Bates to employ Mike Sharples and David McConnell as research fellows. Audio-visual material for Cyclops was produced on the Cyclops Studio , a multimedia editing system coded in UCSD Pascal by a software team led by Paul Bacsich and including Mark Woodman. Cyclops Cyclops telewriting system, tutor's was later awarded a BCS prize for innovation and systems installed in station Indonesia. There are only passing references now to Cyclops on the open Web (see under names cited) - the best source of specifications and chronology is the article "Cyclops:shared-screen teleconferencing" in The Role of Technology in Distance Education, edited Tony Bates, Croom Helm, 1984.[90] Over this period the Open University was also developing its own viewdata (videotex) system, called OPTEL, for use in education. This had in fact started about the same time as Cyclops in yet another team at the OU. The project ran until about 1985 when it faded away, as did videotex generally across the world (except the Minitel in France). In addition to OPTEL, several other systems were implemented including VOS (Videotex Operating System) which allowed the display and manipulation of text files via videotex. VOS was further developed into a telesoftware, transactional (gateway) and email system and then used in a commercial development for IMS, the media research company (using a very early precursor of Web/CGI development). These were coded in Pascal and COBOL on the DEC-20 mainframe. Some of the ideas of OPTEL were taken over into the ECCTIS project delivering course data via viewdata from a Unisys mainframe - indeed one of the former OPTEL staff joined ECCTIS as Director. Systems were also specified to deliver Computer Assisted Learning - see in particular the article "Viewdata systems" in The Role of Technology in Distance Education.[90] There are only fragmentary references now to OPTEL on the open Web. Allen Communication in Salt Lake City, Utah, introduced the first commercial interactive videodisc.[91] BITNET, founded by a consortium of US and Canadian universities, allowed universities to connect with each other for educational communications and e-mail. At its peak in 1991, it had over 500 organizations as members and over 3000 nodes. Its use declined as the World Wide Web grew. Alfred Bork wrote an article entitled Information Retrieval in Education, in which he identified the ways "computer-based techniques can be used for course management, direct learning, and research."[92]

History of virtual learning environments

87

1982
The Computer Assisted Learning Center (CALC) founded as a small, offline computer-based, adult learning center. Origins of CALCampus [93] Edutech Project of Encinitas California (now Digital ChoreoGraphics of Newport Beach, CA) implements PIES, an interactive online educational development and delivery system for the PILOT author language, using a client-server paradigm for online delivery of personalized courseware to students via popular video-game consoles and micro-computers. The system was used by Pepperdine University, Georgia Tech, San Diego County Department of Education, and Alaska Department of Education for distance learning. CET (later NCET and now Becta [94]) publishes Videotex in Education: A new technology briefing, a 54-page booklet written by Vincent Thompson, Mike Brown and Chris Knowles. This is out of print and few copies are now available. (ISBN 0-86184-072-0) Hermann Maurer invents MUPID, an innovative videotex device later used widely in Austria. This starts a strand of development leading on to Hyper-G and a range of other developments. [95] See also the history of Hyper-G [96] . Carnegie Mellon University and IBM create the Information Technology Center which begins the Andrew Project at Carnegie Mellon. One of the primary goals of the project is to provide a platform for "computer-aided instruction" using a distributed workstation computing environment, authenticated access to both personal and public file spaces in a distributed file system (AFS), authoring tools for computer-based lessons, and collaboration tools including bulletin boards and electronic messaging. Peter Smith of the UK Open University completes his PhD thesis (157 pp) on "Radiotext: an application of computer and communication systems in distance teaching". (Only one reference [97] online.) It is believed that the work started in the late 1970s under the supervision of Peter Zorkcoczy, who also conceived the OPTEL viewdata system. Radiotext denoted the transmission of data over radio signals, just as it can be sent over telephone lines. It may seem normal now, as in the Radio Data System (RDS) in these days of digital radio, but in the 1970s the concept was novel and complex for their colleagues to grasp.

1983
McConnell, D. and Sharples, M. (1983). Distance teaching by Cyclops: an educational evaluation of the Open Universitys telewriting system. British Journal of Educational Technology, 14(2), pp.109126. Paper describes the CYCLOPS system, developed at the Open University UK in the early 1980s, which provides multi-site tutoring through a shared whiteboard system providing voice conferencing combined with synchronous handwriting and real-time annotation of downloaded graphics. A more comprehensive set of six short papers describing Cyclops was published in Media in Education and Development vol. 16 no. 2, June 1983, pp.5874. Aregon International rewrote the Cyclops content authoring system as the Excom 100 Studio and created and produced the Excom 100 terminal, a commercial version of the Cyclops terminal incorporating lightpen, graphics tablet, and keyboard as input devices. Excom 100 was awarded the BCS IT award in the "Application" category for 1983. [98] 03:20, 13 November 2010 (UTC) MIT announces a 5 year, Institute wide experiment to explore innovative uses of computers for teaching. This initiative is known as Project Athena. [99] Fourth Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Winnipeg in October 1983.[100]

History of virtual learning environments

88

1984
Asymetrix founded by Paul Allen (a colleague of Bill Gates). Asymetrix created ToolBook. Later it became Click2Learn and then merged with Docent to become SumTotal Systems which offers a complete Learning Management solution.[101] The Annenberg/CPB project (funded by the Annenberg Foundation) publishes Electronic text and higher education: a summary of research findings and field experiences, Report number 1 in their "Electronic Text Report Series". This reviews videotex and teletext experiences relevant to education in the US, UK and Canada. This document may help to counteract received wisdom that prior to the Web, US agencies did not undertake studies of the relevance of online systems to education.[102] In the Faculty Authoring Development Program and Courseware Authoring Tools Project at Stanford University (1984-1990s) several dozen teaching applications were created, including tutorials in economics, drama simulations, thermodynamics lessons, and historical and anthropological role-playing games. Article [103] on "Computing at Carnegie-Mellon University" describes the benefits to students and faculty of a new project using networked personal computers set up by IBM and the university. Students and faculty at the University of Waterloo [104] use IBM PCs networked together to do their work and to develop applications (a "JANET"). One PC acts as a server for files in the network. The OECD organized a conference in Paris, France on "Education and the New Information Technology." Antic (magazine) publishes a review [105] of a cartridge [106] for Atari home computers allowing Atari users to access courseware on the CDC PLATO system via modem. Computer Teaching Corporation (CTC) launched TenCORE [107] which was the leading authoring language in the late 1980s. It was MS-DOS based. CTC also produced a network-based Computer Managed Instruction System which allowed users to take on the roles of author, student and administrator and to create and participate in a plurality of courses. The Intercultural Learning Network [108] created at UC, San Diego linked schools in Japan, Israel, Mexico, and California and Alaska in the U.S. in the first online Learning Circle. This effort was funded by an Apple "wheels for the MInd" grant. ComSubLant adopts an elearning program for use on all U.S. submarines to train crewmen at sea. It was developed by FTG1 Doner Caldwell at Submarine Group Six and ran on the Tektronix 4052A computer. The program utilized a lesson / test bank covering all submarine sonar publications on large format tape cartridge.

1985
In 1985, the Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences, at Nova Southeastern University, pioneers accredited graduate degrees through online courses[109] , awarding their first doctorate. In 1985, Patrick Suppes, professor at Stanford University, received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a first-year calculus course on computer. After several years of development and testing in summer camps, computer-based courses in Beginning Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, and Precalculus were created and tested during the 1991-92 academic year. In Fall 1992, after porting the software to the Windows operating system, the Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) was formally launched at Stanford University, making these courses available to qualified students. Project Athena at MIT, on the potential uses of advanced computer technology in the university curriculum, has been underway for two years by this time, and about 60 educational development projects are in progress [110] [111] . Daniel V. Klein [112] develops UOLT, a Unix-based On Line aid to Training. This system features presentation of on-line courses and individualized testing and grading. Later renamed and published as UBOAT A Unix Based On-Line Aid to Tutorials, in the Proceedings of the European Unix Users Group, Dublin IRELAND, September 1987.

History of virtual learning environments The SuperBook Project started at Bell Communications Research, Morristown, USA. The purpose of the project was to find new ways of navigating online books.[113] Jacob Nielsen commented online [114] that "In 1990, Bell Communications Research's SuperBook project proved the benefits of integrating search results with navigation menus and other information space overviews." The decision is taken (at the CALITE 85 conference) to found ASCILITE, the Australian Society of Computers In Learning In Tertiary Education. (It took two more years for all details to be finalised.) See the history of ASCILITE [115]. ASCILITE is the co-publisher of the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET).

89

1986
Tony Bates publishes "Computer Assisted Learning or Communications: Which Way for Information Technology in Distance Education?", Journal of Distance Education/ Revue de l'enseignement a distance, reflecting (in 1986!) on ways forward for e-learning, based on 15 years of operational use of computer networks at the Open University and nine years of systematic R&D on CAL, viewdata/videotex, audio-graphic teleconferencing and computer conferencing. Many of the systems specification issues discussed later are rehearsed here.[116] Edward Barrett comes to MIT in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. He becomes co-director of a group working on a distance learning project called the "Networked Educational Online System" (NEOS), a suite of programs for teaching writing and other subjects in specially designed electronic seminar rooms.[117] First version of LISTSERV is written by Eric Thomas, an engineering student in Paris, France. It was first used in the BITNET network for electronic mailing lists among universities.[118] Fifth Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held May 57 in Ottawa.[119] First version of CSILE installed on a small network of Cemcorp ICON computers at an elementary school in Toronto, Canada. CSILE included text and graphical notes authored by several kinds of users (students, teachers, others) with attributes such as comments and thinking types which reflect the role of the note in the author's thinking. Thinking types included "my theory", "new information", and "I need to understand". CSILE later evolved into Knowledge Forum Intersystem Concepts, Inc., founded by Steven Okonski and Gary Dickelman, introduces the Summit Authoring System which includes student tracking and bookmarks plus instructor course management features. It is the first to bring streaming media to a virtual learning environment.

1987
In 1987, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its first online distance education courses. The courses were provided through EKKO, NKI's self-developed Learning Management System(LMS). The experiences are described in the article NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability in Morten Flate Paulsen's book Online Education and Learning Management Systems which is available online at Online Education and Learning Management Systems [120] From this year until 1991 several UK groups of researchers associated in one way or another with the Open University, the UK Department for Industry (especially the Alvey programme, the transputer team and the Information Technology Consultancy Unit) and the emerging European Commission DELTA programme, carry out a mass of specification and prototyping work on "educational environments". Projects include the Thought Box; the Learning Systems Reference Model; Portable Educational Tools Environment (joint OU, Harlequin and Chorus Systmes); and Transputer-Based Communications-oriented Learning System. Among the non-OU co-workers were Chris Webb, Bill Olivier and Oleg Liber, all still active in e-learning. (No useful material left on the current public Web.) Authorware Inc. is formed in Minneapolis/St. Paul. From initial prototypes developed on both mainframe and very early personal computers, a Macintosh-based authoring system called "Course of Action" is introduced; later a PC version is developed. Shortly after its introduction, the title of the authoring system is changed to match the name of the company. Authorware went on to become the first and most widely used industry-standard

History of virtual learning environments development tool. The Athena Writing Project at MIT publishes "Electronic Classroom: Specification for a user interface"[121] 1987, Glenn Jones of Jones Intercable in Denver, Colorado believed he saw a potential goldmine when he created a new system, called Mind Extension University in 1987. Jones created a system where telecourses could be provided across a network to various colleges and at the same time, students could interact with the instructors and each other, by using email, sent over the internet. Jones then began to beam the courses by satellite, so anyone with a satellite dish could watch the classes and if they had a computer and a phone line they could interact with the class.[122] A group of companies in Alberta, working with Alberta Government Telephones, create a pre-internet "whiteboard-like" audiographic teleconferencing system. Using PCs, specialized NAPLPS-based software, and audioconferencing bridges, the system shares graphics, text, and voice, for synchonous multipoint instructor/student student/student communication. The system was used by the Commonwealth of Learning in several locations around the globe, and was also used by Arctic College in Alaska for distance education. In some implementations, the students uploaded assignments to instructors for marking.

90

1988
Probably the first large-scale use of computer conferencing in distance teaching when the Open University UK launched DT200 Introduction to Information Technology with 1000 students per year. The ur-evaluation by Robin Mason is a good description - see Chapter 9 of Mindweave - Internet Archive [123] Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul [124] Edward Barrett and James Paradis publish a chapter entitled "The Online Environment and In-House Training" in Edward Barrett (Ed.) Text, ConText, and HyperText (1988-MIT Press), that describes Project Athena as an Educational On-Line System (EOS). Question Mark (see QuestionMark) introduces a DOS-based Assessment Management System. A Windows based version was introduced in 1993, and an internet version was introduced in 1995. See Questionmark's website. [125] Utilizing colleague Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica computer algebra system, mathematics professors at the University of Illinois, Jerry Uhl and Horacio Porta along with Professor Bill Davis of The Ohio State University, develop Calculus&Mathematica [126] and offer calculus courses at UIUC and OSU in computer labs. Peter Copen launches the New York State/Moscow Schools Telecommunications Project, linking 12 schools in New York State with 12 in Moscow in the former Soviet Union to demonstrate that students can learn better through direct interaction online and will become global citizens. This was the pilot project for what later became iEARN (International Education and Resource Network). Online Learning Circles [127] (developed from the Intercultural Learning Network, UCSD as one of the first networks that connected classrooms from around the world in groups of 8-10 classrooms around themes) was offered on the AT&T Learning Network [128].

1989
Tim Berners-Lee, then a young British engineer working at CERN in Switzerland, circulated a proposal for an in-house online document sharing system which he described as a "web of notes with links". After the proposal was grudgingly approved by his superiors, he called the new system the World Wide Web. Chris Moore, Chief Technology Officer at THINQ Learning Solutions for many years, pioneered the TrainingServer learning management system for Syscom, Inc. Syscom was acquired by THINQ in 2000. THINQ was acquired [129] by Saba in 2005. Chris Moore has recently founded Zeroed-In Technologies [130]. Lancaster University (UK) launches the MSc in Information Technology and Learning: now the worlds longest continually running Masters programme taught using virtual learning methods (see Goodyear, P (2005) The emergence of a networked learning community: lessons learned from research and practice, in Kearsley, G. (ed) Online learning, Englewood Cliffs NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 113-127.)

History of virtual learning environments The Calculus&Mathematica support team at the University of Illinois begin offering computerized calculus courses utilizing Mathematica over the internet to High School students in rural Illinois. John S. Quarterman published a 700+ page book, "The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide" (Digital Press, 1989). This book provided detailed addressing protocols on how different computer networks could connect with each other for the purpose of exchanging information and holding discussions, and network maps of the developing Internet. Networked Educational Online System (NEOS) developed and deployed at MIT. The system provided coursework exchange between different roles allowing for grading, annotating, and public discussions. Nick Williams, William Cattey, "The Educational On-Line System", Proceedings of the EUUG Spring Conference, EUUG, (April 1990) Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., McLean, R. S., Swallow, J., & Woodruff, E. (1989). Computer supported intentional learning environments. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 5, 51-68. Paper discusses CSILE project and related software. The first release of Lotus Notes 1.0 is shipped. Release 1.0 includes functionality which is "revolutionary" for the time, including allowing system/server administrators to create a user mailbox, user records in a Name and Address database, and to notarize the user's ID file through dialog boxes. Also includes an electronic mail system with return receipt and notification features, and on-line help, "a feature not offered in many products at this time." Official history of Lotus Notes [131] Publication of the book Mindweave: Communication, Computers and Distance Education, edited by Robin Mason and Anthony Kaye (published by Pergamon Press, Oxford, 273p). This was a hugely influential book on computer conferencing on which many of the leading experts of the time collaborated. In addition to descriptions of applications, there were several chapters describing or specifying systems, in particular the Thought Box. The book is available second-hand (e.g. via Amazon) but the full text (no images) is on the web. Internet Archive [132] [133] The first public article specifying the Thought Box appears as Chapter 7 of Mindweave, written by Gary Alexander and Ches Lincoln. It is entitled "The thought box: A computer-based communication system to support distance learning". Although the specification is couched in terms of a hardware device linked to a remote mail/resources server the article also describes the prototype work being done in HyperCard, and it could be argued that this software prototype had many of the features of a modern Personal Learning Environment. In fact, over the next few years, the HyperCard route was the way by which the ideas were advanced, eventually appearing in the XT001 online course in the early 1990s and in several other Open University courses. Internet Archive [134] [135] The Athena Writing Project at MIT produces this publication: N. Hagan Heller, "Designing a User Interface for the Educational On-line System", Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, May 1989. Education 2010 [136] is published. This 83-page booklet (published by Newman Software, ISBN 0-948048-04-2) arose out of an invitational conference at Bangor in July, 1989, with a brief to examine the possible role of IT in Education in the year 2010. With a few notable exceptions such as Stephen Heppell, few of the conference delegates are active now in e-learning - but it makes interesting reading. ECCTIS Limited was formed when it successfully completed in a closed tendering exercise for the ECCTIS online (viewdata) courses information service earlier run by the UK Open University. "ECCTIS" is one of the few names from the viewdata era of the 1980s to carry on till this day, even if somewhat changed. ECCTIS has a useful company history [137] page. Dr. John Sperling and Terri Hedegaard Bishop begin the University of Phoenix Online campus, based in San Francisco, California. It was the first private university venture to deliver complete academic degree programs (Master's and Bachelor's degrees) and services to a mass audience, via asynchronous online technologies. This early success is later documented in a paper written by Hedegaard-Bishop and Howard Garten (Professor at University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio), The Rise of Computer Conferencing Courses and Online Education:

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History of virtual learning environments Challenges for Accreditation and Assessment" and published in a collection of Papers on Self-Study and Institutional Improvement by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, (1993) 137-145.

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1990s
1991
In Datacloud: Toward a New Theory of Online Work, Johndan Johnson-Eilola describes a specific computer-supported collaboriatin space: The Smart Board, which was introduced in 1991. According to Johnson-Eilola, a Smart Board system provides a 72-inch, rear projection, touchscreen, intelligent whiteboard surface for work (79). In Datacloud, Johnson-Eilola asserts that [w]e are attempting to understand how users move within information spaces, how users can exist within information spaces rather than merely gaze at them, and how information spaces must be shared with others rather than being private, lived within rather than simply visited (82). He explains how the Smart Board system offers an information space that allows his students to engage in active collaboration. He makes three distinct claims regarding the functionality of the technology: 1) The Smart Board allows users to work with large amounts of information, 2) It offers an information space that invites active collaboration, 3) The work produced is often dynamic and contingent (82).[138] Johnson-Eilola further explains that with the Smart Board information work becom[es] a bodied experience (81). Users have the opportunity to engage withinhabitthe technology by direct manipulation. Moreover, this space allows for more than one user; essentially, it invites multiple users.[138]

1992
Philips Interactive Media, led by CEO Bernard Luskin, and Paramount Pictures, led by Eric Doctorow pioneer full motion video movies on CD. The first full motion video MPEG compression methods are developed and full motion video becomes available for all manner of digital programs.

1994
TeleEducation NB, a provincial distance learning network in the Canadian province of New Brunswick implemented a primitive DOS-based learning management system designed by Rory McGreal.

1995
Arnold Pizer and Michael Gage at the University of Rochester Department of Mathematics develop WeBWorK [139] (a free Perl-based system for delivering individualized homework problems over the web) for use in mathematics instruction. Steve Molyneux at University of Wolverhampton in the UK develops WOLF (Wolverhampton Online Learning Framework) one of the first e-Learning environments in the UK. In 1995 Murray Goldberg at University of British Columbia began looking at the application of web-based systems to education and developed WebCT in early 1996.

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1996
Glenn Jones, Chairman, and Bernard Luskin, founding chancellor of Jones International University launch Jones International University which becomes the first accredited fully web based university.

1997
Neal Sample and Mark Arnold present "JavaScript for Simulation Education" at the NAU/web.97 conference (Flagstaff, Arizona, 1215 June 1997). Their paper presents earlier work (pre-1997) on experiences presenting coursework over the Internet. At the same conference, other academics presented their work in the field of e-learning. A copy of the Sample/Arnold paper can be found here:[140] CourseInfo LLC founded by Dan Cane and Stephen Gilfus at Cornell University. http://www.news.cornell. edu/chronicle/97/10.16.97/Web_company.html Develops the "Interactive Learning Network" ILN 1.5, and installs it at several academic institutions including Cornell University, Yale Medical School and University of Pittsburgh. The ILN was the first e-learning system of its kind to leverage an install on top of a relational database MySqL. http:/ / www. cquest. utoronto. ca/ env/ aera/ aera-lists/aera-c/97-11/0123.html Blackboard Inc founded by Michael Chasen and Matt Pitinsky in Washington, DC.

1998
Ian D. Thompson at the University of Strathclyde creates version one of the SPIDER VLE system for the School of Pharmacy.[141] Coursepackets.com, founded by entrepreneur, and then UT student, Alan Blake, launches in the fall semester at the University of Texas at Austin. The company was the first to provide scanned, online versions of course-packets for students. Coursepackets.com changed its name to CourseNotes.com when it began offering expanded services in early 2000.

1999
John Baker (entrepreneur) a student at the University of Waterloo creates version one of Desire2Learn learning system for faculty in engineering.[142]

2000s
2000
January, 2000: CourseNotes.com, founded by entrepreneur, and then UT student, Alan Blake, launches in early 2000, with dozens of classes at the University of Texas at Austin. The service was marketed since the summer of 1999, and provides comprehensive professor web sites, including virtually all features offered by Blackboard (i.e., course documents, calendaring, grades, quizzes & surveys, announcements, etc.). The company was later renamed ClassMap and operational until early 2001. January 2000: Lamp and Goodwin of Deakin University publish "Using Computer Mediated Communications to Enhance the Teaching of Team Based Project Management" (conference presentation copyright 1999), an evaluation of a trial of FirstClass to teach project management at Deakin in 1998-99. It contains the memorable observation "There were some comments about features which students believed that FirstClass didn't have (eg email, chat sessions on demand) when, in fact, they were available facilities..." Internet Archive [143] Deakin University [144] Note also that there are several specifications of pre-2000 versions of FirstClass available (usually as PDF files at university sites) on the web.

History of virtual learning environments January 2000: ILIAS [145], which has been developed at University of Cologne since 1997, has become open source software under the GPL (first release: ILIAS 1.6). Together with developers from other universities in Northrhine-Westfalia the ILIAS team founded the CampusSource [146] initiative to promote the development of open source LMS and other software for teaching at universities. May, 2000: ArsDigita, a Boston Massachusetts based start-up who developed the Arsdigita Community System since their inception in 1997 deploys Caltech Portals at my.caltech.edu [147] Later that year in October 2000, deploy the ArsDigita Community Education System (ACES) at MIT Sloan School. The system is called Sloanspace.[148] The ArsDigita Community System as well as ACES in the next few years grow to OpenACS [149] and .LRN [150] May 1, 2000: Randy Graebner's master's thesis from MIT is published, Online Education Through Shared Resources [151]. Internet Archive [152] [153] Courseware Accessibility Study] User based study looks at the accessibility of six VLEs Mid June, Reda Athanasios, President of Convene International leaves the company to form Learning Technology Partners (which later buys Convene). Now that the Virtual classroom idea is well established, what is needed next is to build all the other supporting technologies to turn the Virtual Classroom to a Virtual Campus with SMS and e-commerce support, he claims. Learning Technology Partners seeks to build technologies to support the Virtual Classroom. June 30, 2000: Blackboard Inc. file a patent application relating to "Internet-based education support systems and methods". An international patent application (WO application 0101372 [154]) is filed on the same date. The applications claim priority from a provisional patent application filed June 30, 1999. A US patent is granted in 2006 (See below) and patent applications in Europe, Canada, Mexico and Australia are also pursued from the WO application. Blackboard Inc. acquires MadDuck Technologies LLC [155], developers of "Web Course in a Box". ETUDES 2.5 is demonstrated in March at TechEd 2000 in Palm Springs, California. At or prior to this release, ETUDES included a number of features of VLEs, including course and role based access via login, electronic assignment submission, online assessment, and synchronous and asynchronous communications. The system is in use by a number of community colleges in California, including Foothill, Miracosta, and Las Positas. * "The Political Economy of Online Education" (Onrain Kyouiku no Seijikeizaigaku) by Kimura Tadamasa was published in May, with the rubric "this book examines the role of secondary education in the new information society, from a variety of perspectivies - socialogy, psychology, and human resource management - using concrete examples of online education in educational environments." ISBN 4-7571-4017-7. NTT publishing. Tokyo. (Japanese). The MIT Sloan School of Management launches the first production version of ACES 3.4 with a pilot of 8 Fall 2000 classes. Northern Virginia Community College's Extended Learning Institute begins using Blackboard after having previously used a variety of other products for Internet-based course delivery, including Lotus Notes (1995), FirstClass (19961999), Serf [156] (19971999), and Allaire Forums (1999ff.) for its engineering degree program and other courses [157]; NVCC also used WebBoard (1999ff) and Web Course in a Box (1998ff), prior to beginning its use of Blackboard. (Sener, J. Bringing ALN into the Mainstream: NVCC Case Studies. In: Bourne, J. and Moore, J. (Eds.), Online Education: Learning Effectiveness, Faculty Satisfaction, and Cost Effectiveness, Volume 2. Needham, MA: Sloan Center for OnLine Education, 7-30, 2001.) In fall 2000 the open source LMS OLAT developed at University of Zurich won the MeDiDa-Prix [158] for its paedagogical concept. It was optimized to support a blended learning concept. In May 2000, HEFCE, the Higher Education Funding Council for (universities in) England, commissions a comparative analysis of the main VLEs, as part of a series of studies for the imminent UK e-University. Over 40 specially-created vendor submissions mostly delivered by 17 June 2000 are analysed by a team led by Paul

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History of virtual learning environments Bacsich. A companion study analsyed what were then called Learning Administration Systems, in a team comprising Christopher Dean, Oleg Liber, Sandy Britain and Bill Olivier. Final reports were delivered in September 2000. Webster & Associates / Infosentials Ltd launches learningfast.com in first half of year. Complete course based assessment, with separate user and administrator logins. Users, on login, are provided with a list of courses that matches their subscription level. Subsequently sold to Monash University. In July, 2000, CyberLearning Labs, Inc. is founded. Its primary product, the ANGEL Learning Management System (LMS) evolved from research at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). The company will later change its name to ANGEL Learning, Inc. A Manual for Students in Web-Based Courses: What do you do now that they have gone to the Web? [159] was published online by Kent Norman at the University of Maryland, College Park, Laboratory for Automation Psychology. The Claroline project was initiated in 2000 at the Catholic University of Louvain [160] (Belgium) by Thomas De Praetere and was financially supported by the Louvain Foundation. [161] Developed from teachers to teachers, Claroline is built over sound paedagogical principles [162] allowing a large variety of paedagogical setup including widening of traditional classroom and online collaborative learning.

95

2001
Technological Fluency Institute [163] releases CAT1 [164] (Computer Assessment and Tutorial) which assesses a persons technical abilities and offers help tutorials for participants. CourseWork.Version I (CW), a full-featured course management system, was developed at Stanford University's Academic Computing. CW supported multiple courses allowing multiple roles for users. CW's consisted of a set of tools for authoring and distributing course websites that incluced: a course homepage, announcements, syllabus, schedule, course materials, assignments (based on a 1998 version of CW), gradebook and assync discussion. This version was initially developed as part of the Open Knowledge Initiative, partially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Microsoft releases Microsoft Encarta Class Server (See Press Release [165]) The Bodington system released as open source by the University of Leeds, UK Moodle is published via CVS to early testers The announcement is here [166]. LON-CAPA is first used in courses at Michigan State University. version 2.0 of COSE is launched after further funding from the JISC Murray Goldberg (founder of WebCT) and others start a company called Silicon Chalk. Silicon Chalk builds software for the classroom to be used in laptop learning environments. Examples of features include presentation and audio beaming to student laptops, student note taking, student polling, student questions, control of student applications, recording of entire lecture experience for archiving, searching and later replay, etc. Silicon Chalk gains a dedicated usership of approximately 70 institutions but never achieves profitability. It is sold to Horizon Wimba [167] in 2005. The MIT Sloan School of Management adopts ACES 3.4 (internally named SloanSpace) as their course management system. Brandon Hall [168] publishes an article [169] in ASTD's "Learning Circuits", entitled LMS 2001. It lists 59 learning management systems available that year. Thinking Cap [170], the first XML LMS / LCMS launched. Separation of content from presentation allows for single source creation of training content. ILIAS 2.0 [171] released in August. PTT [172] launches the first commercial version of its Trainee Records Management System (TRMS). August 2001: the Pedagogy Group of the UK e-University (UKeU) started work on development of what eventually became (in 2003) the UKeU learning environment. An "e-University Functional Model" was created in

History of virtual learning environments October 2001 but specification work continued well into 2002. See the UKeU Overview [173], especially Section 3, for a description of the early days of UKeU. December 2001: The open-source course management system spotter [174] is released.

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2002
Microsoft release Class Server 3.0 on June 6 Press release [175] ATutor first public Open Source release in December id=21294 ATutor Release News [176] Moodle version 1.0 released in August Fle3 version 1.0 released in February - the first Open Source version of FLE software The MIT Sloan School of Management migrates ACES to OpenACS 4.0, thereby creating the first instance of .LRN (1.0). The Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies [177] at the University of Cambridge deploys CamCommunities [178], an open-source community system (OpenACS) based on .LRN, for use on campus.[179] July, Reda Athanasios of Learning Technology Partners buys his old company Convene and instantly gains two data centers and IZIO the Learning Platform developed in Stanford and purchased later by Convene. Start of the OLAT rebuilt project. The goal of this project was to rebuilt the LAMP based LMS on a scalable, save and fast Java EE based architecture that supports campus wide e-learning. The first PhD program in Media Psychology is launched at Fielding Graduate University by Bernard Luskin. This major step brings attention and expertise to the growing realization that a greater understanding of human behavior is necessary for improved learning systems in the future. ILIAS open source [180] team started to redesign the system and to develop ILIAS 3. November 2002: OpenText announce the acquisition of Centrinity, the then owners of FirstClass - see the press release of 1 November [181]. December 2002: ACODE, the Australasian Council on Open, Distance and E-Learning, continues under a new name the work of a series of earlier organisations originating with NCODE in 1993. See the history of ACODE [182] . First Ph. D program in Media Psychology is launched at Fielding Graduate University. Distance Education is central to the psychology as applied to media. Bernard Luskin is founding director.

2003
LON-CAPA version 1.0 released in August (in use at 12 universities, 2 community colleges and 8 high schools) December 2003: Serco Group acquires [183] Teknical [184], the VLE company spun out of the University of Lincoln. Early in the year WebCT announces over 6 million students users and 40,000 instructor users teaching 150,000 courses per year at 1,350 institutions in 55 countries LogiCampus released its first open source edition in November 2003 on sourceforge.net. LogiCampus news release archive [185]

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97

2004
The Sakai Project founded, promising to develop an open source Collaboration and Learning Environment for the needs of higher education. Public release of Dokeos open-source VLE, which is a fork of Claroline. OLAT 3.0 released. This is the first OLAT release that is entirely written in Java as a result of the OLAT rebuild project initiated in 2002. First stable ILIAS 3 [186] release published in June.. In July ILIAS is certified officially by ADL CO-Lab as SCORM 1.2 compliant. ILIAS is the first free software LMS that reaches the maximum conformance level LMS-RTE3. University of South Africa (Unisa [187]) and Technikon South Africa (TSA) merged on 1 January 2004. The functionality of their two in-house developed CMSs (Unisa SOL and TSA COOL) was combined into a new system called "myUnisa [188]" . myUnisa is built within the Sakai framework. The new myUnisa infrastructure was launched on 9 January 2006. By August 2006 myUnisa was one of the largest installs of Sakai with more than 110 000 students. October: Murray Goldberg, the inventor of WebCT, and still an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, wins this year's EnCana Principal Award from the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation. The award, with a cash prize of $100,000, is given each year to a Canadian innovator. The press release perhaps comes closest to being a brief official history of WebCT from the University point of view.[189] * Roger Boshier releases an irreverent history of e-learning in British Columbia, covering WebCT and many lesser-known developments. The file date is 2004 but the chronology stops just before 2000. See A Chronology of Technological Triumph, Zealotry and Utopianism in B.C. Education [190]. An earlier (1999) version of this [191] with the title addition of Leaping Fords and Conquering Mountains is also available. The American National Standards Institute, International Committee for Information Technology Standards (ANSI/INCITS) adopts the Sandhu, Ferraiolo, Kuhn [192] RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) NIST "unified model" proposal as an industry consensus standard (INCITS 359:2004). A page is prepared (date uncertain) detailing the history of Role-Based Access Control [193] from the Ferrailo and Kuhn paper [194] in 1992 up to the date of the standard. eLML started as a spin-off from the Gitta project.

2005
Microsoft release Microsoft Class Server 4.0 on 27 January (See Press release [195]). OLAT 4.0 was introduced with many new features like the integration of XMPP, RSS, SCORM and an extension framework that allows adding code by configuration and without the need to patch the original code set. January 2005: EADTU - the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities - launches the "E-xcellence project, with the support of the eLearning Programme of the European Commission (DG Education and Culture), to set a standard for quality in e-learning. The project is a cooperation between 13 "significant partners" in the European scene of higher education e-learning together with quality assessment and accreditation. See EADTU - European Association of Distance Teaching Universities. [196] March 2005: The New Zealand Ministry of Education [197] authorises release of a report describing (in anonymised terms) the benchmarking of e-learning, covering most university-level institutions in the country. The Report on the E-Learning Maturity Model Evaluation of the New Zealand Tertiary Sector [198] weighs in at a hefty 12MB. April 28, 2005: Blackboard are granted AU 780938B [199] based on their international patent application filed in 2000. The granted claims are similar to the claims later granted in the US (See below). June 2005: Janice Smith (Jan Smith) publishes "From flowers to palms: 40 years of policy for online learning" [200] [in the UK], ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, vol. 13 no. 2 pp.93108 - with a particularly useful chronology on page 95. As the ALT-J editor Jane Seale notes, "the purpose of the review is to make sense of the

History of virtual learning environments current position in which the field finds itself, and to highlight lessons that can be learned from the implementation of previous policies". July 2005: The European Foundation for Quality in eLearning is launched, initially funded by the EU Triangle project. September 2005: The Higher Education Academy announced the UK Higher Education e-Learning Benchmarking Exercise and Pathfinder Programme during a joint Academy/JISC session at ALT-C 2005 [201]. The initial announcement was followed by a call to the sector for Expressions of Interest to participate in the e-learning benchmarking exercise (e-benchmarking). A consultative Town Meeting [202] was also held at the Academy, York in November 2005. (The pilot phase [203] of the e-Learning Benchmarking Exercise commenced in January 2006.) See Higher Education Academy - Benchmarking. [204] October 13, 2005: Blackboard files patent #7,493,396 [205], requiring that a single user be allowed to have multiple roles, and that the list of course links provided after login vary depending on the user's role for each course. O'Reilly Mediapurchases Useractive, inc. and starts O'Reilly Learning (which eventually become The O'Reilly School of Technology), which creates online learning courses in programming and system administration skills. This enterprise is the first full scale effort to expand the use of the useractive contructivist model of learning on the internet.

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NACON Consulting, LLC. [206] pioneers its distance education system, "VirtualOnDemand [207]", designed to train users on real software using virtual machines, with the only user component needed being a web browser. The Army initiates a pilot program (IATraining [208]) and uses this system to train IT support personnel in various network security software. NACON also releases a stand-alone virtual training appliance. Boston University launches the first online doctoral program in music education, which within two years admits nearly 350 students.[209] KEWL.nextgen started up in PHP.

2006
The Virtual Learning Environment SCOLASTANCE is now available in its English version VLE Scolastance
[210]

17 January 2006: Blackboard is granted US 6988138 [211] relating to "Internet-based education support systems" claiming priority from its provisional patent application of 30 June 1999 (among others). The claims require that a series of educational courses stored on a server be accessible by different users from different computers. Users can access multiple courses and can have different access privileges for files relating to each course based on course-specific roles of student, instructor, and/or administrator.[212] 14 February 2006: Indiana University awarded the service mark Oncourse from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Reg. No. 3,058,558). FOR: EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, NAMELY, PROVIDING AN ONLINE COURSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS, IN CLASS 41 (U.S. CLS. 100, 101, AND 107). FIRST USE: 1-3-1998; IN COMMERCE 1-3-1998. 28 February 2006: Merger of WebCT into the Blackboard company. Both WebCT and Blackboard VLEs continue to exist as separate software. (See press release [213]) 26 July 2006: Blackboard files a complaint for patent infringement against Desire2Learn under its US patent.[214] Blackboard tells the Chronicle of Higher Ed. that it will not go after Moodle and Sakai.[215] August: WBTSystems, which has been an independent VLE developer in Ireland since 1994, is acquired [216] by Horizon Technology Group [217]. October: OLAT 5.0 has been released which brings a comprehensive full text search service to the systems core. The addition of a calendar and wiki component stresses the emphasis of a collaborative environment. AJAX and web 2.0 technologies are controllable by users.

History of virtual learning environments On August 9, 2006, a complaint [218] was filed against Blackboard by Portaschool of Atlanta, GA in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Georgia for deceptive business practices, and knowingly and willingly misrepresenting themselves in a patent application.

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2007
On January 7, Microsoft released the Sharepoint Learning Kit. The software is SCORM 2004 certified and is used in conjunction with Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server to provide LMS functionality. On January 25, it was announced that the Software Freedom Law Center was successful in its request that the United States Patent and Trademark Office re-examine the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc. The request was filed in November 2006 on the behalf of Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor. The Patent Office found that prior art cited in SFLC's request raises "a substantial new question of patentability" regarding all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent. Groklaw, a website that tracks legal issues generally related to Open Source software, has the press release: Groklaw.org [219] February 1, Blackboard announced via press release [220] "The Blackboard Patent Pledge" [221]. In this pledge to the open source and do-it-yourself course management community, the company vows to forever refrain from asserting its patent rights against open-source developers, except where it is deemed necessary. February: Technological Fluency Institute [163] releases a Windows XP version of its online prescriptive diagnostic performance based CAT1 [164] program. March 7: The OLAT team releases OLAT 5.1 [222] which has an emphasis on consolidation of features and bugfixing. Besides this a new glossary function has been added and accessibility has been improved. July: Michigan Virtual University launches a learning management system from Meridian Knowledge Solutions to deliver training to 150,000 Michigan public-school teachers and administrators and foster collaboration among these learners via online collaboration spaces.[223] August: The MIT Sloan School of Management replaces ACES (internally named SloanSpace) with Stellar as its course management system and Microsoft SharePoint to manage administrative content. At the 2007 MIT Sloan Talent Show, an MBA student protests SloanSpace with a song titled "I Can't Find It In SloanSpace" to the tune of Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places". September: xTrain LLP.[224] launches first of its kind, (ODT) On Demand Training on the Internet. Users have access to high quality video training with social network communities, leading experts and portfolio reviews and certifications. September: Epignosis[225] releases its web2.0 virtual learning environment (eFront) as Open-Source software. October 18: Controlearning s.a. and ocitel s.a. designed and developed Campus VirtualOnline, Campusvirtualonline.com [226] (CVO), a platform where mixed e-learning content, e-books, e-money, e-docs, e-talents is found in a single place.

2010
January 18, 2010: Public release of Chamilo open-source VLE, which is a fork of Dokeos. September 28, 2010: Public major release of OLAT 7. New features are the implementation of important standards like REST API, IMS Global Basic LTI, IMS QTI 2.1 Large LMS providers start to dive into the talent management systems market, possibly starting a global tendency to do more with the informatio about LMS users September 2010: SumTotal acquires Softscape [227] September 2010: Taleo acquires Learn.com [228]

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Terminology
The terminology for systems which integrate and manage computer-based learning has changed over the years. Terms which are useful in searching for earlier materials include: "Computer Assisted Instruction" (CAI) "Computer Based Training" (CBT) "Computer Managed Instruction" (CMI) "Course Management System" (CMS) "Integrated Learning Systems" (ILS) "Interactive Multimedia Instruction" (IMI) "Learning Management System" (LMS) "Technology Based Learning" (TBL) "Technology Enhanced Learning" (TEL) "Web Based Training" (WBT) " On Demand Training" (ODT)

References
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[171] http:/ / www. ilias. de/ ios/ info-e. html#2001 [172] http:/ / www. ptt. co. uk/ [173] http:/ / www. heacademy. ac. uk/ documents/ r01-ukeu. doc [174] http:/ / www. lightandmatter. com/ spotter/ spotter. html [175] http:/ / www. microsoft. com/ presspass/ press/ 2003/ jun03/ 06-05classserver30pr. mspx [176] https:/ / sourceforge. net/ news/ ?group [177] http:/ / www. caret. cam. ac. uk/ [178] http:/ / sage. caret. cam. ac. uk/ [179] Sakai VRE for Education Research (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20071206161618/ http:/ / www. jisc. ac. uk/ index. cfm?name=project_sakai_edu_research), a project funded by the JISC's Virtual Research Environments Programme (http:/ / www. jisc. ac. uk/ index. cfm?name=programme_vre). Retrieved on 2006-08-15. [180] http:/ / www. ilias. de/ [181] http:/ / www. opentext. com/ news/ pr. html?id=1288 [182] http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20071023072230/ http:/ / www. acode. edu. au/ aboutus/ whatwedo/ history. htm [183] http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20061130060619/ http:/ / www. teknical. com/ company/ default. html [184] http:/ / www. teknical. com/ [185] http:/ / sourceforge. net/ news/ ?group_id=95474 [186] http:/ / www. ilias. de/ ios/ info-e. html#2004 [187] http:/ / www. unisa. ac. za/ [188] http:/ / my. unisa. ac. za/ [189] The University of British Columbia (http:/ / www. publicaffairs. ubc. ca/ ubcnewsdigest/ 2004/ 04oct15. html#4) [190] http:/ / www. edst. educ. ubc. ca/ tern/ Chrono/ all. htm [191] http:/ / www. edst. educ. ubc. ca/ tern/ Chrono/ Chronology. pdf [192] http:/ / csrc. nist. gov/ rbac/ sandhu-ferraiolo-kuhn-00. pdf [193] http:/ / csrc. nist. gov/ rbac/ rbac-theory-practice. html [194] http:/ / csrc. nist. gov/ rbac/ ferraiolo-kuhn-92. pdf [195] http:/ / www. microsoft. com/ presspass/ press/ 2005/ jan05/ 01-27cs40releasepr. mspx [196] http:/ / www. eadtu. nl/ e-xcellence/ [197] http:/ / www. minedu. govt. nz/ [198] http:/ / www. utdc. vuw. ac. nz/ research/ emm/ documents/ SectorReport. pdf [199] http:/ / worldwide. espacenet. com/ textdoc?DB=EPODOC& IDX=AU780938B [200] http:/ / www. ingentaconnect. com/ content/ routledg/ calt/ 2005/ 00000013/ 00000002/ art00002 [201] http:/ / www. alt. ac. uk/ altc2005/ [202] http:/ / www. heacademy. ac. uk/ 3725. htm [203] http:/ / www. heacademy. ac. uk/ 4779. htm [204] http:/ / www. heacademy. ac. uk/ benchmarking. htm [205] http:/ / www. freepatentsonline. com/ 7493396. html [206] http:/ / www. nacon. com/ [207] http:/ / www. virtualondemand. com/ [208] http:/ / iatraining. us. army. mil/ [209] Hebert, D. G. (2007). Five Challenges and Solutions in Online Music Teacher Education, Research and Issues in Music Education (http:/ / www. stthomas. edu/ rimeonline/ ), Vol. 5 [210] http:/ / www. infostance. fr/ ScolaEnglish. html [211] http:/ / worldwide. espacenet. com/ textdoc?DB=EPODOC& IDX=US6988138 [212] http:/ / mfeldstein. com/ images/ uploads/ Blackboard_Patent_Claims. pdf [213] http:/ / investor. blackboard. com/ phoenix. zhtml?c=177018& p=irol-newsArticle& ID=822607& highlight= [214] http:/ / lwn. net/ images/ pdf/ blackboard. pdf [215] http:/ / chronicle. com/ daily/ 2006/ 08/ 2006080201t. htm [216] http:/ / www. wbtsystems. com/ news/ release/ 1869 [217] http:/ / www. horizon. co. uk/ press/ aug_04_2006. html [218] http:/ / www. immagic. com/ eLibrary/ ARCHIVES/ GENERAL/ USCOURTS/ G060809C. pdf [219] http:/ / www. groklaw. net/ article. php?story=2007012520202052 [220] http:/ / www. blackboard. com/ company/ press/ release. aspx?id=956876 [221] http:/ / www. blackboard. com/ patent/ FAQ_013107. htm [222] http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20070629224912/ http:/ / www. olat. org/ public/ download/ releasenotes/ 5-1-x. html [223] Chief Learning Officer magazine July 2008 (http:/ / www. clomedia. com/ case-study/ 2008/ July/ 2267/ index. php?pt=a& aid=2267& start=3597& page=2) [224] Online Expert Training - account (http:/ / www. xtrain. com) [225] eFront - Refreshing eLearning (http:/ / www. efrontlearning. net)

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[226] http:/ / www. campusvirtualonline. com [227] http:/ / www. bersin. com/ Blog/ post/ SumTotal-Acquires-Softscape--The-Gloves-come-Off-in-the-Talent-Management-Market. aspx [228] http:/ / www. bersin. com/ Blog/ post/ Taleo-Acquires-Learncom--A-Shoe-Drops-in-the-LMS-Market. aspx

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Further reading
Online Learning History (http://docs.moodle.org/en/Online_Learning_History) from moodle.org Course Management System comparison (http://www.edutools.info/item_list.jsp?pj=8) from EduTools.info Visual history of company consolidation in the LMS space (http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4681/76/ 1600/Consolidation5.jpg) Jensen, Bob, History and Future of Course Authoring Technologies, Trinity University (http://www.trinity.edu/ rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm) trinity.edu (http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm) U.S. and International training and education alternatives trinity.edu (http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm) Bob Jensen's Other History and Learning Technology Documents and Links A Personal History of CMC (Computer Conferencing) from 1972 to 1998 by Jacob Palme (http://dsv.su.se/ jpalme/s1/a-personal-history-of-CMC.pdf)

History of virtual learning environments 1990s

In the history of virtual learning environments, the 1990s was a time of growth, primarily due to the advent of the affordable computer and of the Internet.

1990s
1990
Formal Systems Inc. of Princeton, NJ, USA introduces a DOS-based Assessment Management System. An internet version was introduced in 1997. (In 2000, Formal Systems changed its name to Pedagogue Solutions [1]). The Athena Project at MIT, which started in 1983, has evolved into a system of "shared services" that look remarkably like many current VLEs or learning management systems. The network hosted software from multiple vendors, and made it all work together. Here is a list of the features of the system as of 1990 [2]: printing, electronic mail, electronic messaging (Zephyr), bulletin board conferencing (Discuss), on-line consulting (OLC), on-line teaching assistant (OLTA), on-line help (OLH), assignment exchange (Turn in/pick up), access to system libraries, authentication for system security (Kerberos), naming-for linking system components together (Hcsiod), and a service management system (Moira). Pavel Curtis created LambdaMOO, an early Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), at Xerox PARC. HyperCourseware created by Kent Norman at the University of Maryland, College Park was originally written for use in the At&T Teaching Theater [3], a prototype electronic classroom. The original version was written in WinPlus, a Hypercard like program, and ran on a local area network with one server and numerous client workstations. It included an online syllabus, online lecture notes and readings, synchronous chat rooms, asynchronous discussion boards, online student profiles with pictures, online assignments and exams, online grading, and a dynamic seating chart. A Web-based version was introduced in January, 1996, which has continued to function up to the present.[4] The US Navy's Naval Technical Training System was designed as a curriculum development system. It included course management tools for the storage, retrieval and dissemination of information.[5]

History of virtual learning environments 1990s An article in Electronic Learning by Therese Mageau describes Integrated Learning Systems (ILS) as "networked computers running broad-based curriculum software with a management system that tracks student progress."[6] A report by George Mann and Joe Kitchens reviews the Curriculum Management System (CMS), a system that generated individualized learning plans every two weeks for each student.[7] FirstClass is launched by SoftArc, initially for the Macintosh platform. See the history of FirstClass [8] for the chronology of its development over the next 12 years. Online Learning Circles[9] connect over 50,000 k-12 students in classrooms around the world offered on the AT&T Learning Network. iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) launched among schools in nine countries, using the IGC/APC system of "conferences/newsgroups" to better enable students to conduct theme-based online projects.

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1991
The history page [10] of the TEDS company states that they developed the first Learning Management System. Jakob Ziv-El of Interactive Communication Systems, Inc. files for a patent for an Interactive Group Communication System (# 5,263,869) (similar to the prior art of the IBM 1500 system). A 1990 foreign patent and a 1972 patent by Jakob Zawels (# 3,641,685) are referenced. The patent is granted in 1993. The patent is referenced in a 2000 patent filing (# 6,988,138) by representatives of BlackBoard, Inc. Sydney, Australia, based Webster & Associates release first of several graphical course based systems with Learning Management System included. Courses include logins, course structure, recording of results, reporting, etc. Included ability to store and retrieve results remotely. This system could and was run as a client-server application. Murray Turoff, the guru of EIES, publishes "Computer-Mediated Communication Requirements for Group Support [11]", Journal of Organizational Computing, 1, 85-113 (1991). This distills lessons from a research programme run by him over the preceding 16 years, from 1974[12] A collaboration of faith based groups http://www.ecunet.org start using a product called BizLink (which later became Convene) in teaching their missionaries and staff around the world using the internet. Gloria Gery publishes Electronic performance support systems: how and why to remake the workplace through the strategic application of technology, which influences thinking about technology and learning in the workplace.

1992
CAPA (Computer Assisted Personalized Approach) system was developed at Michigan State University. It was first used in a small (92 student) physics class in the Fall of 1992. Students accessed randomized (personalized) homework problems through telnet.[13] Convene International is founded by Jeffery Stein and Reda Athanasios to provide collaboration tools via the Internet. Convene International acquires Bizlink of North Carolina's Larry Allen to facilitate a rapid entry in building Internet communities. UNI-C,[14] the Danish State Centre for Computing in Education (which became a Blackboard user in the 2000s) supports a wide range of online distance courses using PortaCOM, a conferencing platform, for example in the TUDIC project, funded under the EU's COMET Programme. Extensive theoretical work undertaken by, amongst others, Elsebeth Korsgaard Sorensen,[15] whose web site has a detailed bibliography. Collaborative Learning Through Computer Conferencing, also known as the Najaden Papers, edited by Anthony Kaye in the NATO ASI Serise, and published by Springer-Verlag (ISBN 3-540-55755-5). Provides several case studies of online learning in action, and an overview by Jacob Palme providing a comprehensive inventory of the functionalities available in computer conferencing systems, including SuperKOM. This last paper describes in detail the underlying functions of what would now be called a virtual learning environment, including, for

History of virtual learning environments 1990s example, roles, voting, expiration times, exams, moderation, deferred operations. Open University (UK) installs FirstClass on a Mac server [16] (reputed to be server license number 3) after an extensive evaluation of tools suitable to deliver online learning across Europe for the just-started JANUS project funded by the European Commission under the DELTA programme. (FirstClass was then a product of SoftArc in Ontario, Canada.). New York University's School of Continuing Education (SCE) introduces its Virtual College and develops a digital network to deliver courses to students. SCE uses Lotus Notes at least through 1997 for computer conferencing and to provide online computer laboratory access to student home PCs.[17] [18] GeoMetrix Data Systems founded. They produce the learning management system called TrainingPartner. http:// www.trainingpartner.com LearnFrame [19] of Draper, Utah founded. They initially produced online courseware and an authoring tool, and in 1995 developed Pinnacle Learning Manager, that accepted and managed courses from a wide variety of vendors.

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Following several years of preparatory studies, the European Commission DELTA programme starts. (DELTA stands for Developing European Learning through Technological Advances.) Over 30 projects are funded, each lasting for around three years, many relevant to VLEs, perhaps the most relevant ones being MTS, JANUS and EAST. The DELTA programme built on preparatory studies going on since 1985 into portable educational tools environments (proto-VLEs), networked multimedia and hypermedia, satellite networks, and a Learning Systems Reference Model (in some ways a precursor of IMS).[20] There seems to be almost no Web information now on the preparatory studies, except for an interview with Luis Rosello in DEOSNews [21]. Authorware Inc. merges with MacroMind/ParaComp to create Macromedia. MacroMind specialized in animation software (Director) and ParaComp specialized in 3D imagery (Swivel 3D). Macromedia goes public only months after the merger and remains the leading purveyor of multimedia tools. Terry Hedegaard of UOP online picks Convene International's Internet collaboration tools to run a pilot for teaching UOP students online exclusively The MUD Institute (TMI/TMI-2) provides the TMI Mudlib and online environment for learning MUD programming, including e-mail, bulletin boards, shared file spaces, real time chat, and instant messaging. Terry Anderson coordinates net based virtual conference in conjunction with the 16th World Congress of the International Council for Distance Education [22]. This project used email lists and Usenet groups distributed on the early Internet, Usenet, BitNet, and NetNorth. Reference: Anderson, T. & Mason, R. (1993). The Bangkok Project: New tool for Professional Development. American Journal of Distance Education, 7(2), 5-18. Humber College's Digital Electronics program used a learning management system to support a set of online courses. The program featured individualized instruction and continuous intake.[23] University of Wales, Aberystwyth awarded internal funding to further develop its integrated project support environment for teaching software engineering. Ratcliffe, M. B., Stotter-Brooks, T. J., Bott M. F. & Whittle, B. R. The TIPSE: An IPSE for Teaching, Software Engineering Journal, 7, (5), pp 347356, September 1992.

1993
Jakob Ziv-El of Discourse Technologies, Inc. files for a patent for a Remote Teaching System (# 5,437,555) (similar to the prior art of the PLATO system), referencing his 1991 patent. The patent is granted in 1995. The patent is referenced in a 2000 patent filing (# 6,988,138) by representatives of BlackBoard, Inc. XT001 Renewable energy, a "landmark" experimental course developing techniques for collaborative and resource-based online learning at a distance, was the first "real" course to use FirstClass as its core online tool at the Open University. There are many references (mostly forgotten now) but particularly useful is.[24] Convene International contracted to work with University of Phoenix to develop the first large scale commercial product for use in Virtual Classrooms. Convene's unique characteristic enabled students to capture data and then work offline (at a time when people were often charged by the hour or minute for online time). University of Phoenix Thomas Bishop brands the product ALEX for Apollo Learning Exchange.

History of virtual learning environments 1990s As Convene finishes the development of ALEX for University of Phoenix the pilot enrollment grows to 600 students within the first few months of implementation. Brandon Hall puts out the first issue of his Multimedia and Internet Training Newsletter [25], one of the first regular publications in the field. JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee of the UK Higher Education Funding and Research Councils) is established on April 1, 1993, as a successor body to the Information Systems Committee. See http://www.jisc. ac.uk/index.cfm?name=about_history. Also in 1993, ALT - the Association for Learning Technology [26] - was founded in the UK, initially with the assistance of a donation by BT. Michael Hammer and James A. Champy publish "Reengineering the Corporation: a Manifesto for Business Revolution" (New York: HarperCollins, 1993). As usual with business theories it took some time for Reengineering, or Business Process Reengineering in full (BPR in short), to percolate to higher education; but in fact Reengineering spread (to a few) much faster than some other approaches (such as Activity Based Costing or Benchmarking) - already in the 1995-98 period a number of university e-learning experts in UK, Netherlands and Malaysia were using the language, in many cases to the dismay of their colleagues. It is a moot point whether BPR accelerated the development of e-learning or inhibited it - certainly at CEO level in some universities the ideas were for a while seductive. BPR has a sharp edge - the gentler but vaguer approach of Change Management seems to be more enduring Scott Gray a mathematics graduate student at Ohio State, develops The Web Workshop, a system that allows users to create webpages online while learning. The pedagogical technique called useractive Learning was developed to emulate the teaching techniques used in the Calculus&Mathematica [126] courses taught at Ohio State. Bill Davis, Jerry Uhl, Bruce Carpenter, and Lee Wayand launch MathEverywhere, Inc. [27] to market and sell the coursework used in Calculus&Mathematica courses.

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1994
In 1994, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its second generation, online, distance education courses. The courses were provided on the Internet through EKKO, NKI's self-developed Learning Management System (LMS). The experiences are described in the article NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability in Morten Flate Paulsen's book Online Education and Learning Management Systems which is available online at http://www.studymentor.com CALCampus launches online-based school through which administration, real-time classroom instruction, and materials are provided. Origins of CALCampus [93] The Tarrson Family Endowed Chair in Periodontics at UCLA is establish with a testamentary gift to design, develop and launch the UCLA Periodontics Information Center [28] for sharing periodontal practices and concepts with the worldwide dental community via CD-ROM and the Internet. Lotus Development Corporation acquires the Human Interest Group. The system evolves into the Lotus Learning Management System and Lotus Virtual Classroom [29] now owned by IBM. Links to articles that describes how IBM has previously implemented the "inventions" described in the Blackboard patent [30] SUNY Learning Network [31] begins in 1994. Traditional faculty were hired to create online courses for asynchronous delivery into the home via computer. Each faculty member worked with an instructional design partner to implement the course. From the fall of 1995 through spring of 1997, forty courses were developed and delivered. SLN now supports over 3,000 faculty, 100,000 enrollments on 40 of the State University of New York's campuses. WEST 1.0 is released by WBT Systems [32]. It eventually is renamed TopClass. Bob Jensen and Petrea Sandlin publish "Electronic Teaching and Learning: Trends in Adapting to Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Networks in Higher Education [33]" - republished 1997. Text available via hyperlink, including

History of virtual learning environments 1990s identification of ten leading LMS systems in 1994 (discussed in detail in chapter 3 of their book): Quest [34] from Allen Communication Tourguide from American Training International (Tourguide is no longer listed as a product at Infotec [35].) Multimedia ToolBook [36] from Asymetrix Corporation, bought by Click2Learn, bought by SumTotal Systems Lesson Builder from the Center for Education Technology in Accounting (this product never was completed) Tencore [107] from Computer Teaching Corporation Course Builder [37] from Discovery Systems International, Inc. Training Icon Environment (TIE) [38] from Global Information Systems Technology, Inc. tbtAuthor from HyperGraphics Corporation (HyperGraphics [39] no longer lists tbtAuthor in its product line) Authorware [40] from Macromedia Corporation Personal Education Authoring Kit (PEAK) from Major Educational Resources Corp. PEAK is for Mac users only and has been discontinued. However, while they last you can get free copies at 800-989-5353 Banking on the tremendous commercial success and rapid growth for the UOP program, Reda Athanasios of Convene International starts making the online virtual classroom suite, built in collaboration with UOP, available for all other schools aiming at success for their distance education programs. The JANUS project led by the Open University releases in September 1994 Deliverable 45 describing the interim evaluations of the first three online courses delivered across Europe in conjunction with the JANUS project, including AD280 "What is Europe", DM863 "Lisp Programming" and D309 "Cognitive Psychology" Virtual Summer School. Later in the year the Open University releases a longer final report purely on the Virtual Summer School.[41] September 1994: The JANUS User Association holds its first AGM and conference [42] at the Dutch Open University. It is one of the first Europe-wide associations focussed on e-learning. It later changed its name to LearnTel and continued until 1999. An online archive of the newsletter [43] is still available via the support of pjb Associates [44]. Athabasca University (Canada) implements first on-line Executive MBA program using Lotus Notes. TeleEducation NB introduces a DOS-based working LMS in 1993. In 1994 a more powerful system was proposed for the WWW. A description of the concept was published in 1995 with some of the principal features of an LMS. Reference: McGreal, R. (1995). A heterogeneous distributed database system for distance education networks [45]. The American Journal of Distance Education, 9(1), 27-43. Retrieved August 11, 2006 Taking advantage of Convene International's online virtual classroom and hoping for similar success to that of UOP online, several schools start working with Convene in wiring their Distance Education programs and offering it online via the Internet. Mark Lavenant and John Kruper present "The Phoenix Project at the University of Chicago: Developing a Secure, Distributed Hypermedia Authoring Environment Built on the World Wide Web [46]" at the First International World-Wide Web Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. "The Phoenix Project" later became the Web-based learning environment within the Division of the Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago. Swanton High School in Ohio used learning management systems to track student progress, as well as testing results, satellite courses, videodiscs, Hypercard, QuickTime video, and Internet connections.[47] Intralearn comes out with a Learning Management System for the Mid Market. This system has the facility to conduct courses to students from different locations using internet, interact with them, send them mails and conduct examinations Tufts University released(1994) the Health Sciences Database which subsequently (2003) became known as TUSK,[48] Tufts university sciences knowledgebase. In 1997 using MYSQL created version 3 - hsdb3. There has been a steady development of features through versions hsdb4, hsdb45, TUSK 1.0 and now TUSK 2.0. From its inception its basis was integration of clinical information with its ubiquitous availability across space and time. Students and authors had specific permissions within the system. TUSK is a combination learning management system, content/knowledge management system and course management system. The system is used at the three

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History of virtual learning environments 1990s health sciences schools at Tufts and now a 7 partner schools in the U.S., Africa and India. July 1994: First international gathering of educators using online technologies to conduct classroom project-based learning was held by iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) in Puerto Madryn, Argentina. 120 educators from 20 countries gathered to share experiences. Out of this conference came the first international iEARN constitution and plans to expand school networking globally.

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1995
By January 1995 there are dozens of MUDs and MOOs [49], including Diversity University, in use for educational purposes. Elliott Masie and Rebekah Wolman publish the first edition of "The Computer Training Handbook" (Minneapolis: Lakewood Books). Pardner Wynn introduces a free web-based interactive course at testprep.com for SAT test preparation, possibly the first interactive learning course on the internet. Over 1 millions hits are registered within 3 months, encouraging the development of the first commercial web-based e-learning course authoring, publishing, and management system, IBTauthor (announced January 1996 in Brandon Hall's Multimedia Training Newsletter). This product became the basis for VC-backed Docent, Inc. (funded in 1997, IPO in 2000), now named SumTotal Systems. European Commission establishes the European Multimedia Task Force, to analyse the status of educational media in Europe. The field covered by the Task Force includes all educational and cultural products and services that can be accessed by TVs and computers, whether via telematics networks or not, and used in the home, industry or educational contexts.[50] Lotus Notes used for course materials, syllabi, handouts, homework collection, teams, and multi-instructor, multi-team teaching in the MBA program. Results reported at several academic conferences (ICIS-17, AIS-2) in 1996. Mallard web-based course management system developed at the University of Illinois.[51] [52] Mallard allows for multiple roles. For example, a graduate stiudent can be an instructor in one course and a student in another. WOLF (Wolverhampton Online Learning Framework)[53] is developed at the University of Wolverhampton's Broadnet project under the guidance of Stephen Molyneux to deliver training materials to local SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises). In 1999, WOLF is both adopted as the University's VLE, and sold for commercial distribution to Granada Learning, who rebrand the product in partnership with the University and market it to the UK FE and HE sectors under the name Learnwise. WOLF is still in use at the University today, and undergoing continual development to meet the ever-changing needs of education. Nicenet ICA launched to the public. Murray Goldberg begins development of WebCT at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, with a $45,000-grant from UBCs Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund. WebCT would go on to become the world's most widely used VLE used by millions of students in 80 countries.[54] FirstClass [55] is named the Best General Purpose Tool/School Program by Technology & Learning magazine, 1995-1996 see awards. [56] Professors Michael Gage and Arnold Pizer develop the WeBWorK Online Homework Delivery System at the University of Rochester. Virtual Science and Mathematics Fair used static HTML pages created by children and a threaded discussion for comment posts left by judges and visitors.[57] PhD research reported by Kevin C Facemyer, 1996. The Future of Networking Technologies for Learning Workshop held, sponsored by US Department of Education. "In an attempt to answer the question, "What is the future of networking technologies for learning," the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology commissioned a series of white papers on various aspects of educational networking and hosted a workshop to discuss the issues. The white papers and the workshop report are here."[58]

History of virtual learning environments 1990s The European Commission release in May 1995 a 104-page report[20] describing the 30 projects commissioned under the DELTA programme of Framework 3. Several of these are concerned with online learning using what many might today call a "virtual learning environment". (The phrase is not used as such but the phrases "learning environment", "interactive learning environment" and "collaborative learning environment" are used quite frequently.) About the same time the JANUS project releases the JANUS Final Report describing the project over its 3-year lifetime and all the online courses it has supported during 1993-1994 across Europe.[59] The report Telematics for Distance Education in North America is released in public form in November 1995 after wide dissemination within European research circles. It describes the situation as it pertains to e-learning at 20 organisations including universities and most major vendors, based on a 3-week study trip in summer 1995 by Bacsich and Mason.[60] A short article in the LIGIS newsletter for November 1995[61] on FirstClass confirms that at the time of its writing FirstClass did not have a Web interface. (It also notes that its then rival CAUCUS [62] did have a Web interface and that WEST, later TopClass from WBTSystems, had been recently developed.) WBTSystems develops TopClass, a web-based course management system. It allowed personalization in that the instructor could tailor a different version of a course for each student. Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC)'s Extended Learning Institute develops and delivers four math, science, and engineering courses using Lotus Notes for computer conferencing/groupware functionality.[63] Edward Barrett at MIT received a grant to create a prototype "Electronic Multimedia Online Textbook in Engineering" (EMOTE) for use in classes taught through the new Writing Initiative. WebTeach, a web-based asynchronous communication system using chronological threads in the "Confer style" originally developed in the mid 70s by Robert Parnes, was first used in 1995 in the Professional Development Centre at UNSW. It was written in Apple's Hypercard as a CGI script running behind WebStar by Dr. Chris Hughes and Dr. Lindsay Hewson at UNSW. The 1996 versions supported a Notice Board, a Seminar Room and a Coffee Shop for each class group, and added email notifications, a Quiz function, and a range of pre-programmed communication modes that emulated small group teaching strategies including brainstorming, questioning, case studies and commitment exercises. The modes were characterised by changes in layout, font colours, and the options available to teachers and students. The software was refined in subsequent years, with additional modes, including a formal debate mode, being added. In 2002 it was completely rewritten in Cold Fusion and refined to include many more features, including private groups, voting modes and fully functional web-based administration pages. WebTeach supports an approach to teaching and learning on the web that is more akin to an asynchronous virtual classroom than it is to an instructionally designed and packaged educational experience. Communication forms the basis of the teaching (as opposed to content provision) and the teacher in a group can switch teaching strategies (modes) easily, in order to respond to student contributions. Many online schools appear on the educational scenes after working with Convene International. Some of them emerge as leaders of Internet Education like, Baker College[64] and Pacific Oaks College[65] and UCLA extension to name a few. The Stanford Center for Professional Development (SCPD, formerly SITN) launches Stanford Online, which "was the first university internet delivery system incorporating text and graphics with video and audio, using technology developed at Stanford."[66] "Constructing Educational Courseware using NCSA Mosaic and the World Wide Web"[67] is presented by J.K. Campbell, S. Hurley, S.B. Jones, and N.M. Stephens at the 3rd International World-Wide Web Conference in Darmstadt, Germany.[68] Lee A. Newberg, Richard Rouse III, and John Kruper publish "Integrating the World-Wide Web and Multi-User Domains to Support Advanced Network-Based Learning Environments" in the Proceedings of the World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (1995), Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, Graz, Austria.[69]

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History of virtual learning environments 1990s From May to July 1995 Georg Fuellen, Robert Giegerich and others give the "BioComputing Course"[70] using the Electronic Conferencing system BioMOO, later winning the "Multimedia Transfer 1997"[71] presented during the exhibition Learntec 1997. Work began at University of Wales, Aberystwyth in developing its integrated Remote Advisory System, a system designed to provide students with remotely sited tutors, sharing workspaces, audio and video. Supported by Internal Outlook Enterprise Funding. Published in Ratcliffe, M. B., Parker, G. R. and Price, D. E. The Remote Advisory Service at Aberystwyth, IEEE Conference on Frontiers in Education, Utah, USA, 6 pages, November 1996. Sue Polyson, Robert Godwin-Jones, and Steve Saltzberg of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), at a Fall 1995 meeting of the "Partnership for Distributed Learning" (a consortium of US schools organized by University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) proposed the concept for developing a web-based course management system named "Web Course in a Box". They described the basic system features and proposed that interested schools work together to develop a working prototype of this system. The VCU group began work on the prototype with input from the consortium. Work continued through the Winter, 1995 and Spring 1996. A first beta of Web Course in a Box was presented to the group in Spring, 1996. The idea for Web Course in a Box grew out of work that Polyson had begun in 1994-1995 at VCU to develop a web-based interface for delivery of course materials to support VCU's Executive Masters in Health Administration, one of the first distance-delivered master degree programs in the country. During this time, Godwin-Jones, also at VCU, had been working to develop web-based content for foreign language instruction. This work was described in two articles published by Syllabus Press, in the September 1995 issue of Syllabus (Volume 9, No.1) titled "Distributed Learning on the World Wide Web" and "Technology Across the Curriculum - Case Studies", both authored by Saltzberg and Polyson. Question Mark (see QuestionMark) brings out first web based assessment management system QM Web, following on from DOS and Windows assessment systems. See Questionmark archive website at[72] for manuals of this and other Questionmark software. Online Learning Circles[73] move from the AT&T Learning Network to their current home on the International Education and Resources Network (iearn)[74]

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1996
The Project for OnLine Instructional Support POLIS [75] is designed and developed at the University of Arizona [76] . This tool provides innovative dialog-based lessons to students. To support use of these lessons a method for providing online course context, course organization and course communications tools is created. In 1996, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its third generation online distance education courses. The courses were web-based and provided through EKKO (renamed to SESAM), NKI's self-developed Learning Management System (LMS). The experiences are described in the article NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability in Morten Flate Paulsen's book Online Education and Learning Management Systems which is available online at http://www.studymentor.com In 1996, after hearing about the Virtual Office Hours Project [77] developed by Prof. Craig Merlic and Matthew Walker in UCLA's Department of Biochemistry, UCLA Social Sciences reviewed it with some of the faculty and decided to try writing a custom version. The deciding factor was finding Jeff Carnahan's Upload. pl Perl CGI Script (available at Misc CGI Scripts - click on FileUploader 6.0 for free, but registration required) that did File Uploads via a web browser. With that, Matt Wright's WWWBoard, a Calendar script, later discarded, and a script written by Social Sciences Computing to edit files on the fly, there were enough tools to make something useful. Originally the plan was to have instructors fill out a web form to request a site. But due to problems getting the email to work, sites were created instantly instead. That turned out to be easier. A password was added and emailed to all the Social Sciences faculty. ClassWeb [78] was first offered to UCLA Social Sciences Faculty in the Spring Quarter of 1997. Eight instructors set up ClassWeb sites (see Spring 1997 sites [79]).

History of virtual learning environments 1990s Early 1996, Dan Cane, a sophomore student at Cornell University begins working Cindy van Es, a senior lecturer in Agricultural, Resource and Managerial Economics (ARME) as part of an independent study project to build course web pages. In turn he develops automated scripts to provide basic interactive functionality for announcements and the beginnings of a suite of tools called The Teachers Toolbox. These ideas later become the foundation for CourseInfo. The UCLA Periodontics Information Center [28] was established in 1996 within the UCLA School of Dentistry with generous gifts from the Tarrson Family and Sun Microsystems. The initial thrust was to provide the most comprehensive website on Periodontics including Tutorials, Case Studies and Continuing Education Credits. European Commission agrees to the European Council's 'Learning in the Information Society' action plan. Webtester and ChiTester developed at Weber State University through a grant from the Utah Higher Education Technology Initiative. ChiTester early history [80] Sue Polyson and Robert Godwin-Jones, of Virginia Commonwealth University released the first beta version of Web course in a Box (WCB) in Spring, 1996. (See this 1997 presentation [81]). This web-based system was designed to be an easy-to-use, template-based interface that allowed instructors to create an integrated set of web pages for presenting course material. The system featured logins for instructors and students, the ability for instructors to enroll students in their courses so that access to course materials could be controlled, the easy setup of web-based discussion forums for use by students within the class, document sharing through the upload of files to the discussion forum, schedule and announcement pages, content links, and personal home pages for both students and instructors. The WCB system was made available, free of charge, for use by any school that wished to use it. The source code was copyrighted by Virginia Commonwealth University, and Web Course in a Box was trademarked by VCU in 1997. Web Course in a Box was described in an article in "A Practical Guide to Teaching with the World Wide Web", by Polyson, Saltzberg, and Godwin-Jones, published in the September 1996 issue of Syllabus magazine, by Syllabus Press. For a feature and version history of web course in a box, please see,[82] [83]
[84]

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Doncaster College in South Yorkshire, England, submitted a bid under the "Further Education Competitiveness Fund" proposing to use the Fretwell Downing "Common Learning Environment" integrated into newsgroups, the WWW, and conferencing, all combined into an on-line learning environment. Diagram and a single paragraph from the bid, dated 4 March 1996 [85]. The full document is much more explicit, making reference to the use of email, conferencing, newsgroups for the delivery of National Vocational Qualifications and distance learning over the internet and the UK Joint Academic Network. Slides from a presentation, including diagram of the learning environment [86] 8 May 1996 - Paris, France: Murray Goldberg presents paper at the 5th WWW conference, introducing [[WebCT [87] ]] - See session PS10, paper P29. For paper, see: http://www.ra.ethz.ch/CDstore/www5/www156/ overview.htm.The reaction to WebCT caused Goldberg to begin giving away free licenses to the software. Word spread very quickly and within 6 months approximately 100 institutions were using WebCT. In January, Nat Kannan, Carl Tyson, and Michael Anderson form UOL Publishing (now VCampus) and release an Internet course delivery platform; the Java client accesses PLATO content on a CDC mainframe. In November, UOL releases a browser-based course authoring and delivery platform based on the Informix OO database. The UOL system supports multiple campuses (with "buildings" on each "campus" for the different academic functions) and enables multiple roles (admin/author/instructor/student) for every user on a course by course basis. UOL's virtual campus is adopted by Graybar Electric and the University of Texas TeleCampus (among others) in early 1997. Paul McKey [88] publishes the design specifications for an "Interactive on-line Tutorial Session Model" in his Masters Thesis "The Development of the On-line Educational Institute", SCU, Australia, July 1996, http://www. redbean.com.au/articles/files/masters/06-Chapter6.html Electronic, network-based assignment submission tool in use at Australian National University Department of Computer Science. Web-based course pages also implemented at ANU DCS (both submission tool and course

History of virtual learning environments 1990s pages may have been in use prior to 1996). The University of Michigan launches the UMIE project (the University of Michigan Instructional Environment), a combination of systems to enhance learning online and to create a Learning Management System for use by the campus. University of Southern Queensland (USQ [89]) offers its first fully online program, a Graduate Certificate in Open and Distance Learning, using a system that linked together course materials presented in web pages, online discussion via newsgroups (NNTP) and a purpose-built system for online submission of student work. The development of COSE [90] was funded from September 1996 to August 1999 by the JISC Technology Applications Programme (JTAP). COSE has continued to gain support from the JISC in its work on interoperability. The JTAP programme also funded the Toomol project which produced the Colloquia [91] P2P VLE, developed by Liber, Olivier, Britain and Beauvoir, which has had a major influence in the more recent development of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) concept. Pitsco, Inc. ships an updated version of its Synergistic Systems modular education curriculum which includes computer-based assessment and network-based reporting and gathering of assessment results.

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World Wide Satellite Broadcasting (WSB) Inc. develops a satellite-based distance learning system using synchronized video and audio courseware provided by UCLA. Content is delivered via Philips' CleverCast content distribution system to Windows PCs running Active Desktop via the Astro MEASAT Direct To Home (DTH) network, covering Malaysia, Thailand and India. The TELSI (Telematic Environment for Language Simulations) VLE is developed at the University of Oulu in Finland. Development was headed by Eric Rouselle and was continued into present day Discendum Optima. Marine Corps Management and Simulation Office (MCMSO) adapts DOOM II into Marine Doom, a Virtual Learning Environment for training four-man fire teams. KnowledgePlanet introduced the world's first Web-based Learning Management System in 1996. See - http:// www.knowledgeplanet.com/inside/milestones.asp [92] Stephen Downes, Jeff McLaughlin and Terry Anderson demonstrate and document the MAUD (Multi-Academic User Domain), holding a Canadian Association for Distance Education Seminar on the system, Online Teaching and Learning [93], January 29, 1996. Michigan State University'sVirtual University [94] opened. By 1997, its fully online courses included registration, payment, quizzing, discussions, dropbox, and, of course, course content. The system was created and developed by in-house programmers. Now Garry Main and Kevan Gartland, University of Abertay Dundee, UK, A system (webtest) was developed and deployed for use in testing students in the School of Molecular and Life Sciences. This was later extended to allow images to be labelled, self testing and teaching. Also in use at the time was the Question Mark product. The work at Abertay was presented as a keynote talk at the BALANCE workshops KeyNote Presentations [95] in 1997/8. Initial release of the ETUDES software at Foothill College, California Real Education founded (later changed to eCollege.com) as an LMS/CMS Application Service Provider company.[96] WEST (later WBTSystems) announce in early 1996 a new release of WEST (later renamed TopClass). Among the enhancements mentioned are: support of multiple-choice tests and "fill in the blanks" questions, including choosing questions randomly from a list (question bank?); support of multiple classes with multiple content and students able to take more than one class.[97] The article Lotus Notes in the Telematic University written for LIGIS in September 1996 confirms that several US universities are using Lotus Notes for e-learning, including via a Web interface. It goes on to observe that "Lotus Notes already has offered for a year or more several of the groupware and Internet features that other systems like FirstClass and Microsoft Exchange are only just now getting".[98]

History of virtual learning environments 1990s Another article in the same edition of LIGIS confirms that FirstClass, to the relief of many of its users, in August announced a Web interface. (http://www.pjb.co.uk/10/FirstClass.htm but see also http://www.pjb.co.uk/ 9/FirstClass.htm) The 304-page PDF manual for the FirstClass Intranet Client (Part Number SOF3122) is widely and freely distributed by SoftArc across many bulletin boards and web servers and remains available at several universities (e.g. at the University of Maine [99], a long-standing user of FirstClass. Not to be outdone by the UK Open University, the FernUniversitat Hagen (German OU) described its web-based virtual campus in a LIGIS article in October 1996 on University of Hagen Online by Schlageter and others.[100] The project "goes beyond current approaches in that it integrates all functions of a university, thus producing a complete and homogeneous system. This does not only include all kinds of learning material delivered via electronic network (most "online university" approaches focus almost exclusively on this aspect) - but for a promising approach the following is absolutely essential: user-friendly and powerful communication, especially also between users themselves for collaborative learning (peer learning) and for social interconnecting, possibilities of group-work (cscw), seminar support, new forms of exercise and practical via net, easy access to library and administration, information and tutoring systems". Microsoft announces MS Exchange at Networld+Interop. An article of the era speculates on its relevance to e-learning.[101] An article nominates 1996 as "the year of virtual universities". There were a large number of conferences - in particular at Ed-Media Boston there was a packed session even though organised at short notice.[102] WebSeminar (Gary Brown, Eric Miraglia, Doug Winther, and Information Management Group) (now retired, news release here[103] ) an interactive web-based space for integrating discussion and media rich modules. The Virtual Classroom (Brown, Burke and Miraglia). (retired) a web-based threaded composition environment. A WSU Boeing grant award and Microsoft, Information Management Group partnership Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC)'s Extended Learning Institute switches from Lotus Notes to FirstClass and uses First Class in over 35 courses during the Fall 1996 semester[104] [105] March, 1996. Allaire releases Allaire Forums, "a Web conferencing application built entirely on the ColdFusion platform. Forums provided a feature-rich server application for creating Internet, Intranet and Interprise collaborative environments. Already in use by hundreds of leading companies worldwide, Forums was the first in a new line of end-user Web applications."[106] Bruce Landon makes a proposal to British Columbia to set up a comparison service for VLEs, which made its first report (on nine systems) in 1997. It was first called Landonline, then later called Edutools.[107] Hermann Maurer (Graz University of Technology, Austria) publishes "LATE: A Unified Concept for a Unified Teaching and Learning Environment" in Journal of Universal Computer Science, vol. 2, no. 8 (1996), 580-595. Based on the Hyper-G/HyperWave system developed by Maurer, LATE prefigures many of the features available in virtual learning environments, including content-authoring modules, digital libraries, asynchronous and synchronous discussion, and virtual whiteboards.[108] Technikon South Africa (TSA) now merged with the University of South Africa (Unisa) released the first version of their in-house developed online learning environment (TSA Online) in 1996. The subsequent versions (2 & 3) were renamed TSA COOL (Technikon SA CoOperative Online Learning). Version 4 was under construction when TSA and Unisa merged (See 2004). Version 3 served approximately 24 000 students at the time of the merger. The University of Manitoba conducts an evaluation of course management systems that includes Learning Space (University of Washington), Top Class, WebCT and ToolBook. http://www.umanitoba.ca/campus/ist/cms/ webct/courseware/ [109] Iowa State University develops Classnet, a web-based "tightly integrated, automated class management system". It was created to help with the administrative aspects of course management.[110] The Oracle Learning Architecture (OLA) is a course management system with over 75 training titles. It has the following features: Home page, bulletin board, Help, User Profile, My Courses, Course Catalog, and Reports. It

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History of virtual learning environments 1990s served up web-based courses, download courses, vendor demos and assessments.[111] Empower Corporation developed the Online Learning Infrastruture (OLI), a training management system that used a relational database as a central repository for courses and/or learning objects. It had built-in tools and templates for authoring learning objects. It also had a middleware layer called the Multimedia Learning Object Broker that mapped learning objects as they moved in and out of the database.[111] TeamSpace's Learning Junction is an Internet based training management system founded by several ex-Oracle employees. It was developed in Java. The program displayed a graphical list of courses, certification plans and needed skills. Students registered online, and were given an individualized learning plan.[111] The JISC Technology Applications Programme (JTAP) [112] coMentor VLE starts development at the University of Huddersfield, UK. The coMentor web site [113] indicates that a further dissemination phase [114] of the software started in 1998. Work was funded at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth to further develop its Integrated Project Support Environment for Teaching started in 1992. Ratcliffe, M. B., Stotter-Brooks, T. J., Bott M. F. & Whittle, B. R. The TIPSE: An IPSE for Teaching, Software Engineering Journal, 7, (5), pp 347356, September 1992.

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Work funded at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth by the Joint Information Systems Committee Technology Applications Programme 164,000 for NEAT - Networked Expertise, Advise and Tuition. A system for students to obtain help across the Internet from tutors - sharing workspace, audio and video. Ratcliffe, M.B., Davies, T.P. & Price, G.M. Remote Advisory Services: A NEAT Approach, IEEE Multimedia, Vol 6, Issue 1, 16 pages, Jan-March 1999. Tufts University presents to Special Library Association. Article is published in Proceedings of the Contributed Paper Session to the Biological Sciences Division of the Special Libraries Association - June 12, 1996, describing the creation of networked relational document database which integrates text and multimedia and the creation of tools which address the changing needs in medical education

1997
Digitalbrain plc [115], founded by David Clancy [116] in 1997, quickly established itself as the most heavily used learning platform in the UK; which is still the case in April 2007. Digitalbrain was the first learning platform to be deployed using an on-demand software model and, as the name implies, the first designed around a user-centric approach. "A truly foresighted design" according to the heaviest users of the platform, The London Grid for Learning [117]. The combination of the on-demand and user centric approach meant that a single, flexible learning platform could be rolled out across a host of different school and institutional user groups, each with multiple but inter-related user hierarchies, each with different software bundles and functional capabilities easily, quickly and cheaply. At a time when users had little understanding of why they needed a learning platform, let alone what they would do with it, this approach encouraged user experimentation, at an affordable price. Early 1997, CourseInfo is founded [118] by Dan Cane and Stephen Gilfus, an undergraduate student and teaching assistant, and launches the Interactive Learning Network 1.5 based on scripts that Dan Cane began writing in 2006. The product is one of the first systems to be based on a relational database with internet forms and scripts that provided announcements, document uploading and quiz and survey functionality. In 1997, Instructional Design for New Media an online course on how to develop online courses was created using forums, interactive exercises and the notion of collaborative learning by a community of instructors and students. Developed by a Canadian consortium led by Christian Blanchette (Learn Ontario) and funded by the Canadian government, it was featured in the May 1998 online newsletter NODE [119]. Brandon Hall [168] publishes the "Web-Based Training Cookbook: everything you need to know for online training" (New York: John Wiley). The book contains many examples of online training software and content already in commercial use. Brandon Hall also publishes the first of his annual reviews of Learning Management Systems, entitled "Training Management Systems: How to Choose a Program Your Company Can Live With."

History of virtual learning environments 1990s There are 27 learning management systems listed in this report. Elliott Masie publishes the second edition of the "Computer Training Handbook" (the first version was published in 1995, and co-authored by Rebekah Wolman). In this book Elliott describes teaching a pilot course via the Internet called "Training Skills for Teaching New Technology". The book also has a chapter entitled "On-line and Internet-Based Learning". The Stanford Learning Lab, an applied research organization, was created to improve teaching and learning with effective use of information technologies. It carried out many projects that developed techniques and tools for large lecture, geographically distributed, and project-based courses. A study of web-supported large lecture course, The Word and the World tested online structured reading assignments, asynchronous forums, and student projects. Software developed included: panFora: an online discussion environment for the development of critical thinking skills; CourseWork: an online, rationale-based, problem set design and administration environment; E-Folio: ubiquitous, web-based, portable electronic knowledge databases that are private, personalized and sharable; Helix: web-based software developed to coordinate the iterative review of research papers; and RECALLtm: to capture, index, retrieve, and replay concept generation over time in the form of a sketch and the corresponding audio and video rationale annotation. In June, 1997, Gotham Writers' Workshop (www.writingclasses.com) launched its online division; classes feature blackboard lectures, class discussion bulletin boards, interactive chat, homework posting/individual teacher response, group assignment posting/group critique files. Virginia Commonwealth University licensed Web Course in a Box (WCB) to madDuck Technologies in early 1997. madDuck Technologies was a company formed in early 1997 by Sue Polyson, Robert Godwin-Jones and Steve Saltzberg. The company was formed by the WCB developers in order to provide support and services to other educational institutions who were using WCB. WCB version 1 was released in Feb, 1997 (beta version were released in 1996, and the product was in use at VCU and several other institutions in 1996). WCB V2 was released in September, 1997 and added web-based quizzing, as well as more course site customization to the feature set.[120] The Oncourse Project at Indiana University utilizes the notion and design of a "template - based course management system." Other systems used a similar approach including CourseInfo, WebCT, and other Course Management systems. Take a look at the old IUPUI WebLab site archived at the Archive.org: http://web. archive.org/web/19990221151346/www.weblab.iupui.edu/projects/Oncourse.html Lotus LearningSpace deployed as the learning and student team environment for the Indiana University Accounting MBA program and reported in the proceedings of HICSS-32. Lotus LearningSpace presented at NERCOMP 3/24/1997: "Interactive Distributed Learning Solutions: Lotus Notes-Based LearningSpace" by Peter Rothstein, Director, Research and Development Programs, Lotus Institute. Plateau [121] released TMS 2, an enterprise-class learning management system. TMS 2 was adopted by both the U.S. Air Force and Bristol-Myers Squibb at the time of its release. The Bodington VLE deployed at the University of Leeds, UK. The Bodington System - Patently Previous [122] By 1997, the Bodington VLE included many of the features listed in the Blackboard US Patent #6,988,138, including the variable-role authentication/authorization system. A full record exists of all activity in the Bodington VLE at Leeds going back to October 1997. First versions of COSE deployed at Staffordshire University. COSE includes facilities for the publication and reuse of content, facilities for the creation and management of groups and sub-groups of learners by tutors and for the assignment of learning opportunities to those groups and to individual learners. For article (1997) see [123]. This article was republished in 1998 in Australia.[124] For a fuller description of work on COSE to the end of 1997 see:[125] Published mid-1998 Ziff Davis launches ZDNet University for $4.95/month. Offering courses in programming, graphics and web management. See the Archive at Archive [126]

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History of virtual learning environments 1990s Cisco Systems In 1993, Cisco embarked on an initiative to design practical, cost-effective networks for schools. It quickly became apparent that designing and installing the networks was not enough, schools also needed some way to maintain the networks after they were up and running. Cisco Senior Consulting Engineer George Ward developed training for teachers and staff for maintenance of school networks. The students in particular were eager to learn and the demand was such that in 1997 it led to the creation of the Cisco Networking Academy Program, see Cisco networking academy. The Cisco Networking Academy Program [127], established in 1997, teaches students networking and other information technology-related skills, preparing them for jobs as well as for higher education in engineering, computer science and related fields. Since its launch, the program has grown to more than 10,000 Academies in 50 U.S. states and more than 150 countries with a curriculum taught in nine different languages. More than 400,000 students participate in Academies operating in high schools, colleges and universities, technical schools, community-based organizations, and other educational programs around the world. The Networking Academy program blends face-to-face teaching with web-based curriculum, hands-on lab exercises, and Internet-based assessment. Click here to learn more from Cisco Systems on how this program began [128], and about the program today in Program History PDF [129]. Fretwell Downing, based in Sheffield, England, is working on the development of a virtual learning environment, under the auspices of the "LE Club" a partnership between the company and eleven English Further Education colleges. Dr Bob Banks's outline specification for a Learning Environment. [130] The "LE" had arisen from a 1995-1997 EU ACTS Project - Renaissance [131] - in which Fretwell Downing was the prime contractor.[132] [133]
[134]

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Convene International is recruited by Microsoft to become their first Education marketing partner. Convene helps Microsoft with establishing licensing parameters for the ASP companies. Foundation of Blackboard Inc as consulting firm. WebAssign [135] developed by faculty at North Carolina State University for the online submission of student assignments and a mechanism for immediate assessment and feedback. WebCT spins out of UBC forming independent company with several hundred university customers. Release of TWEN (The West Education Network), a system which "connects you with the most useful and current legal information and news, while helping you to organize your course information and participate in class discussions". (See archived homepage from archive.org [136]) Future Learning Environment (FLE) research and development project starts in Helsinki, Finland (See: http://fle. uiah.fi [137]) Stephen Downes presents Web-Based Courses: The Assiniboine Model http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ downes22.html [138] at NAWeb 1997 [139], describing the LMS in detail. A collaborative writing project between Jr Hi students and University pre-teachers, using Filemaker Pro to create collaborative writing spaces, Jan-Mar, 1997, later described in Payne, J Scott and N. S. Peterson. 2000. The Civil War project [140]: project-based collaborative learning in a virtual space. Educational Technology & Society 3(3). The Manhattan Project (now known as the Manhattan Virtual Classroom) is launched at Western New England College in Springfield, MA as a supplement to classroom courses in February 1997. It is later released as an open source project. The Manhattan Project (history and description) [141] Delivery starts of the Learning To Teach On-Line [142] course in South Yorkshire, England. Characteristics: delivery over the Internet; materials, tasks/assignments, discussion-board. chat system all accessible by browser; browser-based amending of the materials; learners and tutors all over the world, with learners enrolled to several of the institutions in the (then) South Yorkshire Further Education Consortium, and tutors employed by several different institutions. An undergraduate software development course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill included a team addressing the problem of Distance Education. The purpose was to allow interaction between students and instructors located in remote sites by utilizing a computer network, such as the internet. Included in the software requirements were a linked web-browser system, a synchronized blackboard application, and a student/instructor

History of virtual learning environments 1990s chat tool. There were two levels of access, separately for the instructor and for the students. The simple software suite was accomplished in the spring semester of 1997. The Web Project at California State University, Northridge, adapted HyperNews, a shareware discussion board that created specific courses with faculty and students. In addition, QuizMaker from the University of Hawaii, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC), were shortly thereafter added to the shareware suite and indexed to faculty webpages. The Virtual 7 were seven faculty who began to teach online in 1995, with this software. University of Aberdeen starts a project to research and evaluate web-based course management and communication tools. Project notes [143] are available, including the original administrator guides for TopClass v.1.2.2b, October 1997 (PDF) [144]. Aberdeen ultimately chooses WebCT, and rolls out a live system in 1998. Pioneer developed by MEDC (University of Paisley) Pioneer was an online learning environment developed initially for colleges in Scotland. Pioneer was web-based and featured: online course materials (published by the lecturers themselves); integral email to allow communications between students and tutors; forum tools; chat tools; timeatable/calendar; activities. The main driver for Pioneer was Jackie Galbraith. When MEDC was closed, the Pioneer development team moved to SCET in 1998 taking Pioneer with them when it became SCETPioneer. SCETPioneer was used by Glasgow Colleges and a number of other colleges and schools in Scotland. SCET merged with the SCCC and became Learning and Teaching Scotland [145] Bob Jensen and Petrea Sandlin republish "Electronic Teaching and Learning: Trends in Adapting to Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Networks in Higher Education [33]" - first published 1994, text of both versions available via hyperlink. Speakeasy Studio and Caf (Gary Brown, Travis Beard, Dennis Bennett, Eric Miraglia, and others) (now retired, but many references remain on WSU websites, e.g., these [146]) a course delivery system hosted by Washington State University [147] and used on multiple campuses for web-based discussion and collaborative writing. Speakeasy had a primitive portfolio view that allowed instructors and students to find all the writings of a given author within a course space, by discussion topic or in a calendar view. The Cougar Crystal Ball (Gary Brown, Randy Lagier, Peg Collins, Greg Turner & Lori Eveleth-Baker and others). an online learning profile and corresponding university resource inventory, implements ideas related to selective release of material based on learner preparedness. The WSU OWL (Online Writing Lab) (Gary Brown, Eric Miraglia, Greg Turner Rahman, Jessie Wolf, & Dennis Bennett) (still in use at WSU [148] and by others) an interactive forum for peer tutoring in writing (WSU Boeing grant award), involves a simple threaded discussion. OWL retires in favor of eTutoring March 2008. The VIRTUS project [149] at University of Cologne, Germany, has started the development of the web-based ILIAS [145] learning management system in 1997. A first version with an integrated web-based authoring environment has been going online at November 2, 1998. In 2000 ILIAS became open source [150] software under the GPL. Serf [151] was invented at the University of Delaware by Dr. Fred Hofstetter during the summer of 1997. Initially used to deliver the U.S.'s first PBS TeleWEBcourse (on Internet Literacy), Serf has been used to deliver hundreds of courses. Serf "began as a self-paced multimedia learning environment that enabled students to navigate a syllabus, access instructional resources, communicate, and submit assignments over the Web," and the Serf feature set was expanded from 1997-99 as described in this article [152] (from College & University Media Review (Fall, 1999), 99-123), which includes a detailed table describing the history of Serf's feature development for versions 1 through 3. University of Maryland University College (UMUC) offers its first classes using WebTycho [153], a customized "program developed by UMUC to facilitate course delivery via the World Wide Web."[154] Paul McKey [88] launches BigTree Online, a commercial, integrated online learning environment for managing the Apple certification program in Asia Pacific. Built with FileMaker Pro from a model first described in his Masters Thesis in 1996 - http://www.redbean.com.au/articles/files/masters/06-Chapter6.html Saba [155] founded. Now one of the pre-eminent corporate learning management systems.

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History of virtual learning environments 1990s FutureMedia (established in 1982) commenced the development of Solstra with BT Group PLC, launching the first version of the product in February 1998. (Annual report for 2001 to SEC [156]) (March 1997) Oleg Liber presents his paper "Viewdata and the World Wide Web: Information or Communication" [157] at CAL 97 at the University of Exeter, England. In it he looks back to the use of videotex in education in the 1980s and forward to a more communications-oriented Web - what we would call Web 2.0 these days - but this was 9 years ago. The paper is worthy of note since Liber is still active in e-learning and as one of the few papers dealing with history of e-learning. Formal Systems Inc. of Princeton, NJ, USA introduces an internet version of its Assessment Management System, which started as a DOS program in 1990. (In 2000, Formal Systems changed its name to Pedagogue Solutions [1]). Educom's IMS Design Requirements released in document dated December 19, 1997 [158]. Teaching in the switched-on classroom: An introduction to electronic education and HyperCourseware [159] is published online by Kent Norman at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD: Laboratory for Automation Psychology. Bob Godwin-Jones and Sue Polyson give a presentation at EDUCOM '97 entitled "Tools for Creating and Managing Interactive Web-based Learning". The presentation compared the features of Web Course in a Box and TopClass. The slides for the presentation [160] are still available online. The MadDuck Technologies web site [161] listed the many distinctive features of the Web Course in a Box course management system. A online column [161] by Tom Creed called "The Virtual Companion" lists a number of course management systems including Web Course in a Box, WebCT, Nicenet, NetForum, and WebCT. Virtual-U, a course management system for universities, was developed at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in British Columbia, Canada. A design paper Virtual-U Development Plan: Issues and Process [162] dated June 25, 1997 gives a clear description including screen shots. By early 1998 the system was deployed in a number of universities and colleges across Canada, including SFU, Laval, Douglas College, McGill, University of Winnipeg, University of Guelph, University of Waterloo, and Aurora College. (Source: The Peak [163], Simon Fraser University's Student Newspaper, Volume 98, Issue 6, February 16, 1998.) A press release dated March 10, 1997 announced that "DLJs Pershing Division Aligns with Princeton Learning Systems and KnowledgeSoft to Create On-line University". Knowledgesoft's LOIS (Learning Organization Information System) was described by Brandon Hall, in his book The Web-based Training Cookbook (New York: John Wiley, 1997), as an "innovative Web-based training administration tool." It had three core modules: a competency management system, an assessment system, and a training management system. The University of Lincoln and Humberside (ULH) in the UK (later the University of Lincoln) begins development of its "Virtual Campus" software, which was later incorporated into a spin-out company called Teknical [184], which in 2003 was bought by Serco [164]. Historical references seem fragmentary but some indication of the date of origin is contained in the overview material [165] on the joint SRHE/Lincolnconference on 'Managing Learning Innovation' which took place on 1 and 2 September 97 at the University. Substantial funding came from BP as noted in an old web page [166] of the former Learning Development Unit at ULH. Two key papers on Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) are published: a Kuhn paper [167] on separation of duty; necessary and sufficient conditions for separation safety - and an Osborn paper [168] (in PostScript) on the relationship between RBAC and multilevel security mandatory access (MLS/MAC) security policy models; role lemma relating RBAC and multilevel security. Al Seagren and Britt Watwood present "The Virtual Classroom: What Works?" at the Annual International Conference of the Chair Academy. Reno, NV. See ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED407029. This presentation reviewed two years of the use of Lotus Notes as a learning management system in a masters and doctoral level education degree from the University of Nebraska.

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History of virtual learning environments 1990s July 1997: The Report of the National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education, usually called the Dearing Report, is published in the UK. Many of its recommendations were influential not only in the development of e-learning but in the development ot the national-level support structures for it, including leading eventually to the Higher Education Academy. The report web site [169] is maintained by the University of Leeds. April 1997: The project Kolibri (Kooperatives Lernen mittels Internet-basierter Informationstechniken, Cooperative Learning with Internet based IT) was launched at the University Dortmund and went live in February 1998 with a course for Fuzzy Logic. The Kolibri system was a generic web-based application which supported multiple courses and several user groups (student administration, tutors, students). The application supported personal course histories, personal notes to content, automatic tests and interactive cooperative applets for teamwork in lessons. The system further contains a chat-system and a blackboard for information exchange. A report in German is available as PDF [170] In January 1997, Scott Gray, Tricia Gray, Kendell Welch, and Debra Woods launch Useractive [171] an online learning resource dedicated to the useractive learning pedagogical technique. This technique has its roots in constructivism except with computer aided guidance. This asynchronus system is enabled by embedding tutorials and learning management functions into development tools.

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1998
On August 11, 1998 Indiana University, IUPUI Campus, issued a press release Prototype for Web-based Teaching and Learning Environment to be Tested at IUPUI This Year http://web.archive.org/web/ 19990222013218/www.weblab.iupui.edu/projects/oncourseNR.html Ucompass.com [172] is founded on July 23, 1998 and begins marketing its Educator Course Management System. CourseWork, a web-based, problem set manager, was developed by the at Stanford University's Learning Lab. It formed the core of the CourseWork CMS. This version supported authoring, distribution, completion, and reviewing of automatically graded assignments by students and instructors. Humboldt State University's [173] Courseware Development Center [174] builds the ExamMaker application for online testing. ExamMaker supports banks of questions, which may include audio and/or video segments, that may be true/false, fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, or essay. Essay questions are emailed to the teacher for grading, then sent back to ExamMaker to display the graded essays to the students. ExamMaker grades all other types of questions and provides the student immediate feedback as soon as the exam is completed, including an explanation of the correct answers, and automatically posts the grade. Full Description:ASSURED STUDENT ACCESS TO COMPUTING AND THE NETWORK [175] On June 1, 1998, a paper describing a web based Peer Review and Assessment tool developed by the Courseware Development Center at Humboldt State University was presented at the 1998 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition: Engineering Education Contributing to U.S. Competitiveness. The Peer Review was a set of web forms that enabled students to upload documents, review each other's work, and for an instructor to review and grade student's uploaded work. More. [176] On November 2, 1998, the web-based learning management system ILIAS [180] is gone online at University of Cologne. Within one year more than 30 courses have been created and published for blended learning in economics, business administration and social sciences. In the spring of 1998 TeleTOP, a set of fill-in forms on top of Lotus Domino, saw the light at Twente University, The Netherlands. It was not the first ELO that was used there, but it was the first one where teachers themselves could create a course without any ICT knowledge. Core of this product was and is the central task-scheme ("The Roster"), where the teacher could create a row of activities for each week. A demo course [177] has been available online since 1998. You still can login with UN: docent.test and PW: docent.test. Unfortunately this is an old version of TeleTOP. Since 1998 the look and feel has completely changed and the ELO has a lot more functionalities. Modules like Digital Portfolio and Assessment Centre have been developed to measure the pupils competence and developments. Open standards such as SCORM, IEE-LOM, Dublin Core and AICC where

History of virtual learning environments 1990s implemented from the start for reuse and research possibilities. Further information can be found on http://www. teletop.nl/en/ On 5/14/98, Indiana University ARTI receives a "Disclosure of Invention" for the Oncourse (case #9853) describing the invention of a comprehensive course management system by Ali Jafari and his WebLab developers, a comprehensive CMS system with message board, announcement, chat, syllabus, etc. including the dynamic method of creating courses for students and faculty based on the data from the campus SIS system. The Cisco Networking Academy Management System (CNAMS) is released to facilitate communication and course management of the largest blended learning initiative of its time, the Cisco Networking Academy. It includes tools to maintain rosters, gradebooks, forums, as well as a scalable, robust assessment engine. Cisco Networking Academy Program [178]. The Advanced Information Technology Lab at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis piloted Oncourse [179]. (A description of the initial software [180] was published in 1999 in The Journal.) Nicenet Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA2) is launched with web-based conferencing, personal messaging, document sharing, scheduling and link/resource sharing to a variety of learning environments. See their website
[181]

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DiscoverWare, Inc. [182] builds and begins to deploy its "Nova" course management system, involving a client/server architecture to deploy rich interactive content in a desktop application, and storing/sharing information on content, users, courses, and quizzes on a central server. This was an adaptive LMS, in that quizzes were generated based on the user's progress through the content, and courses were generated based on the user's responses to a quiz. The playback engine evolved a browser-based version that was SCORM Level 2 Compliant, enabling deployment of DiscoverWare content in third-party LMS such as Pathware. Public release of EDUCOM/NLII Instructional Management Systems Specifications Document Version 0.5 (April 29, 1998), produced by an IMS Technical Team including Steve Griffin (COLLEGIS Research Institute), Andy Doyle (International Thomson Publishers), Bob Alcorn (Blackboard), Brad Cox (George Mason University), Frank Farance (Farance Inc), John Barkley (NIST), Ken Schweller (Buena Vista University), Kirsten Boehner (COLLEGIS Research Institute), Mike Pettit (Blackboard), Neal Nored (IBM), Tom Rhodes (NIST), Tom Wason (UNC), Udo Schuermann (Blackboard). Available as DOC from http://aitel.hist.no/prosjekter/ ekstern/compnet/Closed/IMS/spec7.doc. Blackboard LLC merges with CourseInfo LLC to form Blackboard Inc and changes the CourseInfo product name to Blackboard's CourseInfo. Web Course in a Box, Version 3 is released in 1998. This version added a WhiteBoard feature as well as Student Portfolios, Access Tracking, Course Copying between instructors, and batch account administration.[83] The Instructional Technology Group at Yale University http://www.yale.edu puts the "Classes" system into production for Fall semester. (A copy of the original site is captured in the Internet Archive for Spring of '99[183] ) WebTestr [184] built and deployed by Nicholas Crosby at SIAST [185]. Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd (now part of Tribal Group plc) builds a pilot web-based learning environment for use in delivering accredited courses in internet skills (information retrieval, web design and online collaboration) in the UK. ( Partial details, dated 30/12/1997 [186].) The learning environment is a contribution to the work of the Living IT consortium, which includes The Sheffield College and Manchester College or Arts and Technology as well as Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd, and which had been delivering these courses since 1997. (In 1999, the company demonstrates this learning environment as part of its successful tender [187] to build a larger, more sophisticated learning environment for learndirect [188], which was subsequently used by hundreds of thousands of learners in England and Wales.) Teemu Leinonen and Hanni Muukkonen publish a paper [189] on Future Learning Environment - Innovative Methods and Applications for Collaborative Learning. Future Learning Environment (FLE) reserarch and development project releases the first version of FLE software. The FLE software is afterwards known as Fle3.

History of virtual learning environments 1990s The survey article "Embedding computer conferencing in university teaching" (Mason and Bacsich) is published in Computers and Education, Volume 30, Number 3, April 1998, pp.249258. This describes experiences with using CoSy and FirstClass in online learning at the Open University in the period up to 1995. (Article available online e.g. via Ingenta.) CU Online, the virtual campus of the University of Colorado, is described in an online article by Terri Taylor Straut[190] first presented in 1997 at the FLISH97 conference in Sheffield, UK. CU Online uses the LMS from Real Education, later eCollege.com. Virtual U, "a Web Based Environment Customised to Support Collaborative Learning and Knowledge Building", is described in an online article by Linda Harasim, Tom Calvert and others[191] also first presented at FLISH97. The paper makes it clear that development of Virtual-U has been under way since 1994. CTLSilhouette (Gary Brown Randy Lagier, Peg Collins, Josh Yeidel, Greg Turner & Lori Eveleth-Baker). (Still in use) (Help manual [192]) an online survey and automated response generator. Allows authors to use create custom question types in additional to questions made by wizard. Lacks scoring and feedback features of online test/quiz. CTLSilhouette powers The TLT Group's Flashlight Online system, which includes the Flashlight Current Student Inventory item bank, a useful tool for evaluations of Virtual Learning Environments and scholarship of teaching and learning by instructors. NextEd [193] founded by its CEO Terry Hilsberg in 1998 to deliver global e-learning from bases in Hong Kong and Australia. Its first prominent university client/partner was the University of Southern Queensland, a major Australian distance learning provider. Paul McKey [88] joins NextEd as a foundation employee and CTO and begins development of an online learning management system first described in his Masters Thesis "The Development of the On-line Educational Institute", SCU, Australia, July 1996, http://www.redbean.com.au/articles/files/masters/06-Chapter6.html In September 1998 the Computer Science department at RMIT University, Australia [194] began delivering its online courses with Serf [151]. Over 10,000 Open University Australia [195] student enrollments used Serfs comprehensive LMS features until 2004 when RMITs corporate Blackboard was phased in. During this period, Serf versions 1 to 3 hosted 13 ugrad CS courses, 5 pgrad CS courses and 3 continuously repeating, short IT courses. September 1998: The EU SCHEMA project (the web site is still extant at http://www.schema.stir.ac.uk/- full marks to Stirling University) releases via the Oulu team a "State of the art" review specification on CMC techniques applicable to open and distance learning (Deliverable D5.1). This includes a feature and architectural comparison of FirstClass, LearningSpace, TopClass and WebCT. It also describes a desired system Proto. There is a full discussion of roles. The diagrams are particularly informative. [196]. In May 1998, Interlynx Multimedia, Inc. of Toronto, received a contract to develop a learning management system for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The LMS, designed by Dr. Gary Woodill and Dr. Karen Anderson was built in Microsoft ASP. It included a rudimentary authoring system that allowed HTML pages and multiple choice questions to be built and posted online. The generic code for this LMS became the PROFIS LMS, which was then licenced to several other corporations. Later Operitel Corporation of Peterborough acquired the rights to this LMS which was then renamed LearnFlex [197]. This software is in version 6.0, and Gary Woodill is now Director of Research and Analysis for Brandon Hall Research. The Aircraft Industry CBT Committee (AICC) certifies web-based Pathware 3 as its "First Instructional Management Product". [198] Asymetrix (later becoming Click2Learn and then SumTotal) buys [199] Meliora Systems' software for learning management called Ingenium, and merges it with its own learning management product, Toolbook II Librarian, a training management and administration system used with an Oracle, MS SQL Server or other ODBC database. Authoring is done either through Asymetrix' Toolbook II Instructor, Toolbook II Assistant, or through Asymetrix IconAuthor.

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History of virtual learning environments 1990s In October 1998, CoursePackets.com is founded by Alan Blake, a University of Texas at Austin student, with the goal of posting course packs online. By the end of 1998, Indiana University's Oncourse system had grown to support some 9,000 students. December 1998 the School of Pharmacy at the University of Strathclyde [200] launch their online learning environment SPIDER [201] WebDAV gave a standard method of uploading documents. It was already described in publications in 1998. E.g. WEBDAV: IETF Standard for Collaborative Authoring on the Web [202] IEEE Internet Computing, September/October 1998, pages 3440 and 98/webdav.html Collaborative Authoring on the Web: Introducing WebDAV [203] Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 25, No. 1, October/November, 1998, pages 2529. By May 1998, a number of course management systems and collaborative environments were available. These systems included CyberProf, a course management system from the University of Illinois; Mallard 3.0, a course management system from the University of Illinois; netLearningPlace, a collaborative environment for teaching and learning; PlaceWare, software for live presentations; POLIS, a system from the University of Arizona; The Learning Manager (TLM), from Campus America, Inc.; Toolbox II from Asymetrix Corporation; TopClass, from WBT Systems; Virtual Classroom Interface (VCI), from the University of Illinois; Virtual Object Interactive Classroom Environment (VOICE), a graphic MOO; Web Course in a Box, developed at Virginia Commonwealth University; WebCT, from the University of British Columbia; Web Instructional Services Headquarters (WISH), from Penn State University; and Web Lecture System (WLS), a web lecturing system from North Carolina State University.(Source: Distance Learning Environments Feature List [204], University of Iowa, last updated May 13, 1998). Of these, WebCT is by far the most widely used with licenses at roughly 500 institutions by year end.

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1999
Fronter [205], a European software company, launches its environment for web based collaboration. During 1999 to 2001, the system is implemented by the majority of Norwegian higher education institutions and used as their platform for learning and collaboration. In January, 1999 CoursePackets.com goes live, serving dozens of courses at the University of Texas at Austin. The service allowed for the posting of course packs online at a substantial discount over the cost of printed materials. By May, 1999, CoursePackets.com begins work on a courseware system for launch in January, 2000. The courseware system is comparable to Blackboard, and actively marketed as "CourseNotes.com" beginning in the summer of '99. February 1999: Ossidian Technologies [206] is launched in Dublin, Ireland. Within 6 months the company has developed OLAS, its first web-based LMS. The company begins the process of developing a complete library of eLearning for wireless telecom (cellular, satellite, broadcast, personal and fixed wireless, operations). September 1999: The IEEE magazine Web-based Learning and Collaboration publishes A Framework for Online Learning: The Virtual-U [207], describing the history of the Virtual-U system from its inception in 1993. There are screen shots and descriptions. In particular it has a "user interface that gives instructors or moderators the ability to easily set up collaborative groups and define structures, tasks, and objectives". Further, system administrators have tools to help in "creating and maintaining accounts, defining access privileges, and establishing courses on the system". In October 1999, The UCLA School of Dentistry Media Center and Dr. Glenn Clark, develop an Internet-based authoring tool, labeled Integrated Internet Courseware [208] (iic), which provides DDS students simulation modules for diagnosis and treatment planning of patients across a large breadth of possible medical conditions as well as access to lecture notes, exam reviews, course supplements and faculty contact information. Users are presented access to virtual patients based on class, previous coursework and patient/dentist activity within the system. The project was described in the Journal of Dental Education in 1999 (Clark GT, Carnahan J, Masson P and Watanabe, T. Case-Based Courseware for Distance Learning. J. Dent Educ. 63:71 (#191) 1999).

History of virtual learning environments 1990s In October 1999 Liber and Britain publish A Framework for Pedagogical Evaluation of Virtual Learning Environments [209] (MS Word file [210]), a study for the United Kingdom Joint Information Systems Committee evaluating 12 different VLEs in detail. The report contains a schematic of a prototypical VLE, comprising 15 generic functionalities, and describes each of these functionalities in turn. There is a narrative description of each of the evaluated VLEs, and a comparative table summarising which features each provides. The Oncourse Project invented and introduced the notion of Enterprise Course management system where data from the Student Information System (SIS) was used to automatically and dynamically create CMS course site for all the courses offered at the IUPUI Campus (more than 6,000 courses offered to more than 27,000 students). http://web.archive.org/web/20070927215408/http://www.aace.org/PUBS/webnet/v1no4/Vol._1_No. _4_Jafari.pdf Martin Dougiamas trials early prototypes of Moodle at Curtin University of Technology, built during 1998 and 1999. This paper "Improving the effectiveness of tools for Internet based education [211]" published in January 2000 details one case study and includes screenshots. The LON-CAPA project is started at Michigan State University. Desire2Learn is founded. The University of Michigan launches CourseTools, originally a product of the UMIE project (launched in 1996), and moved into its own development and production team due to the scale and scope of the LMS being launched and created. The Omnium Project [212] based at The College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales ran its first global creative studio project online for 50 design students from 11 countries. See references below: Outline, the CTIAD journal (ISSN 1365-4349) - issue 9: Winter 1999/2000 - pp.1724 ECi - Education Communication and Information (ISSN 1463-631X (print) /ISSN 1470-6725 (online)/01/010103-01) (DOI 10.1080/14636310120048074) - Volume 1, Number 1: May 1, 2001 pp.103103 - Online article [213] Monument (ISSN 1320-1115) - Number 36: June/July 2000 - pp.5457 and included CD-ROM - PDF copy of article [214] IdN - International Designers Network - Volume 7, Number 1: January 2000 - pp.4951 - PDF copy of article
[215]

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Omnium website - History [216] September 1999 - The brand new Technical University of British Columbia admits its first students. Their 'Course Management System' is a home-grown system with 2+ years of development behind it at this point. Web Course in a Box, version 4 was released by madDuck Technologies in early 1999. WCB Version 4, added a gradebook and assignment manager. Companion products, Web Campus in a Box (for creating web pages for a department or program) and Web CourseBuilder Toolbox (for creating faculty web pages and forums, and course listings that were independent of the WCB system) were released in this same time period. WebCT purchased by Universal Learning Technology. Roughly 1000 campuses using WebCT by end of year. "Courseware Accessibility Study" [217] published, evaluating 7 online courseware systems for their accessibility. Stephen Downes publishes Web-Based Courses: The Assiniboine Model [138] in the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration [218]. The University of South Australia launches its web-based online learning platform, UniSAnet in March 1999. UniSAnet was developed over 9 months in 1998 and 1999, following a paper to its Academic Board in May 1998. Wolfgang Appelt and Peter Mambrey publish a paper [219] on using BSCW as a virtual learning environment. ETUDES 2.3 released. ETUDES 2.5 is released in December. The system is used at several community colleges in California, including Foothill, LasPositas, and Miracosta.

"Practical Know How: Distance Education and Training over the Internet" (Jissen Nouhau Inta-netto de Enkaku Kyouiku/Kenshuu) by Douyama Shinichi published in April, 1999 by NTT publishing. ISBN 4-7571-0016-7. "It would seem easy to begin distance learning and distance education over the Internet, as an extension of

History of virtual learning environments 1990s (conventional) distance learning. When it comes to teaching several hundred students in this way, there are a number of problems still to be resolved at this time. In this book we will consider, the selection of teaching materials, making online contents, management methods, and introduce concrete practical know how with good cost performance and lots of practical advice." Chapter one details the trial of an Internet distance learning system, from sending out invitations to graduation. Sheffield company Fretwell Downing is marketing its "LE" (Learning Environment) product. September 1999 product overview [220]. Washington State University publishes online a comparison of 24 VLE's, focusing on 8 that were considered candidates for adoption at WSU. (Note: Only the final draft survives in the archives [221].) Thorough "Comparison of Online Course Delivery Software Products" published by Marshall University - with stated last update of October 1, 1999 - examining in detail the features and functionalities of 16 mainly US and Canadian systems. Marshall University web site version [222] Wayback Machine version [223] The Bridge (Gary Brown, Mathew Shirey, Dennis Bennett, Greg Turner-Rahman). (now retired, but available [224] available read-only) a course management system with sub-spaces for teams that empowers students to create resource objects (threaded discussion, file upload, web links, notes, and quizzes) in the course. Bridge also had a "personal workspace" that provided the same collaborative and ePortfolio tools to individuals outside any course offering. The concept was not fully implemented as there was no mechanism to authorize users into one's personal workspace. Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC)'s Extended Learning Institute (ELI) begins using Allaire Forums for web-based conferencing in a variety of online/distance courses.[225] University of Maryland University College (UMUC)'s unveils Version 2.0 of its customized WebTycho program with a new interface design. Through Fall 1999, UMUC has installed WebTycho servers on three continents and served over 26,000 students and faculty in over 1,000 WebTycho courses.[154] In spring 1999 the development of the open source LMS OLAT was initiated by Sabina Jeger, Franziska Schneider and Florian Gngi to support a tutoring course with 900 students at University of Zurich. The system was put into production in fall 1999 where the 900 students registered to 25 classes that were coached by older students. This first version of OLAT was built on LAMP technology. Later, the system was completely rebuilt on Java EE technology to support the e-learning needs of a whole campus. IBM's Lotus group buys Macromedia's Pathware 4 learning management system. This LMS is later merged into the Lotus Learning Space LMS. For article on the purchase, see here.[226] Isopia (founded actually in 1998) entered the e-Learning landscape in 1999 with the launch of its Integrated Learning Management System (ILMS), its Web-based infrastructure software. Built on Enterprise Java Beans, Isopia claimed to be "a flexible, open system that allows for massive scalability and adapts to a variety of learning needs and rapidly-growing user communities". Isopia certainly rapidly grew in clients and deals (e.g. see the industry testimonials to its feature list from 1999 and early 2000 at http://www.isopia.com/the_industry/sys. html) until being bought by Sun Microsystems in 2001. [227] Knowledge Navigators International releases its third version of LearningEngine as MyLearningPlace Plain English summary [228]; detailed spec [229]. Used by the United Nations Development Programme for several years for worldwide commnunities of practice and adopted by large architectural firm in CA. Company closed in 2001. New incarnation of software lives as www.coachingplatform.com. "First Annual WebCT Conference on Learning Technologies" takes place at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada from June 1718. Tim Barker presents a paper "Community Based Virtual Learning: A WebCT Physics Course" [230] comparing three VLEs (WebCT, Topclass and Learning Space) plus Eventware (web annotations & chat), Ceilidh & Tree of Knowledge (discussion boards), Netmeeting (Whiteboard, chat etc.), Inspiration (Concept Mapping) & Composer/Writers Assistant (scaffolds writing process). Additionally Tim proposes integrating a Learning Companion. This conference represents a milestone as one of the first VLE user conferences. It is a significant success with 700 in attendance and poses a logistical exercise for organisers who

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History of virtual learning environments 1990s were originally expecting between 50 and 100. Registration had to be closed due to the large numbers over a month before the conference date. December 5, 1999: Randy Graebner's proposal for his master's thesis, Online Education Through Shared Resources [231]. The BENVIC project started in late 1999 and ran for two years. Its aim was to benchmark the various virtual campuses (i.e. university-level distance e-learning services) operating across Europe. The BENVIC web site [232] contains several useful outcomes. The project became quiescent in early 2002. It represented a move beyond benchmarking VLEs to benchmarking e-learning at a higher level, i.e. the services which the VLEs underpinned. Dennis Tsichritzis of the University of Geneva publishes "Reengineering the University" [233] (Communications of the ACM Vol. 42 , Issue 6, June 1999). One reviewer observes [234] "This is a must-read article for academics" but later cautions that "most traditional college students, particularly in the US, do not have the self-discipline to adjust to the educational environment Tsichritzis describes." Scholastic Corporation publishes Read180, an application for Macs & PCs to improve reading skills in schools. Read180 shipped with sets of CD-ROMs on various topics, each with video presentations and interactive tests. Audio recording sessions by students were sent over the network to a teacher's workstation for evaluation.[235]

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Notes
[1] http:/ / www. pedagogue. com/ history. htm [2] http:/ / delivery. acm. org/ 10. 1145/ 100000/ 99250/ p287-orcutt. pdf?key1=99250& key2=2860316511& coll=& dl=ACM& CFID=15151515& CFTOKEN=6184618 [3] http:/ / www. oit. umd. edu/ tt/ [4] "HyperCourseware" (http:/ / cognitron. umd. edu/ ). Cognitron.umd.edu. . Retrieved 2008-10-27. [5] Butler, Lucius (1990) Curriculum Development System for Navy Technical Training. ERIC Document ED323919. [6] Mageau, Therese (1990) ILS: its new role in schools. Electronic Learning, 10(1), Sep., 22-24, 31-32. [7] Mann, George and Kitchens, Joe (1990) Curriculum Management System: a computer managed curriculum. ERIC Document ED319679. [8] http:/ / www. centrinity. com/ ourcompany/ CTIHistory/ [9] "Learning Circles: Virtual Communities for Elementary and Secondary Schools" (http:/ / lrs. ed. uiuc. edu/ Guidelines/ Riel-93. html). Lrs.ed.uiuc.edu. . Retrieved 2008-10-27. [10] http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20070122131434/ http:/ / www. teds. com/ company/ history. htm [11] http:/ / web. njit. edu/ ~turoff/ Papers/ CMCGS. pdf [12] "Paper GDSS Review/double" (http:/ / web. njit. edu/ ~turoff/ Administrative/ ccc. htm). Web.njit.edu. . Retrieved 2008-10-27. [13] http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20000915112215/ capa2. nscl. msu. edu/ homepage/ [14] "UNIC Welcome to UNIC" (http:/ / www. uni-c. dk/ generelt/ english/ index. html). Uni-c.dk. . Retrieved 2008-10-27. [15] (http:/ / www. kommunikation. aau. dk/ ansatte/ es/ ) [16] http:/ / phoenix. open. ac. uk/ [17] "Instructional Technology: Virtual College" (http:/ / www. nyu. edu/ its/ pubs/ connect/ archives/ 97fall/ vigilantevirtual. html). Nyu.edu. . Retrieved 2008-10-27. [18] http:/ / www. sloan-c. org/ conference/ proceedings/ 1996/ pdf/ 96_vigilante. pdf [19] http:/ / www. learnframe. com/ download/ learnframe-factsheet. pdf [20] http:/ / www. pjb. co. uk/ delta. pdf [21] http:/ / www. ed. psu. edu/ acsde/ deos/ deosnews/ deosnews2_15. asp [22] http:/ / www. icde. org/ [23] Matthews, Don (1992) An infrastructure for continuous intake individualized education infrastructure for Learning Management. ERIC document 352091. [24] "On-line Collaborative Learning - Gary Alexander" (http:/ / sustainability. open. ac. uk/ gary/ pages/ oclearn. htm). Sustainability.open.ac.uk. . Retrieved 2008-10-27. [25] http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 19981206131406/ http:/ / www. brandon-hall. com/ [26] http:/ / www. alt. ac. uk/ aboutalt. html [27] http:/ / www. matheverywhere. com/ [28] http:/ / www. dent. ucla. edu/ pic/ [29] http:/ / www-128. ibm. com/ developerworks/ lotus/ library/ ls-elearning_evolution/ [30] http:/ / www-128. ibm. com/ developerworks/ search/ searchResults. jsp?source=google& searchType=1& searchSite=dW& searchScope=dW& query=%22learning+ management+ system%22+ student+ instructor+ administrator+ documentation [31] http:/ / www. sln. suny. edu/

History of virtual learning environments 1990s

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E-learning Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=464636162 Contributors: 0x6D667061, 123docmedical, 1creature, 300user, 455class, A. 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Article Sources and Contributors

QTI Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=463027971 Contributors: Alexcq, Bektur, Benscripps, Carnildo, ChrisInPGH, ChristopheS, Fujnky, Gcm, Gimboid13, Grussak, Hammersmith38, Hhutchens, J04n, Ja6a, JimTittsler, Larham, Lastkaled, Lindsey Kuper, Maparent, Olak Ksirrin, R'n'B, RobertG, Ruale, Staffordaz, The7thone1188, Ysangkok, Ywarnier, 44 anonymous edits Content package Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=269766925 Contributors: AlistairMcMillan, Angela, CryptoDerk, Drilnoth, Galoubet, Hvs, Olak Ksirrin, Pxma, Stevertigo Learning object metadata Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=458479524 Contributors: Abmac, Anton Khorev, Ary29, Brezenbene, Brianwc, CQ, Danhash, Discospinster, Downes, Dual Freq, Ettrig, Felix Folio Secundus, Frepa, Gaius Cornelius, GermanX, Hu12, Ipseity, J Di, Joyous!, Jsweetin, Local contributor, Loxlie, Lusanaherandraton, Marasmusine, Mcanabalb, Meegs, MichaelaBrighella3, N.Fegen, Nadavkav, Nesbit, O Wise 1, Osoneill, PM Poon, Philbarker, RHaworth, Rich Farmbrough, Rjgodoy, Sallyrenee, Slismann, Ssalonso, Stevage, SunAdmin111, Thiseye, Vitello, 48 anonymous edits Learning management system Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=464100694 Contributors: .marc., 101i, 777sms, AJackl, Abc123uandme, Abksharma, AbsolutDan, Account9000, Ajaque, Akamad, Akshyin, AlexAnderson478, Amin2013, Andiec1123, Andrevan, Andy1green, Angelaleffler, Anomrabbit, Antiochus, Antiochus21, Apecrazy, Apienczy, Ashokpundit, Ashwinkumariyer, Asterion, Athaenara, Atheyja, Avinash.royyuru, Behnam Ghiaseddin, Bencarstens, Bernardwillis, Betacommand, Betacommand2, Bianca.pizza, Bitamois, Bob Little, Bondgrrl, Boud, Brian.whitmer, Bsx, C.Fred, C45207, Calton, Cf44, Cgarland, ChemGardener, Chety, Cholula94, Chorpita, Chris George 1977, ChristineNTS, Cjvezeau, Claudioerba, Cleach, Cleared as filed, Closedmouth, Cnyborg, Cobaltbluetony, Competentum, Cprabhakar, Cputrdoc, Craigolson, Cst17, Ctina2 99, DJKay, Darinphillips, Davidsavill, Dcapitald, Deben Dave, Dekisugi, Dharward, Diannaa, Dicklyon, Discospinster, Doabarrelroll, Donnelly1111, Dorte Nielsen, Dreftymac, DustyRain, ECBAPR, Edcolins, Edtechguy46, ElKevbo, Elearningfan, Elishkiya, Eomerr, Epbr123, Erud, Eswaronline, Ezoom, Fagome, Faran, Farm, Ffflo, Fieldday-sunday, Figaronline, Fisler, Flibbermewidget, Freerick, Gabrusha, Geschichte, Gfusco, GothWalker, GraemeL, Gremchild, Gromar, Gthollingsworth, Gwledig, Haakon, Halloranc, Harryboyles, Heyjohngreen, Hhenry, Hjohnsondesign, Hotlavasoftware, Inc ru, Informetica, Instrdesign, Instructureinnovates, Interkrok, Irishguy, J S Pannu, JEH, Jason m butler, Jbersin, Jbmurray, Jdstein89, Jedhallam, JerseyBoy1, Jessemonroy650, Jgilley9, Jjungmann, Joaquimoly, Johnkoetsier, JonHarder, Jonathan Kovaciny, Jonny-mt, Jose Icaza, Jreiss186, Justapersona, Jworoner, Keynesian, Kg anish, KieferSkunk, Kiran gurumukhi, Kku, Kompere, Kritikajoshi2, Krwt, Kwcrisman, Lakewood66, Lambertson1150, Ldcjim, LearningPool55, LeaveSleaves, Leolucas, Leszek Jaczuk, Leuko, Lifelearning, Lmxonline, Lotje, Lsonne, Ltedstone, MER-C, Magnos, Mandarax, Marconeli, Mariam-t, Maximilianklein, Mediclazarus, Mehmet2006, Michaelsshaw, Mindme, Mion, Monkeyman, Morganfosstveit, MrOllie, MrRadioGuy, MuffledThud, Nabeth, Nelson50, Neo assyrian, Niccoled, Nixeagle, Nschmutz, OS2Warp, Ohnoitsjamie, Oicumayberight, Oli Filth, OnePt618, Open.herzen, PM Poon, Paduch, Papagel, Parevest, Pavel.nps, Pdelong, Pedroliska, Petercoooper, Piano non troppo, Pjurisic, Prasantasahoo2009, Priyankgupta86, ProfJ, Pungu, Pxtreme75, Quarl, Qui1che, R'n'B, RHaworth, Radagast83, Randomocity2, Ranoushranoush, Rcollman, Rculatta, Reader74, Recognizance, Redrocket, Rhwang, RichardF, Rlewer, Robbbingham, Robertjcollins, Rockjock810, Ronz, Rosehope, Rpadoilla, Rudolph.cm, Rumkeswani, S.K., S.T. Rock, SEWilco, Sadads, SalvageTheSauce, Sammorgan101, Santhonys, Sc2000goto, Scapesoft, ScottW, Seanashbrook, Sega381, Shaddyz, Shanafme, Shariq81, Sherbrooke, Simplydigi, Simplylearn, Sissdesk, Sjacob, Skipalong, Skipsmith521, SmartGuy, Spacefarer, Srippon, Ssadler, Stardust8212, Stephnrmn, Stratbeans, Stuartyeates, Sudhakar srr, Supriyoc, Surgisphere, Susanborton, Svoy, Swanny101, Sylligardakis, T@Di, TabithaFournier, Tarmo, Taweetham, Tblogs, Tccarmichael, TechPurism, Terrillja, The Thing That Should Not Be, Theacademy.com, Thingg, Tnxman307, Tonyd49, Toreau, Udaynagella, Udzu, Uzume, Varezzi, Veinor, Venakis, Vijairaj, Vinaymr, Vishucht, Vivekdodd, Vkdwivedi, Vpolavia, Vuttaa, Wbpro, Wbstafford, Wempen, Weregerbil, Wise12day, Ynsingh, Ysangkok, Ywarnier, Yworo, Zeetha, Zero sharp, Zisser, Zzuuzz, , 708 anonymous edits List of learning management systems Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=465029656 Contributors: A little insignificant, AlexanderStreicher, Armenj, Bart133, Bencarstens, Betacommand, Brian.whitmer, C.Fred, Cesclaveria, Choowiki, Claudioerba, Craigolson, CrystalMarket, Deepak D'Souza, Degan007, Diggindeeper, Dktrigeek, Dpichee, Drtaylor54, Elearning.addict, Gazzastone, Gurukumo, Gyrussystems, Haakon, Happysailor, Heba Moussa, Hhutchens, Jazzcat2283, Jddcef, Jeff G., Kathleenbosworth, Lakewood66, Lberghoff, Lectonar, Lmseditor2011, Malcolmxl5, Medra42, Mgz001, Mpriestley, MrOllie, Mwilli31, Neun-x, Ohnoitsjamie, Palmtree2011, Patrick Markit, Patriknordkvist, Paul A, Prefetch, Pxtreme75, ReneeSeker, Rich Farmbrough, Rmeducationap, Rpchase, Salohza, Savatron, Sheldon4900, Smashkanthegreat, Smkim, Spacefarer, TabithaFournier, Tagi3d, TheAMmollusc, Trenter85, Vianello, Vonluehrtej, Welsh, Worksmarts, Wouterweiss, Ynsingh, Ywarnier, Zhou Yu, , , 128 anonymous edits Authoring system Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=464782496 Contributors: Akjar13, Andreas Kaufmann, Atheyja, Buchs, C45207, Cander0000, Chiaroscuroz, Cornellrockey, Dawynn, Henning Makholm, ISpringPro, Jackinthebox8515, Jim44lynch, Joe.egg, KasperSpiro, Kelvinlohlihfu, Kku, Kmafzworld, Lucamauri, Luckyz, MST64, Nabeth, Neiltheffernaniii, Pcool, Quakerfriend, Radagast83, Radhu giri, Ranoushranoush, Resurgent insurgent, Rjwilmsi, Robertjcollins, Ronz, Rooney1983, Rwwww, S KTT, SelfProclaimedNerd, Sobith, Stuartyeates, Tpholland, Ywarnier, 37 anonymous edits Online learning community Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=450963936 Contributors: Adolphus79, Aethelstan123, Appropriate Username, Asbellcl, Astirmays, Aum66, Bikebee, C.Fred, Closedmouth, Cootiequits, Crossel, Dagstoo, Dbiel, Dreamyshade, EGclub.ru, Jackiwatson, Jauerback, Jbmurray, Jmlk17, Kritikajoshi2, Lesias, LisaMLane, LittleBenW, Littlejosh327, Malcolma, Mdschumann, Mikeblas, MrOllie, Nabeth, Nehe555, ONUnicorn, Papagel, Pearle, Pier440, Pxtreme75, Rich Farmbrough, Ronz, Rotoas, Shopmeg, Simonhearn, Snauman, TallMagic, Uncle G, Vaultingslinky, Wakipeteia, Ywarnier, le flottante, 62 anonymous edits Virtual learning environment Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=463163740 Contributors: $-vrt, 10eonreality, 21cngl, A. B., Abmac, AbsolutDan, Account9000, Adeluca, Adtlau001, Aisano, Ajbuntine, Allardstrijker, Altenmann, Andrevan, AndriuZ, Anna Lincoln, Ariadnestar, Arthur Rubin, Artlader, Athaenara, Auberon, Avillia, BD2412, Balix, Betacommand2, Bman32, Bobo192, Bobsnail, Bodnotbod, Boud, Breckket, Brucevdk, Bruguiea, Buridan, Butros, C.Fred, CSWarren, Caroline Warhurst, Catamorphism, Chermariewagner, Ckrochak, Cmcqueen, Cnewell12, Cntras, Colonies Chris, Cormaggio, Courageous Apprentice, Cynical, DJKay, Dabrowa, DanMS, Danleighton, DarenPickering, Darkfrog24, Daverocks, Davidds, Davidsavill, DeadEyeArrow, Dianna m, Diannaa, Dicklyon, Dina, Dipaq, Djm1279, Dmccreary, Dmeglio, Dominick, DouglasGreen, Douglasrofes, DustyRain, Dvahren, Dwellings, EdBreaux, EdH, Edhart67, Edward, Elforce ts, Elizabethpodolak, Elusive Pete, Eric119, Eriklord, Etech Group, Ewolfram, Fabelectronics, Favonian, Fedupinpgh, Flammifer, Flibbermewidget, Fmhf87, Gabrusha, Gadfium, Gardar Rurak, Geniussis, Ggsands, Gizen, GlassCobra, Gloucks, Goatchurch, GraemeL, Graham87, Greatbigmassive, Gwledig, HJ Mitchell, Haakon, Helgehannisdal, Heyjohngreen, Hhutchens, Hirzel, Historianalpha, IT Psychologist, Ifranzen, Indon, Informetica, Insomnianiac, Instructureinnovates, Intellidemia, Interkrok, Iuppiter, J.delanoy, JHunterJ, Jacklee2013, Jamesdtownsend, Jannetta, Jcrooke, Jdlindner15, Jedhallam, Jempage, Jeremykemp, Jfrance2, JiriK, JmG, Johnkoetsier, JonHarder, Jonathan Kovaciny, Jonathan O'Donnell, Jose Icaza, Jpbowen, Jph98, Jtalledo, Jtneill, KRich, Kritikajoshi2, Lauriewro1, Leszek Jaczuk, Lifelearning, Livetext, Lsonne, Lugnad, Mandarax, Mange01, Marcussundgren, Maria Hosein, MastCell, Mattclare, Matthudsonau, Mdd, Meno25, Mfeldstein, Michael Hardy, Minghong, MinnaL, Mion, Miss Amanda, Mjeaves, Mmutilva, Monkeyman, Mooreb87, Morte, MrOllie, Mrjahn, Mylearningltd, N5iln, Nabeth, Nelson50, Nesbit, Nolamay, ONUnicorn, Odestiny, Ohnoitsjamie, Oli Filth, Olly150, Oodooh, Orangemike, Orlady, Oxymoron83, P tasso, Papagel, Patrick Berry, Paultraf, PeterCanthropus, Petercoooper, Philbarker, Phillip.cowley, Piano non troppo, Pigsonthewing, Pks, Pru.mitchell, Pupil123, Pxtreme75, Quntilian, Radagast83, Rcollman, Reazon, Rich Farmbrough, Roan, RobertG, Robertcathles, Rolandg, Ronz, Rpadoilla, Runewiki777, Ryanbrooks, Ryber, SEWilco, Sacboy, SalvageTheSauce, Samuel Blanning, Scientizzle, Sderum, Sega381, Seglea, Shannon116, Sharayray, ShaunMacPherson, SidMuralidhar, Sifaka, Simonholdings, Siukwan38, Sjmclean, Skjreilly, Skng8, Slipmatt959, SmartGuy, Sn gloria, Spacefarer, Speck-Made, Squidge, Steel, Stuartyeates, Supersandy, T1ger1977, Tagi3d, TallMagic, Tammi Barney, Tbergonz, Thingg, Tide rolls, Transib, Troja, Tsoron, TubularWorld, Utcursch, Varezzi, Vdm, Vinaymr, W163, Wavelength, Wikipelli, Woohookitty, Wxidea, Xororaz, Yfimia, Ynsingh, Ysangkok, Ywarnier, Zackade, Zzuuzz, 609 ,55 anonymous edits Digital content creation Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=446834781 Contributors: Alksub, Colin, Fabrictramp, Flachlandtapir, Heds, Middayexpress, Shalom Yechiel, Woohookitty, 11 anonymous edits Asynchronous learning Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=459754944 Contributors: Dekimasu, Fvw, Janetpwiki, JordoCo, Katherine, Kentsalus, Michael Hardy, Open2universe, RJHall, Reinyday, Tabletop, Thomascain01, Woohookitty, 19 anonymous edits Intelligent tutoring system Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=438525915 Contributors: Aleven, Antonio Lopez, Boffob, Dreamyshade, Eugene-elgato, John, Koedinger, M.boli, Nabeth, Nesbit, Nkambou, Ohnoitsjamie, Pbsloep, PhilKnight, Pleasantville, Spacefarer, Turadg, Wwheeler, 54 anonymous edits Integrated Learning Systems Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=432891617 Contributors: Addere, Avalon, Fabrictramp, Geocorrales, 6 anonymous edits E-learning Maturity Model Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=394400144 Contributors: Addisonhammer, Jonathan Oldenbuck, Mdd, Prawstho, Stephenm nz, 1 anonymous edits Learning object Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=461696358 Contributors: ARK, AS, AlistairMcMillan, Angela, Arifjinha, Asgara, Ashishtanwer, BWatkins, CQ, Cdnchameleongirl, Chunkthechunk, Conversion script, DGG, Damiens.rf, DanielLemire, Danielcarvalho, Derek Ross, Dmccreary, Dr.Helfrich, EdH, Ericblazek, Eubulides, Ever.anon, Evil saltine, Hirzel, Hmcti, Ixfd64, Jamesday, Jbmurray, JiriK, Johnp2hunt, Josepant, Justin W Smith, Kabads, Kaychitwood, KennethUrban, Korte, LeeHunter, Leighblackall, Leszek Jaczuk, Lexor, Lkmorlan, MHV, Manco Capac, Mav, Mbell, Mbonetti, Meadowsa, Michaelsshaw, Micru, Mion, Miss Dark, Mmorrey, Mr.Z-man, N.Fegen, Ohnoitsjamie, OlEnglish, Petercoooper, Philbarker, Pierfranco, Redlandrain, Rjgodoy, Ronz, Ryulong, Seanashbrook, Stu 22, The Anome, TheRingess, Thelearningfederation, Tom CLO, Yerpo, 70 anonymous edits MLearning Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=463002535 Contributors: 41 spitfire, 9831236gddshs, Abmac, Actionhamster, Aiacono, Altenmann, Ammarsammars, Andrewpmk, Arbustoo, BD2412, Baseball Watcher, Bazzargh, Beland, Blowdart, Bovineone, CaseyPenk, Cheshirestu, Chris the speller, Chrism1128, Cmdrjameson, Colinjl, DC, Dabormida, Debresser, DerHexer, Devinbhullar, Dparsonsnz, Dutchboyinohio, E-learning, EDUCONS, ElKevbo, Ex nihil, Finikas1911, Frank, Fuhghettaboutit, Gary King, Gizen, Gruzuk, Hmbr, Hmwith, Howardjp, Icseaturtles, Ilikeit, J Milburn, JIP, Ja malcolm, Jerryobject, John of Reading, Jptmoore, JubalHarshaw, Judith Buendgens-Kosten, Karl.brown, KaurJmeb, Khatru2, Kmasters0, Kozuch, Learningtech, LeilaniLad, Leonardlow, Lotje, Lttglobal, Lucyhaagen, Ludmia Pilecka, MarcoTolo, Marwae t, Master Scott Hall, Mattisse, Megan.rw1, Meisenberger, Mkoole, Mlearning, Mobilelearn, Monkeyman, Monkeysheep, Morganpeters, MrOllie, Nabeth, Ninelocks, Nthomas4, Ohnoitsjamie, Ot, Pearle, Piano non troppo, Pierfranco, Pnm, Prachid, Pumas214,

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R2005, Rajeevku, Ranoushranoush, RexNL, Rich Farmbrough, Rjwilmsi, Roberta F., Ronz, Rscullin, Sammorgan101, Seraphimblade, ShaneCavanaugh, Sharplem, ShelfSkewed, Sjjupadhyay, Subbumv, TJK4114, TastyPoutine, TechHerding, Themfromspace, Tizio, Tom1965, Toussaint, Tribalctad, Udaynagella, Varadarajan.vidya, Viriditas, Voyagerfan5761, WeisheitSuchen, Wenli, Wikictad, Woohookitty, Xs935, Yakiv Gluck, Yllam, Yuanxu4107587, ZooFari, , 405 anonymous edits Learning pathway Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=459743460 Contributors: Account9000, Chicolili, D6, Discospinster, Mattisse, Nabeth, Pragmatic67, SCRosenbaum, WikHead, 15 anonymous edits CLCIMS Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=323633867 Contributors: Kimchi.sg, Kingius, Kingpin13, Nabeth, Rich Farmbrough, Timwi, 3 anonymous edits Asymetrix Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=459004917 Contributors: Account9000, Alpha Quadrant, Finlay McWalter, Mikemadland, MuffledThud, 2 anonymous edits History of virtual learning environments Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=458590326 Contributors: AZPR, AaronSloman, Account9000, Albertel, Alexf, Andrevan, Andycjp, Arch dude, Argon233, Arianwen55, Ariconsul, Arkanoidx, Avraham, Benrobb, Berryma5, Bflynn, BillFlis, Bobbankspadley, Bobo192, Brad.wheeler, Brendano, Brenont, Bryan Derksen, Bustter, Bwatwood, Chaser, ChrisBrown, Chumbi, CiscoAdvocate, Computerhag, Courseware, Daveesl, Davidds, Davidjennings, Dcapitald, Dcflyer, Delirium, Dicklyon, Dispenser, Docdave, Dorftrottel, Dreftymac, Drpickem, Dvapol, Dxthom, E.deckert@infostance.com, Earthsound, Edcolins, Edtechguy46, Edward, Eeekster, Egragert, ElKevbo, Emersoni, Emufarmers, Firsfron, Fisler, FlammableChicken, Frederik.Questier, Funandtrvl, Fuzzy510, GDallimore, Gaius Cornelius, Gilliam, Giraffedata, Glane23, Gomer Bolstrood, Greg544, Gwoodill, Haakon, Harryboyles, Henry W. Schmitt, Henry1776, Hrichman, Igloo32, InterfaceHistorian, Intgr, Intintolo, Iridescent, JForget, JYeidel, Jamesontai, JayWarner, JeremyCumoletti, Jeremykemp, Jivecat, Jlo08c, Jodi.a.schneider, JoeSmack, Joelms, Jpalme, Jpwynn, Jsener, K1v1n, Kaganer, Kernsc, Khatru2, Klnorman, Knowledgep, Korte, Lakewood66, Lame Name, Lancespeelmon, Lee.Sailer, Lfernandez, LilHelpa, Lotje, Lrebjobson, Madhero88, Mainmre, Mamling, Markiewp, Markvanharmelen, Martinp23, Mcld, Meisenstadt, Messenjer, Mfeldstein, Mriel, Mtnman79, Nabeth, Naraht, Neustradamus, Nils Peterson, Nils peterson, ONEder Boy, Olak Ksirrin, Omicronpersei8, Outriggr, OxAO, Paul.mckey, Pbacsich, PeterGoodyear, Phil Boswell, Philbarker, Ppa, PrimroseGuy, Pup137, Rabell, Rat144, Rjwilmsi, Roux, Rufus843, Rurik, Ryulong, Salamurai, Salbrigh, SallyForth123, SamHathaway, Sambauers, Schmoller, Sehrmann, Sfrielick, Sgilfus, Sharplem, Slightsmile, Softcafe, Spolyson, Sschmoller, Stat Man, Stifle, Stone, Straycat, Stuartyeates, Sumsum2010, Sumtotalsystems, TabithaFournier, Tabletop, Terguy, Thaurisil, The Anome, The Thing That Should Not Be, Timbarker, Ttwaring, Violetriga, W163, WAS 4.250, Wikiklrsc, Wikipelli, Womble bee, Ywarnier, Zelchenko, Zip123, 595 anonymous edits History of virtual learning environments 1990s Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=400601866 Contributors: AUG, Account9000, AlissaWoodward, Antonielly, Anypodetos, Brickcheney, Bw022, Chaser, David gv ray, Dispenser, Download, EEMIV, Edtechguy46, Edward, Egragert, Gwoodill, Highlighter23, Interrobang, JLaTondre, Jodi.a.schneider, John of Reading, JustAGal, Keith D, Lrebjobson, MECU, Mriel, Nils peterson, Nrigores, PleaseStand, Pyroman, Rjwilmsi, Roux, SallyForth123, Snigbrook, Stuartyeates, Sumsum2010, W163, 18 anonymous edits

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File:Moodle 2.0 on Firefox 4.0.png Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Moodle_2.0_on_Firefox_4.0.png License: GNU General Public License Contributors: Myself Image:LOM base schema.png Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:LOM_base_schema.png License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Contributors: en:User:Rjgodoy Image:OpenUSS.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:OpenUSS.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Pks Image:Acer X960 smartphone.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Acer_X960_smartphone.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Jontintinjordan Image:Pressey Testing Machine 1.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Pressey_Testing_Machine_1.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: User:Gomer Bolstrood Image:Pressey Testing Machine 2.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Pressey_Testing_Machine_2.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: User:Gomer Bolstrood Image:Cyclops Telewriting.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Cyclops_Telewriting.jpg License: GNU Free Documentation License Contributors: Mike Sharples

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