| Learner Tools |
| > Communication
Tools |
| Discussion Forums |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Discussion forums can be viewed only by date.
Instructors can setup an unlimited number of discussion
forums. A previous post can be automatically quoted in a reply
to provide some sense of context. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The software does not provide threaded
discussion forums but rather allows discussions between two or
more people via its email based message publishing system.
|
| COSE
2.051: Discussion forums can be viewed by date and by
thread. Instructors can create separate discussion
environments for small groups. Students locate course content
and activities by first identifying their membership in
various learner groups. Students move on to another group when
they want to move on to another part of the course
content. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: Discussion forums can be
viewed by author, by date, by thread, and by the type of post.
Students identify a comment posted to the discussion forum
using the following categories: problems, explanations,
scientific explanations, comments, evaluations of the process
or summaries. Posts can contain an image or URL. The
discussion tool supports collaborative learning built around a
problem-based pedagogic model and is designed to be useful in
constructive and inquiry-like learning processes. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: Discussion forums can be viewed by
date and by thread. The entire discussion can be saved or
printed for off-line reading. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Discussion forums can be viewed by date and by
thread. Posts can contain attachments. Instructors can set up
discussion forums so new posts are sent to the email box of
each student. |
| Yahoo!
Education: Discussion forums can be viewed by topic and
by date. When a message is posted to the discussion forum,
everyone in the course is sent a copy via email to their
individual email addresses. Students may choose to receive
individual emails, daily digests, or to review the discussion
forum on the site. Discussion forums can include a moderation
function. Instructors can determine the level of involvement
(read, write, or no access) for students or the public. |
 |
| File Exchange |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Students can upload files to a shared course
folder. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: Students can share files. |
| COSE
2.051: Students can submit assignments using drop
boxes. Students can share the contents of their personal
folders with other students. |
| Eledge
1.2: Students can submit assignments using drop
boxes. |
| Fle3: Students can share the
contents of their personal folders with other students.
Instructors can upload files to the personal folder of a
student. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Students can upload files to a shared course
or group folder. |
| Yahoo!
Education: The software provides drop boxes for
students to submit assignments. Files can also be exchanged
using Email attachments. |
|
| Internal Email |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Students must have an Internet email address.
Students who are enrolled in the same class can email each
other using the class roster as an address book. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: Students must have an Internet email address.
The product provider recommends that students either have a
separate email account for messages from students,
instructors, and administrators of this system, or they use
IMAP instead of POP to handle messages from this system.
|
| COSE
2.051: Students must have an Internet email address.
There is an address book, which is searchable, and which
students can use to send messages to individual students,
instructors, or groups. |
| Eledge
1.2: Students must have an Internet email address.
Students who are enrolled in the same class can email each
other using the class roster as an address book. Students can
email individual students, instructors or groups. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: Students can email individual
students, instructors or groups and can select message
recipients from an address book of students who are currently
enrolled in the same courses as the student who is sending the
message. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Students can email individual students,
instructors or groups. |
| Yahoo!
Education: Students must have an Internet Email
address. Students can Email individual students, instructors
or groups. The Email address book stores student Internet
Email addresses. |
|
| Online Journal/Notes |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: Students can attach personal notes to any course
content or can make notes in their personal work areas.
Students can share their notes with other students. |
| Eledge
1.2: Students can make notes in a personal journal in
preformatted text or HTML-style with tags. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| > Productivity
Tools |
| Bookmarks |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: Students can create bookmarks in a course
folder. |
| COSE
2.051: Students can create bookmarks in a private
folder and can share them in a course folder. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: Students can create and share
bookmarks in a personal folder. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: Students can create and categorize
annotated bookmarks in a course folder. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Students can create bookmarks in a course
folder. |
| Yahoo!
Education: Instructors can create annotated course
bookmarks. |
|
| New User Orientation |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The system includes an online course. |
| Eledge
1.2: The system includes a FAQ page that provides
guidance on account creation, password recovery, and system
navigation. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Resume Course function |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: Upon re-entering a course, the student has the
option to resume at the last page viewed. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Searching Within Course |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: Students can search their course content.
Students can also constrain a search using filters. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Students can search a course using their
bookmarks. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Self-progress Review |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Instructors can post course events and
announcements in a two part calendar tool. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: Students have access to a student view of the
usage tracking reports to which they can add their own private
annotations. |
| Eledge
1.2: Instructors can post course-related events and
announcements in the course calendar. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Students can use a personal calendar which
they can also use to coordinate group events. |
| Yahoo!
Education: Instructors and teaching assistants (or
students, with the instructor's permission) can post
course-related events and announcements in the course
calendar. |
|
| Work Offline/Synchronize |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The instructor can publish (via a request to an
administrator) static course content on a CD-ROM that can be
linked to dynamically within the online course or viewed
offline. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| > Real-time Tools |
| Application Sharing |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Group Web Browsing |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Real-time Chat |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The chat tool includes: private rooms, and
instructors can view chat logs for student assessment. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The chat tool includes: private messages and
private rooms. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Video Services |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The system has a specific area to upload video
clips, but does not use a streaming server. Clips are
downloaded like any other files. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Voice Chat |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Whiteboard |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| > Student Involvement
Tools |
| Groupwork |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The software supports assigning students into
groups by the instructor or by individual students. |
| COSE
2.051: The software supports assigning students into
groups by the instructor and by the individual students. Each
group can have its own group notice board, chat room, group
email list, and individual group assignments. At the start of
each session students locate themselves within a group of
students, and only then do they locate the tools and content
of the course. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: The software supports
assigning students into groups by the instructor. Facilitating
group learning is the main focus of the application. This is
supported feature tool that allows a user to post an initial
artifact (text file, image, sound or video file) and then have
other users upload their edit drafts. The system presents a
visual chronology of the drafts and their heritage, and
integrates discussion of these learning objects. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The software supports assigning students into
groups by the instructor. Each group can have its own shared
group presentation folder, private group discussion forum,
chat room, polls, and bookmarks. |
| Yahoo!
Education: The instructor can designate which course
tools are available for use by which students. The course
tools include the syllabus, course roster, handouts, calendar,
submissions, messages, members, and polls. |
|
| Self-assessment |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software supports Multiple Choice practice
tests that can be automatically marked by the software. The
system does not keep the results of practice tests. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The software supports Multiple Choice practice
tests that can be automatically marked by the software. The
system can optionally not return the results of practice tests
to the instructor. |
| Eledge
1.2: The software can create practice tests that use
the following types of questions: True/False, Matching,
Multiple Choice, and Multiple Select, that can be
automatically marked by the software with optional immediate
feedback. The software supports practice tests questions with
can support timed test submission and completion. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Student Community Building
|
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: Students have the option of creating their own
study groups and collaborative sub-groups to work on
activities or parts of activities. The distributed
peer-to-peer structure of the software supports integrated
collaborative asynchronous group and personal discussions,
both online and offline. |
| COSE
2.051: Students can create student groups, send emails
to that group, use a private group chat room, post to a group
notice board, and share material privately within the group.
|
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: Both students and instructors can create
interactive polls, for example, to discuss a current event or
other topics. |
|
| Student Helpdesk |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: Students have access to a course on the system
documentation as well as context sensitive help for each of
the major tools. |
| Eledge
1.2: Students have access to a Help and frequently
asked questions page for assistance in course navigation,
account creation, profile maintenance and lost password
recovery. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: Students have access to answers to
frequently asked questions and email support. |
|
| Student Portfolios |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Students may upload documents into a shared
folder that is viewable by all other students and instructors.
|
| Colloquia
1.3.2: Students can share a public profile window in
which they can upload their picture add bookmarks and other
personal information. |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Students can create a personal homepage in
which they can upload their picture add bookmarks and other
personal information. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Support Tools |
| > Administration |
| Optional Extras |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Currently available in 7 languages: English,
Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: Courses are structured through the application,
and stored locally. Resources and students are also added
locally. Once a course is designed, it is sent as a course
activity using email as transport, received and replicated on
student machines. All messaging also works by replication. All
resources are accessed via built in or external web browser,
but can be saved and used offline. The software fully supports
offline working, and has low bandwidth demands. Training
courses, consultancy and system extensions can are available
and charged at a daily rate. |
| COSE
2.051: Cambridge Software Publishing and Staffordshire
University, have agreed to release COSE 2 as a free binary
download, with a later version of COSE 2 to be made available
under an Open Source License. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: While the discussion tool
supports conventional discussions it also strongly encourages
a problem-based pedagogical model that is designed to be
useful in constructive and inquiry-like learning processes.
This model provides support for explicitly structured types of
postings in the following categories: problems, explanations,
scientific explanations, comments, evaluations of the process,
and summaries. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Multi-language support includes Finnish,
English, Spanish, Italian, German, Norwegian, Portuguese,
Russian, Thai, Dutch, and Swedish. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Registration |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Students can self-register and the instructor
can add students to the course. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The administrator can add students to the
system. Once students have been added to the system then
instructors can add them to the various learning groups or
classes. |
| Eledge
1.2: Students can self-register as an option and the
instructor can add students to the course. |
| Fle3: The administrator can add
students to the course and then send a system generated email
inviting the student to join the course. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: Students can self-register. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The instructor can add students to the course
and use batch import from a text file. |
| Yahoo!
Education: The instructor can send an email inviting
the student to join the course after the student requests the
course. The instructor can then add the student to the course.
|
|
| Secure Transactions |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: The system supports Secure Socket Layer
transactions to protect privacy of student scores and other
transactions. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| > Curriculum |
| Course Layout Templates |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software provides the course homepage layout
and templates to create the course tools: agenda, documents,
announcements, forums, groups, links, student papers, users,
exercises, and the course description. Any of the course tools
can be deactivated and removed from the student view of the
course homepage. The software provides for organizing files
for the students into many directories, and to have
directories within directories to enable grouping of files.
|
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: The software provides a generic course
template. |
|
| Curriculum Management |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Customized Look and Feel |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The system provides an Wizard that guides the
instructor through the process of generating activities within
the system structure to create and change content relevant to
the course. |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: The instructors can change the
background of the system environment pages. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: The instructor can customize the appearance
of a course by changing the colors on the course site. |
|
| Instructional Design Tools
|
| Claroline
1.2.0: Instructors can create annotated bookmarks for
specific courses. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The software provides a feature enables the
instructor to create and update assignments for the course and
designate the resources needed to complete the assignment.
These activities can be maintained as templates in a special
folder and reused. |
| COSE
2.051: Instructors can create annotated bookmarks for
specific courses. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: The software provides support
for problem-based constructivist pedagogical model that
explicitly structures the types of discussion postings in the
following categories: problems, explanations, scientific
explanations, comments, evaluations of the process, and
summaries. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: Instructors can create annotated
bookmarks for specific courses. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| > Instructor |
| Automated Testing and Scoring
|
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The testing tool can create assessments that use
Multiple Choice type of questions and return the results of
the test to the instructor. |
| Eledge
1.2: The testing tool can create assessments that use
the following types of questions: True/False, Fill in the
Blank, Matching, Multiple Choice, and, Multiple Select. The
testing tool can support timed test submission and completion.
The automated scoring can score multiple choice and multiple
answer type questions with immediate feedback. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Course Management |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: Instructors can enable selective release of
materials by setting specific start dates. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: Instructors can link discussions to
specific dates. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Instructor Community Building
|
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: Instructors can form groups that can use a
discussion forum, email facilities and chat rooms. The system
also promotes the sharing of learning materials across courses
as all materials housed on an individual server are searchable
and shareable. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Instructor Helpdesk |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Instructors can access the limited contextual
help for some features through the software and a large number
of support forums through the development community website.
|
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: Instructors can access the context sensitive
help for each of the major tools. Instructors can take the
free course covering the extensive documentation. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: The system offers online and email
help. |
|
| Online Grading Tools |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: Instructors can respond to learner assignments
and submissions using the messaging system provided by the
software. |
| COSE
2.051: Instructors can use the annotation feature to
provide feedback with material shared for review or submitted
for marking. |
| Eledge
1.2: Instructors can manually update the automatically
generated gradebook and the gradebook can be exported to a
tab-delimited text file. Instructors can review student notes,
mark them as read, and provide feedback to students. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Student Tracking |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Instructors can view basic reports on aggregate
use of the overall course site through an integrated
statistics tool. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: Instructors can view usage and student
participation within the context of the messaging system.
|
| COSE
2.051: Instructors can view displays of both aggregate
and individual accesses to assignments, course content,
assignment and test submissions, and whether or not students
have taken self-tests. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Instructors can view past session histories
and track students who are currently logged in. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Technical Specifications |
| >
Hardware/Software |
| Apple Server |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software will run on Mac OS X. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: In theory should work on OS X as both Apache and
PERL are available. |
| Eledge
1.2: MySQL is included in the public release of Mac OS
X so in theory this software should work on this OS. |
| Fle3: The software should in theory
run on Mac OS X. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Server Requirements |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software requires PHP 4.x and MySQL to work.
Recommends the use of Apache as the web server but should work
with other web servers. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The system uses 40MB of Disk Space; the data
requirements will grow dependent on usage. The system requires
PERL 5.6.0+ and Apache 1.3+ or MS IIS 4.0 to run. |
| Eledge
1.2: The software uses Java servlets and thus requires
a Java servlet engine be used. In addition the software
requires a web server. The software does not come bundled with
these systems; the help documentation recommends various open
source solutions (Tomcat, Apache) but leaves the choice up to
the implementer. |
| Fle3: The software is a ZOPE (Z
Object Publishing Engine) product, so it requires ZOPE to be
installed on the server first. It also requires Python 2.1 or
newer. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: The system uses Allaire's
Cold-Fusion, but is only available through an ASP-hosted model
and so this is not of immediate consequence. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The system requires Apache, Perl and
MySQL. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Unix Server |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software will run on any Unix version for
which Apache, PHP and MySQL is available. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The software has been tested on various versions
of Linux, Solaris and other versions of Unix. |
| Eledge
1.2: All the required software is freely available on
most Unix platforms. |
| Fle3: The software will run on any
variant of Unix. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The software was developed on a Linux platform
and should work with any POSIX compliant Unix distribution.
Any Unix variant that is able to run Apache, Perl and MySQL
should work. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Windows Server |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software will run on any Windows version for
which Apache, PHP and MySQL is available. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: Has been tested on NT/2000 server. |
| Eledge
1.2: All the required software is freely available on
most versions of the Windows OS. |
| Fle3: The software will run on
versions of Windows for which ZOPE and Python are
available. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| >
Pricing/Licensing |
| Company Profile |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Université catholique de Louvain encouraged the
Institut de Pédagogie universitaire et des Multimédias
(Institute for University Education and Multimedia) to develop
and distribute this software. It became available as open
source in January 2002. The development site for the project
is at http://www.icampus.ucl.ac.be/ CLARO01/ |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The software is a context-based distributed
learning management tool that was created by the University of
Wales, Bangor. The software was formerly know as Learning
Landscapes and has been in use since early 2000. |
| COSE
2.051: Developed by Staffordshire University, UK, COSE
is now being released as a free download, with its source code
to be made available at a later date under an Open Source
licensing agreement. |
| Eledge
1.2: Eledge was developed by Professor Chuck Wight of
the University of Utah and distributed freely under the open
source GPL GNU license starting in 2001. A fledgling
development community is hosted on the sourceforge.net
collaboration site. |
| Fle3: Future Learning Environment
(FLE) project started in June, 1997 at the UIAH Media Lab at
the University of Art and Design is located in Helsinki,
Finland. The first phase of the project was completed in the
year 2000. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: Founded in 1995, Nicenet is an
organization of Internet professionals who donate their time
to provide services for the Internet community. One of
Nicenet's primary goals is bringing communication tools and
resources previously available only to those with large sums
of money or substantial technical expertise to the education
community. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The company is based in Espoo, Finland and is
made up of the original developers of the software. |
| Yahoo!
Education: Yahoo! was created by Jerry Yang and David
Filo when they were graduate students at Stanford in 1994.
Yahoo! was incorporated in March of 1995 and became a publicly
owned company in April of 1996. The company bills itself as
the leading navigational guide to the Web. It offers a
comprehensive network of services such as enterprise portal
solutions and support for general and educational web-based
communities to over millions worldwide. The company began
offering its free, advertiser-supported educational course
sites in 2001. Yahoo! Inc. is traded on NASDAQ. |
|
| Ongoing Costs |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software is available for free. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: The software is available for free. |
| Fle3: The software is available for
free. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: The course hosting service is free.
|
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The software is available for free. |
| Yahoo!
Education: The system is free to both members and
instructors. The service is advertiser-supported and is
partially sponsored by advertisements inserted into the email
messages. There is also a banner ad at the top of each course
page. |
|
| Open Source |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software is freely distributed under the GNU
Public License. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: The software is freely distributed under the GNU
Public License. |
| Fle3: The software is available
under the GNU General Public License. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The software is available under the GNU
General Public License. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Software Version |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software is version 1.2.0. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The software is version 1.3.2. |
| COSE
2.051: The software is version 2.051. |
| Eledge
1.2: The software is version 1.2. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: The software is version 2. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The software is version 1.5.3.1. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Start-up Costs |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software is available for free. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The software is free for use within non-profit
educational institutions. Training and education providers who
charge for courses can negotiate a per seat license fee for
each paying learner. |
| COSE
2.051: The software is available for free. |
| Eledge
1.2: The software is available for free. |
| Fle3: The software is available for
free. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: The course hosting is available for
free. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The software is available for free. |
| Yahoo!
Education: Free |
|
| Technical Support Costs |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| > Standardization |
| Accessibility Compliance |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The software provider implements accessibility
by working with providers of assistive software who utilize
the Sun Java accessibility bridge. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Client Browser Required |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The software provider claims to support any
browser type or version. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The software provides an internal browser that
can display Microsoft and Adobe Acrobat documents, QuickTime
clips, and executable applications. The software enables
saving web pages, including all graphics and links. The
software also automatically unpacks downloaded zip files. The
internal browser also enables viewing web and non-web
resources in folders maintained in the software and those
maintained in folders by external browsers like IE or
Netscape. The software together with Java require a minimum of
64MB RAM (128MB is desirable), 40 MB of free hard disk space,
and a processor speed of at least 200MHz. |
| COSE
2.051: The software supports IE 4.x, Netscape 4.x,
Mozilla 1.0, and higher browser versions provided that they
also have the Java 1.3.0 or later plug-in. |
| Eledge
1.2: The software supports IE 4.0, Netscape 4.0, and
higher browser versions. |
| Fle3: The software supports browsers
that handle Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which are generally
version 4 and higher browser versions. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: The provider recommends the following
minimum level browsers: Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later, or
Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.0 or later. Participants
can also use AOL, WebTV, and other Internet services. |
|
| Instructional Standards
Compliance |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The system provides ongoing support for open
industry standards for data exchange including IMS standards
to enable interoperability, object reusability, and global
portability of content. The software has self-tested
compliance with the IMS metadata specification v1.2.2 and
content packaging specification v1.1.3. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Migration Considerations |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: The software enables instructors to create and
maintain course materials on their local system which can be
shared via the peer-to-peer messaging system. |
| COSE
2.051: The software provides tools for Content
Packaging and Interchange using the IMS metadata specification
v1.2.2 and content packaging specification v1.1.3. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: Content on the site may be downloaded in
bulk. |
|
| > Technical
Administration |
| Authentication |
| Claroline
1.2.0: Instructors can set courses to be publicly
accessible, or can protect access to the entire course with a
username and password. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The system uses basic username and password
authentication. |
| Eledge
1.2: Courses are password protected, and users can
change their own password. Users can also create a secret
question and answer to use in password retrieval for lost
passwords. |
| Fle3: Users log in to their courses
with a username and password. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: Users must log into their courses
with a basic username and password. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: Each course is username and password
protected. |
| Yahoo!
Education: Authentication occurs via registration with
the provider and a cookie placed on the user's system. |
|
| Course Authorization |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: System roles are comprised of Administrators,
Registrants, Tutors, SuperTutors, Learners and Guests. Users
can be further segmented into groups. Assigning access is the
role of either Administrators or Supertutors. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: Users are created in the
classes of Administrators, Staff and Users. In each course, a
specific user account can have a teacher, tutor or student
role with accompanying permissions. |
| Internet
Course Assistant: The system differentiates between
students and instructors and allows both to switch between the
various courses in which they are registered. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: Instructors may control access to their site
and course tools. They can choose to make sections of the site
accessible to anyone or limit access to course members. Only
the instructor can edit course site content. |
|
| Database Requirements |
| Claroline
1.2.0: The separate database software required for the
system is MySQL. |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: The separate database software required for the
system is MySQL. |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: The separate database software required for
the system is MySQL. |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Hosted Services |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: A hosted service is available for
free through server space donated by The Searle Center for
Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University. |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: The system works on an ASP-style model, so
there should be no technical support issues for the instructor
or institution. |
|
| Integration with Student Information
System |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: The system provides a set of server-side scripts
which allow the bulk import of enrolments from a from an
institutional student information system. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Network Requirements |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
|
| Server Administration |
| Claroline
1.2.0: |
| Colloquia
1.3.2: |
| COSE
2.051: There is separate web-based admin interface as
well as a comprehensive set of server side administration
scripts. |
| Eledge
1.2: |
| Fle3: |
| Internet
Course Assistant: |
| MimerDesk
1.5.3.1: |
| Yahoo!
Education: |
