First Inventory
eLearning and Open Source Software (OSS) Projects in Europe
Since the aim of our SIGOSSEE project is to form a SIG Group to conduct research and to
inform and advise the European community regarding the uses and benefits of OSS
within the field, it would be interesting to make a list of other OSS Projects in the field of Elearning in Europe. Note that this is merely a first inventory. There are probably projects or
platforms missing or not applicable. In this First Inventory, projects are divided in three
ways:
> New Projects started after 01-01-04
> Projects started before 01-01-04
> Finished Projects
A general idea of every project is summarized in a short description. The URL of the
project is given and has been hyperlinked.
A first start was to surf on the web to look for already made lists of OSS projects in the field
of eLearning by others. Several websites were helpful.
> The website of the eLearning Portal: http://www.elearningeuropa.info/ lists the projects
which are (or were) supported by the European Commission. Projects mentioned there
which are dealing with OSS and eLearning are included here.
> On the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) website: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/
were also some projects to be found.
The JISC is envisaged as a virtual place where members of colleges and universities can deposit and share
useful content (e.g., research outputs). The current collection of JISC funded content has the potential to grow
to embrace both externally generated content from publishers and aggregators and community-generated
resources. To achieve the latter, staff and students will need a ‘place’ or 'places' in which to
lodge suitable content and products and a means for exchanging and adding to it. This is an important part of
developing a relevant and useful portfolio of resources.
> Another hit on the web was OCTETO: http://cent.uji.es/octeto/
This is a website in Spanish where a long list of Open Source Platforms is included for
eLearning (lista de sistemas Open Source para eLearning) at this page:
http://www.elearningworkshops.com/modules.php?name=Web_Links&l_op=viewlink&ci
d=27 Around fifty platforms are mentioned there in alphabetical order. Relevant projects
or platforms for SIGOSSEE from that website are included here in this first inventory. I left
(for example) the non-European websites aside (like the important and highly interesting
Moodle: http://moodle.com/), but it is easy to look up the whole list with the given URL
(for JOIN!?).
> Generally interesting is the following website:
http://www.xplana.com/whitepapers/archives/Open_Source_Courseware
Here are several Open Source Courseware evaluated and rated. It includes also an
interesting paper about advantages and disadvantages of Open Source Courseware
implementations (summing up ‘things to consider’ before deciding).
I gave a copy of this to Alexandra of JOIN! on the meeting in Bremen. > I included this
paper by Rob Reynolds as ENCLOSURE 1
1
> New Projects started after 01-01-04:
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EPICC = European Portfolio Initiatives Co-ordination Committee
While it is possible to find an increasing number of ePortfolio initiatives in Europe - some of
them extremely innovative - the fact remains that these initiatives are not co-ordinated,
are not interoperable, are not fully exploited and recognised, and in turn are not the
source of new ePortfolio initiatives at a level comparable to what is happening in some
countries beyond Europe. EPICC is an initiative dedicated to making Europe a world
leader in the field of ePortfolio activities in all sectors of education and training. Among
the key objectives of the project are Demonstration platform(s): to demonstrate how
ePortfolio standards can be implemented to provide ePortfolio services, leading to future
reference platform(s), Open Source. EPICC will be analysing current projects, practice,
tools and policies in order to produce white papers for implementing portfolio initiatives
at the organisation, local, regional or national level. The project will support peer-review
of current initiatives.
Contact: Serge Ravet: serge.ravet@eife-l.org
The project is supported by the eLearning Initiative of the EU.
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JOIN!
It will provide consultancy and support for organisations/institutions that want to employ
open source Learning Management Systems in all relevant topics ranging from the
choice of a platforms, didactics and organisational issues.
URL:
http://www.ossite.org
The project is supported by the eLearning Initiative of the EU.
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FILTER
The main deliverable of FILTER consists of an advanced package of essential information
on the causes of economic filtering of electronic knowledge and strategies to overcome
the filtering and IPR barriers. To guarantee affordable access to high quality electronic
knowledge (including information and services) to elearners at all educational levels in
Europe. FILTER will address the issues related to affordable, cost effective, fair and
generally accessible knowledge on the web as well as their implications for policy
regulation in the public and open domain. Specific FILTER objectives are to develop a
conceptual framework, make a comparative analysis among the participating
countries, enhance the debate through interactive conferences and web presence,
expert interviews and strategy development, development of multimedia and printed
products and large scale dissemination of these results.
URL:
Contact: S.G.M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis: sbunt@feweb.vu.nl
The project is supported by the eLearning Initiative of the EU.
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SIGOSSEE
The project proposes to form and develop a Special Interest Group to investigate the
major issues appertaining to the use of OSS for education.
URL:
http://www.ossite.org
The project is supported by the eLearning Initiative of the EU.
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> Projects started before 01-01-04:
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CampusSource
The development of a virtual university system consisting of multimedia contents
supported by a technical infrastructure. The Internet Portal CampusSource is one of the
initiatives supported by the MWF Ministry. The goal of CampusSource is to initiate a
cooperative process for developing software technology and to develop of the use of
new media in training and further education. CampusSource is aiming to create a forum
that will include the establishment of a software exchange market, where software
developments can be downloaded and uploaded.
URL:
http://www.campussource.de/org/
The project is receiving backing from the Ministry of Science and Research (MWF) of the
Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).
started 2001-08-01 – still going
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EPhys
The ''ePhys'' project seeks to promote European cooperation among teachers, learners,
and researchers on an effective use of ICT in the teaching of Physics. ''ePhys'' will
combine successful implementation of ICT in teaching Physics (computer based
experiments, data-acquisition and processing, simulation modeling, video
measurements, remote labs) with the flexibility of web based modules (open java like
simulation) in a unified learning environment for open and collaborative learning in
Physics.
URL:
http://zeus.physics.auth.gr/ePhys/
The project is supported by the Socrates MINERVA Programme (EU).
Started 2002-12-12 will end 2004-12-12
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FREEDOM - Free Software Renaissance of gnu/linux in European Education
Development On line Method
The project aims at producing tools simplifying adoption of free software and encourage
open-minded attitudes. The project aims to create a positive and favorable environment
for the usage of free software in education and to show that schools can consider
alternative solutions to proprietary software. As an output, the project will provide a
CDROM, containing tested and documented pieces of software. Free software
(GNU/Linux) offers a highly formative introduction to new technologies applied to
education. The project will concern all teaching subject, localize software in each
languages and evaluate their usability in each national context providing educational
examples.
URL:
http://www.linuxdidattica.org/docs/freedom/
Contact: Antonio BERNARDI: brngb@tin.it
The project is supported by the Socrates MINERVA Programme (EU).
started 2002 – till 2003 (?)
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LeFo
3
The objective of Learning folders (Lefo) is the creation of an e-learning platform to
provide an electronic study material exchange for teachers and learners, grades one to
six. It features uploading and downloading functions, a keyword search-engine, an
experts answer scheme and communication features. The material is also catalogued
along the national curriculum of the country.
URL:
http://lefo.net/
The project is supported by MINERVA (EU).
started 2002-12-16 - will end 2004-12-16
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Theses Alive!
This project will examine the use of OAI-compliant software designed to handle
electronic thesis metadata. Various open-source software packages are now in use
which permit individual institutions to disclose metadata about their institutional theses
and dissertations. The Theses Alive! Project will seek to adapt and develop one of these
for use across the UK. It will develop a pilot national service which will have the aim of
supporting electronic theses (e-theses) creation and management for UK universities.
URL:
http://www.thesesalive.ac.uk/ta_home.shtml
Started 2002-08-01 - will end 2004-07- 31
The project is supported by the FAIR Programme (Focus on Access tp Institutional
Resources) of JISC.
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Claroline
Claroline is an open source management course system initially developed for the
University of Leuven in Belgium. The Claroline tools have been developed in response to
teachers' demands for a virtual campus service (www.icampus.ucl.ac.be). Users want a
service, not a product. In organisations, e-learning services are expected to evolve
continually by integrating existing services, adding new tools and adaptating to specific
course scenarios. Because Claroline is both Open Source and modular, it enables a
manager to add and modify tools, change the layout, adapt databases and so on.
Experience shows that the use of a platform is highly context dependent (from one
course to the other and from one organisation to the other). No local organisation can
compete with the commercial e-learning platform industry in terms of development
speed and support. The solution, as the recent success of Linux and other Open Source
solutions has shown, is to create a community of users, developers, debuggers,
translators, etc. Claroline has already been translated into 15 languages and benefits
from debugging and development from all over the world. Universities, schools,
companies and organisations are working together to get Claroline develop and to
have it meet their needs.
URL:
http://www.claroline.net/
The project was financially helped by the Fondacion Louvain.
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ILIAS
The web-based learning management system ILIAS is available as Open Source
software under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Universities, educational
institutions and every interested person may use the system free of charge and
contribute to its further development. ILIAS has initially been developed in the VIRTUS
project of the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Social Sciences at the
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University of Cologne. As a client-server system ILIAS allows users to create, edit and
publish course units in an integrated system with their normal web browsers.
URL:
http://www.ilias.uni-koeln.de/ios/index.html
The University of Cologne has decided to support ILIAS open source project for another
nine month till new fundings have started and an international cooperation network is
established. We want to thank all who have supported us in the last weeks. Everyone
interested in participating in the network is welcome.
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OSPI
The Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) consists of an evolving group of individuals
and organisations interested in collaborating on the development of the best nonproprietary, open source electronic portfolio code possible. The first release of the Open
Source Portfolio (OSP), made publicly available in July 2003, is identical in most respects
to the University of Minnesota (UMN) Electronic Portfolio code. Whereas the UMN
ePortfolio was built primarily for enrolled UMN students, and secondarily for UMN faculty,
staff, and alumni to manage self-reported and UMN System educational records, the
vision for OSP is far broader in scope and purpose. The Open Source Portfolio is an open
source electronic portfolio platform that is uesful for learners. As such, it will empower
each individual user with quick and direct access to personal educational records in a
secure computing environment. Furthermore, it will enable each portfolio user with
control by providing each user with the means to select specific portfolio records and
documents for sharing anywhere, anytime, and with whomever the user chooses.
URL:
http://www.theospi.org/
Not from Europe
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OSS Watch
OSS Watch is the national open source software advisory service (of the UK). OSS Watch
is based within the Research Technologies Service at the University of Oxford. OSS Watch
aims to inform and advise about open source software and open standards through the
development of best-practice guidelines, and out-reach activities aimed at OSS
strategic planners, developers and user. OSS Watch provides the UK further and higher
education community with neutral and authoritative guidance about free and open
source software, and about related open standards. Specifically, it offers:




A web-based clearing-house for up to date information;
conferences and workshops;
focussed assistance for institutions and software projects considering open
source;
investigative reports.
OSS Watch held its inaugural conference, "Open Source Deployment and
Development", on 11 December 2003.
URL:
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/
Started 2003-12-11
OSS Watch is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).
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SpaghettiLearning
5
SpaghettiLearning is an Open Source eLearning Platform. Their first idea was to join our
group to the Claroline team but, after having analyzed the code of this project they
found philosophical incompatibilities and thought that a fork would not be enough for
realizing their idea so they decided to write new code and a new tool that MUST have
this features: PHP + Mysql structure; Esay interface and layout; Multilingual; Multiplatofrm
(System works on Linux, Unix, Windows, Sun, Mac osx 10 ecc ... without any problem);
Only 1 database used; Trough the variable prefix for the table name we can run
multiple eLearning in only 1 database; Easy, clear and Open code; Easy template for
the graphic layout; Distributed under GPL license. Spaghettilearning is a platform
completly free released under GPL license and joyn the "Free software Philosophy".
”Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should
think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”. Free software is a matter of the
users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More
precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so
that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a
precondition for this.
URL:
http://www.spaghettilearning.com/index.php?newlang=english
Last modified in 2003 ?
Sponsored by WMG Italia Network: http://www.wmgnetwork.net/home.php?lang=eng
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> Finished Projects:
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ATutor
ATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS)
designed with accessibility and adaptability in mind. Administrators can install or
update ATutor in minutes. Educators can quickly assemble, package, and redistribute
Web-based instructional content, and conduct their courses online. Students learn in
an adaptive learning environment.
URL:
http://www.atutor.ca
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AUC – Authenticated User Community
Not from Europe
AUC, which stands for Authenticated User Community, was originally designed for use in
K-12 organisations with the goal of making the Internet and computer technology a
more accessible resource for students and teachers. Since then, its goals have
broadened to support education at the university/college level.
URL:
http://auc.sourceforge.net
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Bazaar
Latest News on the website is from May 2001
Bazaar is a web content hosting platform, designed with users (and administration) in
mind. Its content-management system, coupled with a flexible permission system –not to
mention a modular design and mature API– allows for easy extension and integration
into existing administrative systems. Bazaar is available to the education community (K-12
and post-secondary) as an Open Source alternative to such proprietary and expensive
commercial systems as WebCT and Blackboard.
URL:
http://klaatu.pc.athabascau.ca/cgi-bin/b7/main.pl?rid=1
The latest version is version 7.07 and is available since november 2003
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Bodington
The Bodington System is the software that was developed at The University of Leeds to
implement its virtual learning environment Bodington Common. However, the software
was designed as a general purpose application server with a web browser user interface
so it could be used for many different applications. The bodington.org website is itself
powered by and built with the Bodington System. Installation packages, source code,
and bug reporting facilities are all hosted by SourceForge. The Bodington System is a
software tool that can be used, in conjunction with a database product, to implement
an interactive web site. Its original purpose was to implement a virtual learning
environment for the University of Leeds - Bodington Common - but it could be used as
the basis for other kinds of interactive site. It would more correctly be decribed as an
application server since modules can be plugged into it to implement different
functionality. The software was produced within the University of Leeds with the intention
of benefiting our students and teaching staff and not for commercial exploitation.
Making the software free means that we are free to continue to develop the system with
educational needs taking priority over all other considerations. We also hope that with
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time other academic organisations may develop new functionality that can be
incorporated into the system and will benefit us and all other users. Take a look at the
software license and you will see that there really are no strings attached. The only
purpose of having a software license is to for us to protect our good name and avoid
liability if anyone has problems with the software. Once you have your hands on the
software we cannot stop you continuing to use it and you can even develop your own
software based on the Bodington System and sell it. If you are a commercial company
you could deliver a managed service based on the Bodington System and you don't
need to pay for this privilege either.
URL:
http://bodington.org/bodington/opensite/bodproject/
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BolinOS
Open source licensing was chosen for many fundamental reasons. More than the
BolinOS platform itself, what was crucial to us was the contents and applications we
could create if we had a powerful and versatile system for online content management
and application design. BolinOS can also be used as an e-learning solution. Not only
does it have all the users and groups management functionalities, but it offers everything
one needs to create interactive multimedia. Many basic applications plug-ins (bolini) are
part of the standard download, for example:










online real-time tracking and management of users
administered forums
interactive multimedia quiz (multiple choice, open choice, with result tracking)
multiple account email client
PalmOS compatible database management
personal webspace for file storage and web publication
CD ROM creation
automatic backups and archive management
multilingual capabilities
integrated image manipulation libraries ...
Many plug-ins are on their way. It then depends on you to create didactic content. You
can also develop your own applications easily as PHP is one of the most powerful and
popular development language for the web. Don't hesitate to contact us if you want to
know more regarding your needs.
URL:
http://www.bolinos.ch/com/about/
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EduZope
The aim of the EduZope project is to integrate a web based Content Management
System an authoring environment for standardized learning materials a Learning Platform
In order to realize this efficiently they build on the following decisions: specifications and
standards: strong orientation on implementation and further development of European
and international recognized specifications and standards; licensing: free software under
the GNU General Public License (GPL); technical basis: we build on the ZOPE web
application framework and the strong international community behind it.
URL:
http://www.eduzope.org/
Last modified 2003-01-15
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eLecture
eLecture is a free (GPL: Gnu General Public License) e-education package to facilitate
the design and presentation of electronic lectures. It has evolved from the presentation
of courses in a university environment. [Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria] Different
from other (predominantly commercial) e-learning systems, eLecture is an individual
solution; usually it is installed for individual courses by the lecturer or course administrator
and direct, uncomplicated access to the features and contents of the course is possible.
The guiding idea was to build a modular system that is simple to install and use for
lecturers, who have some familiarity with writing web-documents (with html-editors or
directly as html-code) but are not experts in web-software. It is easily possible to insert
and combine existing web-documents. However, it is also possible to include other types
of documents, either by linking to them as usual in web pages, or through a working area
available to course users.
URL:
http://physik.uni-graz.at/~cbl/electure/
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Fle3
Fle3 is a web-based learning environment. To be more specific Fle3 is server software for
computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Fle3 is Open Source and Free
Software released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). Fle3 is designed to
support learner and group centered work that concentrates on creating and
developing expressions of knowledge (i.e. knowledge artifacts) and design. Fle3 contains
three learning tools and several administration tools.
URL:
http://fle3.uiah.fi/index.html
Fle3 has been developed in the framework of ITCOLE project funded by the European
Commission by the Information Society Technology ( IST) framework.
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JAFER - Java Access For Electronic Resources
The main aim of JAFER is to produce an easy to use, visual toolkit to ensure that users can
build portals and information sources without having to deal with the intricate technical
aspects of the protocols involved and in doing so enhance the Z39.50 standard.
URL:
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/jafer/
started 2001-01-01 - ended 2002-12-31
The project was supported by JISC.
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LearnLoop
LearnLoop is an Open Source (GPL) project. It is a groupware aimed to support
education and collaboration. LearnLoop is built with server side script (php) and client
side scripts (mostly JavaScript) and uses a MySQL-database to store information. General
management for learnloop.org is the research group Online-Learning-Communities
(OLC) at the IT university in Gothenburg, Sweden. Group Director is Ove Jobring
URL:
http://learnloop.sourceforge.net/index.php
The development of the first version of LearnLoop was funded by The Viktoria Institute
and The Council For IT in Education at Gothenburg Business School, Gothenburg
University, Sweden.
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OpenUSS
OpenUSS is an Open Source project to support all universities, institutes, faculties and
students. Their mission is separated in two kind of activities: one for developers and the
other for end users. Developers: Developers are programmers that want to contribute
building architecture, APIs and reference implementation for OpenUSS. OpenUSS should
be built component oriented with the newest software technologies that available at
the software market. It is also important to use available Open Source Software in all
parts of this system, because we don't want to reinvent the wheel two times. For
interested developers please look at the developers' page of this site. Users: Users are
universities, faculties, institutes and students, which use OpenUSS as their publishing and
information center system (portal). They should have an easy system to deal with
lectures, documents and exercises. Besides the portal should be the communication
center for all kind of such organisation’s members. Universities, faculties and institutes
which don't have a capability to run the system can use the reference implementation
and outsource it to OpenUSS. This is important because many faculties don't have the
know how and a possibility to set up such a publishing system. To all users please refer
the users' page of this site.
URL:
http://openuss.sourceforge.net/openuss/index.html
Sponsored by i.e. CampusSource
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ENCLOSURE 1
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
Open Source Courseware -- Evaluation and Rating
ROB REYNOLDS
04.25.03 4:16PM
Introduction
The cost of doing business is going up for colleges and universities, particularly when it comes
to course management systems. Proprietary enterprise solutions for course management -BlackBoard, WebCT, eCollege -- are beginning to cost the same as other enterprise solutions.
Translation -- they're getting very expensive. This rise in cost, along with the traditionally closed
architecture of such systems has lead some universities and organizations to develop in-house
programs tailored to their specific pedagogical needs and development resources.
Some of these home-grown solutions have been heavily influenced by the aggressive open
source movement and have adopted both development and licensing strategies that allow
other to adopt the software for free, or participate in the development process. The purpose of
this paper is to outline the major open source courseware projects and to rate their usefulness.
This is not intended as a definitive ranking but rather as a point of departure for those
interested in investigating these systems and who are considering an open source courseware
implementation.
Things to Consider -- Let's Get Real Honest
If you're really serious about open source courseware, there are some factors and facts you
need to consider carefully. Depending on your needs and circumstances, an open source
implementation can either be the perfect solution or your worst nightmare. Personally, I am an
open source advocate, but I am also a pragmatist. Some groups are served better by off-theshelf, proprietary solutions or by the enterprise hosting solutions they offer.
Relying on my own university faculty and IT backgrounds, I have tried to synthesize here
questions that you should answer carefully before determining what makes sense for you.
1. What kind of development resources do you have available? Make no bones about it -an institutional open source courseware implementation requires development resources.
By this, I mean you will likely have/want to do further development or customization of the
product before rolling out to your faculty. Authentication schemas may need to be
integrated or further architected. The functionality may need to be enhanced. If you have
resources, what are the skill sets available. This may sound a bit facile, but if you don't
have any java programmers I'm not sure it makes any sense to adopt an open
courseware package that is java-based. Also, when you think of your development
resources, make sure you think in terms of full-time, professional resources. Once a
system is implemented formally, many faculty will have difficulties with an inordinate
amount of student development help working on the system.
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2. How Open Do You Want? Not all open source courseware systems are created equal.
Some pay much more attention to interoperability standards than others. Some state up
front that they follow general database standards but have not yet embraced evolving
courseware data structure standards such as those developed under OKI or SCORM. Do
those standards make a difference to you? Do you think those standards are evolved
enough to be useful to you yet? Do you need them for future implementations?
3. How scalable is the system? Some open source courseware products were developed as
"small" solutions for individual colleges or departments. Others were, from the beginning,
intended to be enterprise deployments across clusters of servers. What are your needs
for scale (in both directions)? Do you need a portal architecture? How many courses and
students do you need to serve? Can you find meaningful implementations of the system
that are analogous to yours? What is your security infrastructure? What are your
institutional and IT policies regarding FERPA compliance?
4. What is the pedagogical philosophy touted by the system? Open source courseware,
much more than its commercial counterparts, is often driven by specific and particular
pedagogical vision. It is helpful to remember that many open development projects are in
direct response to an absence of functionality or flexibility in other systems. Is there a
particular pedagogical philosophy in online learning shared by your faculty? Is your desire
more for a teacher-centric model or a student-centric one? Are you looking for distributed
or collaborative learning or a more centralized approach?
5. What functionality needs to be supported? MathML? LaTeX? Unicode? Some open
courseware was developed specifically to address the needs of a particular discipline
while other system,s are much more generic and rely on the community to provide
enhanced functionality. If you have a system in place currently, ask yourself what the
biggest complaints are currently regarding functionality. Is there an open source
courseware product that addresses these needs?
6. What are your grade book and exercise requirements? Do you need to import/export
content? Are you looking for quizzing features first and leaning management second? For
most organizations, courses still revolve around grades and the grade book. Because of
this, the grade book is often the most important tool in a system. How do you use grade
books in your institution? Do you want/need to import and export grades or categories?
How are activities and assessments integrated with the grade book?
Philosophical Approaches to Architecture
There are many ways to look at open source courseware products. One that I find particularly
helpful is to look at them in terms of original architecture or platform purpose. Simply stated, all
of these systems are built on one of three basic platform/architecture system types -- content
management system, collaborative portal system, Web publishing system. These labels are
fairly self-explanatory but I will provide a bit of elaboration. It is important to note that the basic
architecture of a system does not mean that the system cannot or does not handle other
attributes well. It simply provides a helpful point of departure in reviewing a system.
1. Content Management System -- These systems have as their primary goal the efficient
and effective sharing of documents, images, and other data resources. They tend to
support very granular groups handling and can be almost infinitely flexible in terms of
broad content manipulation.
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2. Collaborative Portal System -- These systems are built for community building and afford
powerful interactive communication. They handle granular groups and administration,
and generally allow lots of user customization.
3. Web Publishing System -- These systems are designed to make it easy for teachers and
students to post and share information via the Web. These systems excel in distributed
communication and individual customization.
Ratings Categories and Explanation
Each of the courseware systems reviewed is rated on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best score) in
six different categories. Any score under 3 in a category means that the program is not quite
ready for prime time in that category. The rating, is somewhat subjective (based on my
personal experience with such systems as teacher and administrator) but I have tried to stick to
the category questions and to answer them from the perspective of an IT Director or faculty
committee member.
1. (S) Salability -- Is the program suitable for both small and large installations? Will it
handle complex security or authentication schemas? Can it run on both single and
clustered servers? Does it address adequately Digital Rights Management (DRM) and
privacy issues?
2. (O) Openness -- Other than being free, how open is the source code really? Is it written in
a modular format that is designed for easy modification and new, custom modules? Are
there clear code specifications for writing new modules? Is there a strong development
community associated with the program? Are there other schools of your size that
currently utilize the program?
3. (A) Administration -- How many valuable resource hours will this take to administer and
maintain at the server level? How many valuable resource hours will this take to
administer and maintain at the program level? How granular and distributed is the
administration (the more granular the better). Are all of the data processes automated
and will they integrate easily with your other systems? Does the program run on a server
platform on which your staff already has excellent expertise?
4. (I) Implementation -- How fast can you be up and running? What level of expertise is
required? What kind of documentation and and assistance are available?
5. (F) Functionality -- How robust is the feature set for the program? Does it already include
all of the teaching "tools" your faculty need? Does it include both synchronous and
asynchronous communications tools? Can data be imported and exported easily
into/from the program?
6. (E) Effectiveness -- How well will this program help an average group of faculty deliver
their materials online? Will the program require lots of training r is it fairly intuitive to use?
How long will it take faculty to set up their courses at a minimal level?
It is important to note that while some of the systems reviewed are "open source" in terms of
their treatment of standards, they are not distributable currently (like MIT's OCW/Stella). I have
included these systems in the rankings, however, as they provide important benchmarks for
comparison. I have marked such systems with a simple *.
Recommended Systems (only fully distributable systems are considered for these
recommendations)
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Top 3 Systems in terms of Scalability and Development Flexibility
1. CHEF
2. LON-CAPA
3. Moodle
Top 3 Systems in Terms of Pedagogical Flexibility
1. Moodle
2. LON-CAPA
3. fle3
System Descriptions
I have listed the systems according to the language in which they are developed. My reasoning
for this is that the major factor in adopting an open source courseware system is the availability
of development resources. This categorization is intended to make that determination easier,
as many institutions tend to specialize in specific platform and language expertise.
The actual narrative descriptions of the various systems are taken from their Web sites but the
evaluations and ratings are based on reading documentation and working through available
demo courses. When possible, I have tried to work directly with groups who have actual
installations of the system being reviewed. As this paper and evaluation project evolves, the
Xplana team will run test sites of the various products reviewed.
Java
Colloquia
"Colloquia is a software system that supports group working and group learning. It allows any
user to set up a working or learning group around a particular topic (a context), add people to it,
add resources (web pages, documents etc) to it, set up group tasks, and then engage in group
and personal "conversations" about the topic.To support this way of working, users can
continually build a library of resources they can use in different contexts, and have access to
detailed information about the people they are working with. These are "dragged and dropped"
into new contexts. Contexts can have sub-contexts, which can be set up by any participating
member, containing sub-groups of members, additional resources and new tasks. Contexts
and sub-contexts are only seen by their members. Colloquia does not allow publishing to the
Web but also does not use server software."
Colloquia is a groupware product ideal for collaborative management of projects and course
assignments. It is an entirely distributed system and does not feature any server software or
central administration. Its strength is in ease of use and control as the software actually resides
on each individual user's machine. It does not currently support Web publishing, however, and
its lack of server software make it inadequate for large deployments or as an enterprise
solution.
S =3 O=3 A=4 I=3 F=3 E=3 Total = 19
CourseWork at Stanford *
"CourseWork is Stanford University's course Web site development and distribution system.
Using CourseWork, instructors and TA's can set up a course Web site that displays
announcements, on-line readings, a dynamic syllabus and schedule, on-line assignments and
quizzes, a discussion forum for students, and a grade book. CourseWork is designed both for
faculty with little Web experience, who can use CourseWork to develop their Web site quickly,
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and for expert Web-users, who can use it to organize complex, Web-based materials and link
them to Web communication tools."
CourseWork is a non-distributable system that is designed for enterprise use and scale.
Stanford is a partner in the development of OKI standards and has designed a robust and
stable, if general, course management platform. CourseWork provides good content
management functionality with the ability to export grades into other formats for advanced
calculations.
S = 4 O=3 A=5 I=3 F=3 E=3 Total = 21
eConf
"eConf is an open source e-learning software, written in Java. It allows to easily record web
sessions and has been used to record multiple computer science courses. eConf is an add-on
to an HTTP proxy that is able to capture the web pages shown during the session and the
voice of the presenter. The audio and the web pages are then synchronized to allow the
students to listen to the recorded course. The current release of eConf is built on top of the
W3C's Jigsaw proxy but any other proxy may be used. eConf requires a Java virtual machine
1.3 or higher and the Java Media Framework (JMF) ."
eConf is really a dedicated solution for delivering presentations and lectures over the Web. It is
a reliable system with good documentation and is useful within its limit pedagogical vision.
More appropriately, eConf is not so much a course management system as an information
delivery solution.
S =3 O=4 A=4 I=3 F=2 E=3 Total = 19
eLedge Open Learning Management System
"Eledge consists of a collection of Java servlets that utilize a MySQL database back end to
store information and course content. The Java programming language, MySQL database and
Eledge itself are all open source distributions that can be downloaded free. You can even
download the Linux operating system, Apache Web server and Tomcat servlet engine free of
charge if you choose to use them."
eLedge is a course management system developed by Chuck Wright at the University of Utah
(Department of Chemistry). It is a full-functional CMS with excellent tracking assignment
features. It features adequate documentation.
S =3 O=4 A=4 I=4 F=3 E=3 Total = 21
MIT's Open Courseware *
"MIT OCW is a large-scale, Web-based electronic publishing initiative funded jointly by the
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and MIT. Its goals
are to: provide free, searchable, coherent access to MIT's course materials for educators in the
non-profit sector, students, and individual learners around the world; create an efficient,
standards-based model that other universities may emulate to publish their own course
materials."
OCW is a long-term project at MIT that will eventually result in a powerful, large-scale solution
for course management and content production. MIT is one of the original partners for OKI and
is devoted to open standards. The system is rich in terms of content management. It is
currently not designed or purposed for distribution.
S = 4 O=3 A=5 I=3 F=3 E=4 Total = 22
University of Michigan's CHEF
"The CompreHensive collaborativE Framework (CHEF) initiative has as its goal, the
development of a flexible environment for supporting distance learning and collaborative work,
and doing research on distance learning and collaborative work. This project is staffed by
University of Michigan School of Information and Media Union staff. We are working closely
with and are contributing to the OKI reference architecture, and are collaborating with other
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groups interested in open source collaboration standards. Communities targeted for CHEF use
include those involved in the scholarly activities of teaching, learning and research at the
University of Michigan, and their students and colleagues involved in teaching, learning and
research that are outside of the Michigan community."
Michigan's CHEF is a robust system completely dedicated to open source and distribution.
There is good documentation and the product is built for large installations. As a member of the
OKI initiative, UM is a strong proponent of open standards. This is a standard portal
architecture using open-java tools for basic features such as discussion, chat, and content
management. This is a recommended system for a large institution with adequate java
development resources.
S = 4 O=5 A=5 I=3 F=3 E=4 Total = 24
PHP
ATutor
"ATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS)
designed with accessibility and adaptability in mind. Administrators can install or update ATutor
in minutes. Educators can quickly assemble Web-based instructional content. Students learn in
an adaptive learning environment."
ATutor is a promising system that provides good documentation, ease of installation, and
strong potential for developement. While the user interface may not seem intuitive to many, the
overall functionality is good (and wide open/modular) and the development team is committed
to standards. The system is also install-friendly and receptive to new language versions.
S =3 O=5 A=4 I=4 F=4 E=3 Total = 22
Caroline Classroom Online
"As the example of the Open University has shown, Distance Learning and Networked
Learning Teachers/trainers want to create course Web sites quickly. This often means they do
not want to learn HTML but just organize forums, calendars, lists of URL's through their favorite
browser and publish already existing Word-like, Excel-like or PDF documents. Students want
clear and standardized communication tools and readable documents. Organization
(universities, schools, ...) want the whole thing to last more than a few years. External partner
institutions insist on the importance of using standards. Caroline uses only open formats and
languages: PHP, SQL, HTML. It accepts any file type but encourages open formats. As for
educational norms (SCORM, IEEE...), we are open to them but we think it is too early yet."
If you don't need a robust grade book and you want to focus on ease of use, collaboration and
comforting design, Caroline is your program. It is a popular program internationally and is easy
to administer as well as use. The development team has put together good documentation and
the development community is active.
S =3 O=5 A=5 I=3 F=3 E=3 Total = 22
ClassWeb at UCLA (PHP/Perl)
"ClassWeb lets instructors easily create and control a class Web site. without learning HTML,
FTP or getting a UNIX account.* Instructors just need a standard web browser and a username
and password to administer their class sites. Instructors teaching in your building, across
campus, or even overseas can all get to their sites, change them, and update materials the
same way. The main advantage of ClassWeb is that it offers an easy, low or no training route
for faculty to administer a Web site. And because ClassWeb is open source, administrators and
staff programmers have extraordinary control. Once you install and customize ClassWeb for
your environment, you can change its component programs and "look" as much or as little as
you want. For us, this has meant that our History Dept ClassWeb pages look very different than
the rest of our depts, even though they're all using ClassWeb and the administration tools are
the same."
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ClassWeb is a Web site management system for Social Sciences faculty at UCLA. The system
allows faculty to create and manage course Web pages, upload files, create links, and send
announcements and e-mail. There is no activity or assessment generation, grade book, or
tracking. In addition, ClassWeb was not created as a largely scalable system.
S =3 O=4 A=4 I=3 F=2 E=3 Total = 19
eLecture Online Lecturing System
"eLecture/ is a free e-education package to facilitate the design and presentation of electronic
lectures. It has evolved from the presentation of a course in a university environment. The
guiding idea was to build a system that is simple to use for lecturers, who have some familiarity
with writing web-documents (with html-editors or directly as html-code) but are not experts in
web-software. It is easily possible to insert and combine existing web-documents. However, it
is also possible to include other types of documents, either by linking to them as usual in web
pages, or through a working area available to course users."
While eLecture is not a scalable system for large institutions or organizations, it is a nice
system for smaller departments or individual teachers who like to work with HTML (or HTML
editors) and want enhanced features for their class Web sites. Using PHP scripts, eLecture
allows teachers to modify their HTML so that the documents can become collaborative. The
system is low on features but does allow for group work and document sharing.
S =2 O=4 A=3 I=3 F=2 E=3 Total = 17
Moodle
"Moodle is a software package for producing internet-based courses and web sites. It's an
ongoing development project designed to support a social constructionist framework of
education. The word Moodle is an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning
Environment, which is mostly useful to programmers and education theorists. It's also a verb
that describes the process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs to
you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity. As such it
applies both to the way Moodle was developed, and to the way a student or teacher might
approach studying or teaching an online course."
Moodle is one of the most user-friendly and flexible open source courseware products
available. It has excellent documentation, strong support for security and administration, and is
evolving towards IMS/SCORM standards. The key to Moodle is that it is developed with both
pedagogy and technology in mind. A robust development and user community. Great with
languages although some development may be needed for robust handling of MathML and
enhanced tracking features. Still, this program receives a high recommendation.
S =4 O=5 A=4 I=4 F=3 E=3 Total = 23
Segue Collaborative Learning System
"Segue is really a collaborative learning system. It has a granular permissions structure that
allows site owners to assign individuals or groups to be collaborators and specify precisely
what content block, page or section of the site they can view, discuss, add to, edit or delete
from. Contrast this to e-learning systems such as WebCT or Blackboard in which faculty post
the majority of a course's content with tools available only to them. With Segue, students can
contribute as much as the instructor or more to a course Web site. In addition students can
make their own Web sites that can be associated with a course Web site. or can build a Web
site. for their own personal use such as a weblog or an e-portfolio."
Segue is built on a Web publishing platform and is an excellent product for those with a
distributed, student-centric philosophy of online learning.
S =4 O=4 A=4 I=4 F=3 E=3 Total = 22
Python/Zope
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fle3
"Fle3 is designed to support learner and group centered work that concentrates on creating and
developing expressions of knowledge (i.e. knowledge artifacts) and design. Fle3 contains three
learning tools and several administration tools. Fle3 WebTops can be used by teachers and
students to store different items (documents, files, links, knowledge building notes) related to
their studies, organize them to folders and share them with others. WebTop also includes
shared "course folder" for each course. The same shared "course folder" is available in the
Knowledge Building and Jamming tools as well. The items in the WebTops can be called
learning objects - if you wish."
Fle3 may not be for everybody, but if you are pushing a collaborative, group sharing learning
environment, you should ditch everything else and give this a try. Fle3 makes abundant use of
Zope's powerful content management features and focuses on education as sharing
perspectives of different objects (artefacts -- pictures, texts, etc.). Take the demo and see how
much fun teaching could be with this system. Unfortunately, it's lack of traditional features make
it less attractive for large, traditional implementations. Still, if you like fle3, keep an eye on the
developing EduZope project. We can only hope they will add some features and give everyone
what they want and need.
S =3 O=5 A=4 I=4 F=2 E=4 Total = 22
ASP
KEWL
"KEWL is an active server pages (ASP) application that runs under any Microsoft operating
system that supports ASP. For testing purposes, it will run on a laptop with any Windows
operating system from Windows 98 onwards. Aside from needing a Web server, KEWL also
requires a database server that may be on the same machine or on a different server on the
network. For moderate use, the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE), which can be downloaded from
the Microsoft Web site, provides adequate database services. Thus KEWL will scale from a
single desktop—for example, a laptop used for demonstration purposes—to an online learning
enterprise such as the one at UWC, where the features are spread across four high-end
servers."
KEWL is still under development (in use but evolving) and shows lots of potential. It is less
flexible in terms of platforms it will run on and is still in search of a broad range of activities. It
does feature excellent presence management and broad support for outside scripting such as
javascripts etc.).
S =3 O=4 A=4 I=3 F=3 E=3 Total = 20
Perl
Bazaar
"Bazaar is a web content hosting platform, designed with users (and administration) in mind. Its
content-management system, coupled with a flexible permission system –not to mention a
modular design and mature API– allows for easy extension and integration into existing
administrative systems."
Bazaar provides a an active journaling structure and good collaboration. It also has basic
course management features and a nice RSS feature. The system is being developed actively
but is not recommended for large deployments yet.
S =3 O=4 A=4 I=3 F=3 E=3 Total = 20
LON-CAPA at Michigan State
"LON-CAPA is a distributed open-source Learning Content Management and Assessment
System that provides instructors with a common, scalable platform to assist in all aspects of
teaching a course, from lecture preparation to administration of homework assignments and
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exams. It also enables instructors to create educational materials and to share such learning
resources with colleagues across institutions in a simple and efficient manner. "
LON-CARPA is long on functionality and support for extended character sets and computation,
but it's a bit short on user friendliness. It is a robust system built for enterprise scalability and
handles clustering well. This system is highly recommended as one of the most promising
candidates for providing traditional course management functionality for large institutions. LONCARPA is an active participant in the standards movement and provides strong documentation
nd development support.
S =5 O=5 A=4 I=3 F=4 E=3 Total = 24
MimerDesk
"MimerDesk is a web-based groupware environment designed for a wide variety of uses such
as personal management, computer-supported collaborative learning, carrying out projects,
and setting up communities. Its main strengths include a very customizable group system
which allows many groups to work simultaneously on a shared database with tools like
Calendar, Tasks, Forums, Links, Chat, Reviews, Voting, Files, Instant Messages, Profiles, and
many more."
MimerDesk is really more of a groupware communication and collaboration tool but if that's all
you're looking for, it will certainly suit your needs. Using this as courseware is ideal for colleges
or departments looking for non-activity-based teaching assistance (more collaboration and
document sharing).
S =3 O=4 A=4 I=3 F=2 E=3 Total = 19
WeBWork
"WeBWorK is an Internet-based system for generating and delivering homework problems to
students. Its goal is to make homework more effective and efficient."
WeBWork takes full advantage of Perl functionality and is much more easily expandable than
CAPA in terms of problem type authoring. On the other hand, it is currenly only a
homework/quiz generator and offers no learning management or collaboration features. You
also have to learn PG/Perl syntax to be able to author new problem types. In other words, it is
the best open source solution for what it does, but incomplete as a course management
alternative and inaccessible to many users.
S =3 O=4 A=3 I=3 F=3 E=3 Total = 19
Pcl
.LRN (OpenACS)
"Our (.LRN) goal is to evolve the platform by harnessing the power of open source"user
innovation communities." Second, the underlying architecture and technical design is based on
principles taught at MIT. Third, the underlying toolkit (OpenACS) is maintained by a talented
group of developers worldwide. Fourth, .LRN functionality is based on extensive testing and
production use at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Fifth, .LRN will maintain a strong link to
some of the best research and technology initiatives at MIT and the Sloan School of
Management, including the Open Knowledge Initiative and D-Space."
.LRN is currently a collaborative communication and document sharing tool but is on its way to
adding full, traditional course management features. The strength of .LRN is in its
administration and flexibility. It also handles group work well and possesses a flexible and
modular architecture that makes it easy to install new features as they are added.
S =4 O=5 A=5 I=3 F=2 E=3 Total = 22
Further Reading
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OKI and OCW Defined
A Discussion of the Limitations of MIT's OCW
Subject Advantages of a Non-Proprietary Courseware
Lessons from Open Source -- Intellectual Property and Courseware
Slashdot Discussion on Open Source Courseware
Feature Matrix for Course Management Systems Developed at Michigan State University
H2O at Harvard
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