Forum .LRN Q&A: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT

Posted by Kayhan Bolukbas on 09/12/03 03:31 PM

if anyone knows WebCT, can we compare these two.

2: Re: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT (response to 1)

Posted by Caroline Meeks on 09/12/03 04:22 PM

The website edutools.org compares Course Mangement Systems including webCT. I am working on preparing a description of dotLRN to submit so it can be evaluated.

This is still in draft form and I definitely want help. Everyone please give me comments and feedback or use the "Edit This Page" option and drop me an email so I know its been edited.

Thanks

3: Re: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT (response to 1)

Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 09/12/03 07:36 PM

Kayhan,

We are in the process of migrating from WebCT to .LRN (University of Heidelberg).
Both .LRN and WebCT have their strengths and weaknesses and matching a platform to your needs is not an easy job.

An important strength of .LRN is that you can help fix its weaknesses. Here are some major things that we have been helping fix (with others in the OpenACS community) that might interest you (so we can switch in October)

1. The lack of internationalization so that new translations of the platform can be easily added (just finished)
2. The lack of external authentication so that people can use the same password that they use for other systems at their university (most of which should be finished this month)

There are also some things that are on the top of our todo list we must address for Heidelberg
1. Advanced testing tool (the testing tool in WebCT is very mature)
2. Grading/Evaluation tool
3. Course registration tool

One weakness you could probably fix before .LRN 2.0 is released is the lack of a Turkish translation (the internationalization package makes translation very easy - little if any technical knowledge is needed). This a something that WebCT doesn't have the last time I checked. 😊 Peter Marklund should get around to updating the translation server soon.

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Caroline,
Thanks for publishing that address... great work!

How do we go about adding your work to the edutools site? Once we have stuff up on the site how hard is it to change/improve it?

Note: Can you check the permissions on your site? I was not able to add comments or use ETP after registering.

4: Re: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT (response to 1)

Posted by Peter Alberer on 09/13/03 06:02 PM

Hi Carl,

for the Vienna University of Business Administration we have developed a Self-assessment tool, (several types of exercises, can be integrated into exams) which is - after a lot of development - quite sophisticated (different assessment schemes, different grading schemes, everything is xml im- and exportable). All of the exercises are "learning objects" that can be semantically connected via a categorization system.

If you are interested, i can send you additional information.

5: Re: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT (response to 1)

Posted by Nagita Karunaratne on 09/14/03 04:56 AM

Hi Peter,

Is this done in dotLRN and are you planning in releasing it as GPL?

6: Re: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT (response to 5)

Posted by Peter Alberer on 09/14/03 11:53 AM

In the beginning, we did not base our work on dotLRN, as it mostly deals with community-tools and does not really have learning-objects. The only resources you can give to students are downloads.

Now that we have a system of integrated learning-objects (textbooks, exercises, exams, glossary, downloads, collections (sequenced groups of learning-objects)) we see dotLRN as the perfect supplement for course-management tasks.

In fact we are currently integrating our learning-object system with dotLRN. As far as the code-release under GPL is concerned, we have not spoken about that issue but i do not see a problem about it, so i hope it will be possible.

7: Re: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT (response to 4)

Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 09/15/03 11:20 AM

Peter,

it would be great if you could share more information on your additions.

Malte just posted an assessment rfc
https://openacs.org/projects/openacs/packages/assessment/rfc/

Your feedback on that would be great.

We are gearing up to get started and it would be ideal if we could use the work and generalize it for the greater toolkit (if needed).

Is the self-assessment tool based on parts of existing packages (e.g. survey) or is it built from scratch?

Are you using XML defined by IMS for import and export?

Categorization system? Is that the same one that was recently contributed (and hopefully works in 5.0)?

More information please.

8: Re: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT (response to 7)

Posted by Peter Alberer on 09/16/03 10:47 AM

i will have a look at the rfc and give feedback later this week when i come back from a trip to Dresden (Wirtschaftsinformatik 2003)

9: Re: Can we compare .LRN with WebCT (response to 7)

Posted by Peter Alberer on 09/22/03 12:08 PM

Hello, and sorry for the late reply.

Is the self-assessment tool based on parts of existing packages (e.g. survey) or is it built from scratch?

We have not used existing packages. The requirements we defined for the whole system and for the assessment system lead to the development of our learning-object-system that did not "fit" with the survey package. The assessment system is geared towards automatic grading and self-assessment only. The whole definition of a certain exercises is saved as one xml document. There is no "datamodel" for the definition of an exercise, just for the metadata. These are some of the points why we did not use the survey package.

Are you using XML defined by IMS for import and export?

No, we have defined our own xml-schemata.

Categorization system? Is that the same one that was recently contributed (and hopefully works in 5.0)?

No, there was no such system when we started development. Therefore we developed our own system. We have a paper describing our system, where you can find additional information.