Forum .LRN Q&A: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads

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1: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads
Posted by Caroline Meeks on 10/26/03 02:22 AM
Carl has been contacted by edutools and specifically invited/encouraged to submit an evaluation. Carl and I are meeting at my house tomorrow evening to finish up the work I did and submit it.  Anyone else in the area (Winchester MA) is welcome to come over. I'll cook dinner and supply hard cider.

One of the things we want to do is give an honest yet optimistic view of functionality that includes not just the officially released code but a sense of what has been done in specific instances and what is being worked on.  Many of you have talked to me about what you are working on and I will include that. I would also ask those of you who have code written to please upload it to contrib so that we can honestly say it is available and released. We promise not to over sell functionality. If it is site specific code that is not fully generalized, that is fine. We will indicate that. If its half finished and then the project was canceledÂ… that can still be a help to the next person. We will indicate that.

The contrib. directory of CVS is our tool for working together. It lets others improve on our code, rather having to start from scratch.  Jade's Project Manager project is a wonderful example.

Specifically I am asking for the following existing code:

Pay Pal Gateway
PhotoBook
Room Reservations
User-Profiling
Any XML Import/Export functionality

Please upload.

Thank you!

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2: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Caroline Meeks on 10/27/03 01:54 AM
I'd like to add to my contrib wish list Open Force's code that never got used at Sloan. I doubt they work with the current release, but they had some very cool ideas that I expect we will want to resurect eventually.

Research Module
Personal Communities

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3: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Caroline Meeks on 10/27/03 02:52 AM
One more..

access-reports

Thanks

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4: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Rafael Calvo on 10/27/03 07:14 AM
Caroline

One of my students finished a new version of the clickstream analysis tool.
The previous version (Oracle only has been used by Greenpeace). The new one is for PG, much faster, with better split of the code (much more on Tcl les in SQL). I hope to publish more about this and the other projects next week

cheers

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6: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 5)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 02/28/04 09:04 AM
Did they miss our bookmarks module ?
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7: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 02/28/04 09:47 AM
Great!

Everything is finally converging:

2.0 is finally out

Edutools review is up.

New dotlrn.org site (running on .LRN) is in the works (hopefully this coming week we will have it up).

.LRN adoption is increasing daily (and this review should help).

Success is upon us! All we have to do in keep on going, the heavy stone is finally at the top of the hill and because of everyone's hard work it is almost round (look out below!). Now all we have to do is keep up with it and poke it in the right directionif it gets off track.

😊

Thanks to everyone!

Carl

P.S. They did some SERIOUS editing of the text I submitted (probably after looking at the test install). Seeing that the official .LRN distribution does not contain the bookmarks package yet, it is not surprising that it was edited out. Luckily I have the "extended version" of the text and we can use it where it makes sense.

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8: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Venkatesh Goteti on 11/18/04 08:03 PM
It's been a while since .LRN info went up on edutools. Shouldn't we look at updating the list there in view of recent  developments on the .LRN front?
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9: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 8)
Posted by Alfred Essa on 11/18/04 08:53 PM
Venkatesh. You are absolutely correct. We need to update.
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10: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 8)
Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 11/19/04 05:39 AM
I will update the text and submit it for review after the 2.1 release (every update has to be reviewed). Thanks for the reminder Venky.
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11: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 10)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 11/19/04 08:45 AM
Rereading the posts, we might think about releasing .LRN 2.1 core along with an extended version that includes other packages that support .LRN and that are being used actively at universities. Obviously we should give the extended version for reviews, otherwise they will continue to edit out features that we clearly have, but that have not made it into the .LRN core (for whatever the reasons).
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12: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Venkatesh Goteti on 11/21/04 12:12 AM
It would be good for the orginal set of features to be published on OpenACS or .LRN sites, so that even if Edutools folks edit and condense all information provided to them, the full version would still be available for public view. I can help with drafting the same if any help is needed.
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13: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 11/24/05 10:59 AM
It has been over a year now and with the advent of 2.2 we should review the edutools review and do a lot more posting there, as a lot of interesting features have come up.

Namely:

- dotlrn-ecommerce
- Full assessment (we are as good as the current moodle description)
- dotTeach or what will/has become out of it
- dotFolio
- IMSLD

How could we go about this? Who can post a new review on edutools? What is the process?

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14: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 11/24/05 11:10 AM
I would also include information on OACS as toolkit that provides "building blocks" for .LRN and makes it the ultimate learning and research toolkit. Also I would add information on the latest extensions added from 5.1 to 5.2 as well as the new monitoring features via request-monitor and user tracking.
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15: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 1)
Posted by Caroline Meeks on 11/24/05 03:26 PM
My understanding is the EduTools reviews the official release. So we need a new official release to get a new review. I think this next release of .LRN should use maturity levels not "Certification" for packages. If we use "Certification" only the "ceritified" packages will be evaluated by organizations like "EduTools". Other open source projects don't have this hurtle so we are keeping ourselves off of a level playing field.

Last time Carl coordinated communication with EduTools staff. They do thier own review but they are interested in our write up as a basis.

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16: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 15)
Posted by Abelardo Pardo on 12/27/06 03:03 PM
Since Nov. 1st 2006, edutools has a new CMS Comparison page.

http://edutools.info/item_list.jsp?pj=4

The previous version had all the data from .LRN, but the new one does not. Looking at this thread I understand Carl introduced the previous review. Should the .LRE review be "upgraded" as well? (or at least introduce the previous one to maintain visibility) Should we wait for the next release?

Cheers.

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17: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 16)
Posted by Caroline Meeks on 01/07/07 05:55 AM
They have a form for reviewing products. I'll work on filling it out.
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18: Re: Res: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 17)
Posted by Olga C. Santos on 01/09/07 04:57 PM
Hi Carolin,

Thanks for making the review in eduTools. I've seen it and I miss some information under 'Accessibility Compliance', 'Instructional Design Tools', 'Instructional Standards Compliance' and 'Windows Server'.

According to https://openacs.org/xowiki/Accessibility and taken into account the work done for the 2.2.1 release, .LRN core meets WAI WCAG 1.0 Level A.

Regarding Instructional Standards compliance, you should add IMS-MD and of course, IMS-LD! .LRN is currently the only LMS that implements the three levels of IMS-LD standard. More info is available in xowiki: https://openacs.org/xowiki/Educational_Standards.

Regarding 'Instructional Design Tools' it refers to "Instructional design tools help instructors creating learning sequences, for example, with lesson templates or wizards". I don't think IMS-LD can be included here, but I think Assessment includes the possibility of creating questionnairs and within the Evaluation package you can also define some kind of learning sequences.

Finally, regarding the Windows server, I think it can be mentioned the works done by ]open-project[ and Maurizio Martignano (https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=551255).

This last one is really important because it is one of the criteria used for evaluation LMS. For instance, the Edutech Evaluation of Open Source Course Platforms considered the following killer criteria:
1. Support for multiple languages (esp. English, French, German, Italian)
2. Server runs on multiple operating systems
3. Integrated/homogeneous learning environment (not just a collection of tools)
4. Active development, with at least 2 full time developers
5. Active community
6. Basic e-learning tools are available
7. Basic documentation is available

Olga

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19: Re: Res: Re: Res: Re: Update on eduTools and request for Contrib uploads (response to 18)
Posted by Olga C. Santos on 01/29/07 11:33 PM
Hi,

'Accessibility Compliance', 'Instructional Design Tools', 'Instructional Standards Compliance' and 'Windows Server' features have been updated in EduTools review. If you miss some other features or consider that there is information missing, please post them here and we will update them.

All of us can contribute to have this information up to date.

Thanks.