Forum .LRN Q&A: Re: Improving .LRN project

On a very high level: at WUW we did once an empirical study, which prooved that the most important influence factors on the effectiveness of IT-supported learning envirnmentsare CONTENT and USABILITY.

While improving usability is a straight forward task that just needs to be done at one point of time when a package has reached stability, improving the creation, management and delivery of learning content is still quite a research-centered activity.

Everything that eases the (collaborative) creation of content, for example, by taking advantage of Web 2.0 technology such as AJAX, would make DotLRN a killer app. At the same time the organisation of content should be based on sound instructional methods, where templates for different styles of teaching (e.g. disance learning, blended learning, compliance management) do exist.

Re: Usability and Ajax. – Roc says:

Although, Usability should be planned and done from the very first moment, I really do not believe is something .LRN can improve later, at least in the last few years, many new applications, little usability improvements. Sometimes seems like a technical-feature-focused-tool.

But I agree more with Bernd:

…taking advantage of Web 2.0 technology such as AJAX, would make DotLRN a killer app.

We (SG) are having a great deal of success taking the new AJAX technology and putting it on top of our super feature rich tool kit and improving usability. Remember that our "competitors" Moodle, Saki, Blackboard etc. are all built pre-AJAX. No one has designed from the first moments with the usability tools that AJAX provides. We have a real opportunity to be one of the first to market in the LMS world with AJAX.

For dotLRN to be able to take advantage of AJAX, decisions will have to be made. How is the process of writing down a clear, quick, open, and fair governance and decision making processes going?