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LMS Evaluation Report
show details | show criteria descriptions
| Products | GlobalteachTWI AG: http://www.globalteach.comTWI AG, Biel, Switzerland. Last major evaluation update: Jan '03 strong points
weaknesses
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Student's Environment | ||
Student's Environment | ||
Ease of Use | The environment is fairly easy and intuitive to use.
The overall impression about common browser functions is divided. The environment uses frames. Bookmarks of specific locations within the environment (i.e. lesson entry points) are possible and the URL can be pasted to another broswer. However, discussion postings can't be bookmarked. The back-button works as expected. The limited bookmarking capabilities are not severe, because the content pages are external to the environment. If they are bookmarkable or not depends on the content autoring tool. The Global Teach function "My Lessons" is something like a automatically generated in-system bookmark. | |
Compliant with common web technology | Only the IE6, Mozilla and Opera7 are fully supported. Opera7 not tested by ourselves | |
Functional environment | The environment offers the most important functions. The search function allows refinements. It can search for keywords in type, language, subject or skills. A very basic online help function is available, but it is not context sensitive. | |
Tutoring and Didactics | ||
Ease of use | The tutor environment is sufficiently easy to use. The most important tutoring tools - communication and tracking - are available | |
Communication | The discussion forum offers all the important functions, although its look-and-feel is a bit uncommon.
As synchronous communication tool, chat is available. For more advanced purposes, Centra can be integrated. | |
Students management | Various enrollment variants are possible: self-enrolment, enrollment by administrator. Batch enrolment (i.e. available for MS Access or MS Excel files). The batch enrollment is customizable (documented API or DB schema with predefined SQL procedures). | |
Activity tracking | Basically, activity tracking is done using the SCORM API. Content should therefore be created with authoring tools that supports SCORM.
A large number of useful reports can be generated: active sessions (current, per hour, day, week, month, per group), overall system usage, skills overview, etc. | |
Course Developement | ||
Ease of Use | The weak point of Globalteach is that there is no web interface to add content, to arrange the course structure or to administrate it. All editing and andministration functions are done on a locally installed Windows application. This Win application however allows very efficient course management.
Content of 3rd party authoring tools can be integrated without problems. To be able to track the student activities and manage scores etc. the authoring tool should support SCORM. There might be a considerable number of course designer who do not know the concept of using SCORM, or who have difficulties to learn and use it. Experienced course designers, or those who are willing to implement complex interactive content will enjoy the flexibility. There exists several extensions and converters for non-SCORM/AICC-compatible 3rd party tools to make the SCORM/AICC integration easy or even invisible. E.g. Extensions for Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash. Macromedia Course Builder Extension for Dreamweaver 4/MX allows to create content including quizzes 'without programming'. A Web-based authoring tool will be introduced with GT 4.2. This tool will run in the browser and also includes the administration tasks used for authoring and publishing (uploading). Meta data and any other information will be entered in the browser, for authoring the content any (FTP or WebDAV compatible) HTML editor can be used. The authoring tool will work with template files for content, questions and navigation. Template files are HTML pages which include all formatting tags and any required scripting. Customers may add their own template files, too. This gives a very high flexibility. | |
Flexible Development Framework | The platform is extensible in various ways. Due to the concept, that content or learning modules are not embedded, but logically outside the system, anything can be implemented. The communication can be done using SCORM or the Web Services interface - but it has to be explicitly programmed.
The system implements full SCORM 1.1 and 1.2 support. An optional debugging tool displays a communication log and helps to develop SCORM compilant packages. Not all 3dr party SCORM packages are cleanly implemented - therefore, various adapting import filters are available. The most important sever functions can alternatively be accessed and used from any external program. This API is implemented as a Web Service. Functions are: add/remove/find/modify users and groups, add/remove WBTs, login/logout, ... All system web pages can in principle be copied and extended, but this might require expensive programming. Such customized pages are not lost when the system is upgraded. more: API functions (GT 4.1.2.02) include: add/remove/find/modify users and groups, add/remove WBTs, traditional courses and other lesson types, create/modify/delete training plans, get/modify/delete registrations for training plans and traditional courses, get/create lesson status and other tracking information, upload/download descriptions (HTML pages etc.), login/logout, ... | |
Developers support | The system documentation of the API (Web Service) is available as MS Help file. | |
Compatibility with common web authoring tools | Globalteach is fully compatible with common web authoring tools.
However, up- and download is done using a proprietary communication protocol. For this, a client application exists, but for Windows only. After registering a WBT lesson with the GT administration program, the content of the lesson can be authored with any authoring tool using any protocol supported by the server. However the content files of WBT lessons authored directly on the Web server will not be stored in the GT DB and the DBMS can not guaranty the consistency between information stored in the DB and the files in the file system. | |
Assessment | Quizzes are created in the GT administration program (stand alone windows application). The administration program requires an online connection to the server. | |
Support for e-learning standards | Globalteach offers full support for SCORM 1.1 and 1.2. It is able to import packages from different suppliers - and even handles slight incompatibilites by applying specific import filters.
The system also includes a SCORM protocol debugger | |
Adaptable look-and-feel | The look-and-feel can be customized on various levels.
Globally, custom logos and colours can be specified for institutions and workgroups. All system strings can be adapted (i.e. to have a different terminology for law and math courses) - there's a web interface to change these strings. Any system page can be replaced by a custom page, while the system library can still be fully used. Finally, the system library routine can be replaced/extended by custom routines. | |
Multilinguality | Multiple languages are supported out of the box.
In fact, all message texts are stored in a database and can be changed. A possible scenario is that specific message texts/strings can be adapted for different faculties within an university. This allows for example to adapt the specific terminology of law courses, arts courses, science curses etc. Such customizations are not lost when the system is upgraded. | |
XML support | There is explicit XML support in the system.
However, GlobalTeach is implemented on top of the MS .NET server suite, which also includes XML processing engines. As a consequence, content pages that are stored on the same server can be implemented in XML. | |
Migration of current WebCT courses | There is no straightforward migration path for WebCT courses. The course structure and the content needs to be manually transformed. | |
System & Administration | ||
System management | The LMS is implemented on top of the MS .net server suite. Performance, availability, maintenance and security are mostly dependent on the .net server software. The experience shows, that the .net server suite offers sufficiently high performance and availability and good maintenance. Security might be a more delicate issue. In the past, MS server and client suites have turned out to be inherently insecure.
Global Teach is used in some very large installations (>100'000 hours eLearning per month, >50'000 registered users, >500 concurrent users, 10s of gigabytes of content, 6 servers in one farm, used for world-wide organizations). | |
Administration | One single server can be used by multiple institutions. Customizations are possible for each institution on various levels (see 'customization').
The autentication is flexible, and the directory can be interfaced with other directories. TWI engineers are available to program the gateways between different directories. The api and protocols are well documented. There's also a automatically generated help system available. The documentation is somewhat focused on developers and programmers. End-user documentation for authors, tutors and students is not available. TWI runs an online documentation Web site with downloadable resource kit, news letters, tips&tricks, support request tracking system, change request database (for Global Teach partners only), etc. Tutorial lessons and training plans for students, tutors and administrators are currently under development. | |
Flexible Licensing Model | Normal licensing is based on number of registered users or number of concurrent users. Other licensing models (e.g. renting or 'Global Teach Partner' agreement) are also possible. | |
Technical Architecture | The basic concept of GlobalTeach is, that the LMS manages the training plans, the users and the communication between them. The content itself is not really part of the LMS. The LMS just refers to the learning. Although the learning content is logically exernal to the LMS, they can communicate using the protocols/api SCORM or AICC. | |