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.

Opera7 not tested by ourselves

As synchronous communication tool, chat is available. For more advanced purposes, Centra can be integrated.

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.

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.

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, ...

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.

The system also includes a SCORM protocol debugger

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.