As of August 1st, 2008, the Edutech web site will no longer be updated. Edutech was funded by the Swiss Virtual Campus programme, which ended on July 31st, 2008. Some activities will be taken over by the e-Learning Services group at the SWITCH foundation.

LMS Evaluation Report

Products

WebCT Vista 1.2

WebCT Inc.: http://www.webct.com/

Last major evaluation update: Dec '02

strong points

  • appealing look-and-feel
  • easy to use for admins, designers, tutors and students
  • powerful communication tools
  • numerous powerful student tools: i.e. search tool, context sensitive help
  • efficient file handling due to integrated file manager with WebDAV support
  • numerous flexible authentication models supported
  • large institutions and consortia can hierachically organize groups, courses, sections etc.
  • good documentation

weaknesses

  • severe usability issues: can't copy-paste URLs, no browser bookmarks, browser's 'back' and 'reload' button don't work
  • less severe usability issues: incomplete font scaling, difficult printing
  • limited SDK - limited extensibility. End users can't program custom 'components' or custom quizz types.
  • limited layout control
  • incomplete or missing support for IMS-QTI, IMS-CP and SCORM
  • not backwards compatible with WebCT 3.x (missing tools: no compile, no student presentations, english interface language only)