On a pretty regular basis I hear griping from people in the edtech blogging community about how terrible CMS platform X is, or how they are being forced to settle on the functionality provided in CMS platform Y. Rarely, however, do people get specific about what they can’t accomplish in the existing CMS (I’m referring to the existing market leaders - you know who I mean.) So here’s your chance - use the comments below to tell me, and others, what you think is wrong with the ‘majors’ right now, & more importantly what you need to accomplish but can’t in your existing CMS environment. I’ll start things off:
Continue reading ‘What are the ‘Deficiencies’ of Current CMS?’
Monthly Archive for July, 2004
I was actually pretty pleased about the fact that when a colleague mentioned this group to me, I had never heard of them before. It meant to me that I have created sufficient distance with any ‘administrative computing’ past. The PESC seems to be the domain of registrars and student service (eg. financial aid) folks, but I thought I’d post it because you never know when one of your projects might need to be aware of this alternate universe. Mostly they seem focused on issues like how to ship student transcripts around, though an upcoming conference on the “State of e-Authentication in Higher Education” seemed slightly relevant. - SWL
http://www.northplains.com/media/pr072704.asp
I wouldn’t normally carry a news release like this but I have a bit of a personal connection with this story - the folks from UEN were partners in the recent project I did with WCET to research a number of learning object repository software packages, and based on their urging one of those packages ended up being NorthPlain’s Telescope product.
But I think the story is more generally significant because it adds a spin to the standard ‘repository’ players. NorthPlains is a Canadian company that has made its fortune selling ‘digital asset management’ software to large media companies, specifically ones like Sony Pictures. While it isn’t purpose built for higher ed learning objects per se, it offers quite impressive functionality for dealing with media assets in general. And given its flexibility to deal with multiple metadata schemas or any type of workflow and its smart integration with a host of 3rd party authoring tools, it’s actually not so hard to see how software like this (and there are a fair number of other packages in this space, all fairly mature when compared to some of the LOR stuff) can serve as the basis for a LOR play. In fact, in that WCET project (results of which will be published in the fall), of the 6 products we looked at, only one could be said to be a ‘learning object repository’ in the strictest sense - in addition to North Plains, the others were variously a ‘learning content management system,’ an ‘institutional repository,’ an ‘Education Institution Content Management System’ and finally a ‘digital content management’ originating from the library world. All of which, to varying degrees of success, could fulfil the role of learning object repository, proving yet again how slippery a beast those are. - SWL
http://members.imsglobal.org/forum/ims/
dispatch.cgi/f.altilabtech
Lucky for us all, the IMS have posted the supporting papers and slides in a publicly accessible area. Day Two of the sessions I was assigned to the Content working group. The promise of this group had been to tackle some of the questions laid out in the stimulating “Repository Management and Implementation” overview paper. But somewhat disappointedly to me, day one seemed given over mostly to talk of existing or emerging digital library standards, and while these are likely of interest and pertinent to others I found it hard to stay engaged.
Which led me on day two to migrate over to the somewhat oddly named “Tools” group, which ended up being a far more fascinating discussion on the world and problems of ‘learning design.’ Day Two in this group ended up being more of what I think of as a ‘working group’; real experts (James Dalziel, David Wiley, Bill Olivier and Gilbert Paquette, amongst others) hashing out real problems with the specification and what problems it is supposed to solve. It was both an honour and a learning experience to be able to sit in.
There really are a lot of worthwhile papers in this directory and they represent some of the state of the art thinking in the field, so take time going through them. Some of the powerpoint slides are also thorough enough to stand apart from their accompanying speeches; Brad Wheeler’s talk on how Open Source supports Open Specifications, Chris Etesse from Blackboard’s Ed Tech framework, and Fabrizio Cardinali from Giunti’s romp through the future of personalized learning all seem worthy of mention.
While there were lots of stimulating papers and talks, ultimately my first Alt-I-Lab will end up being remembered more because of the relationships begun and re-kindled. In addition to meeting fellow bloggers David Wiley and Raymond Yee for the first time, I spent a delightful evening with David Davies and Mark Stiles over a tasty Middle Eastern meal (go figure, easily the most popular restaurant in the small town of Redwood City.) All in all, well worth it, and hopefully I’ll find a way to next year’s event. - SWL
Moodle http://odtl.dcu.ie/wp/2004/odtl-2004-01.html
Nice paper documenting the rationale and steps to shift from a current enterprise-wide WebCT install to one using Moodle. They looked at three open source alternatives (Boddington, Claroline and Moodle). It is interesting to note what they stated as Moodle’s main current weakness, “the fact that, although there were already many small scale deployments in operation, at that time it had not yet been adopted on an enterprise basis by any university-level institution.” It will be interesting to see how Sakai stacks up in this regard, as the (perceived or real) lack of ‘enterprise-readiness’ continues to be one of the main sticking points for larger institutions who may be interested in open source CMS but worried about their ability to scale and integrate. - SWL
http://www.sakaiproject.org/press/sakai-rc1.html
You’ve probably seen this news announced already in a number of places; as promised Sakai Release Candidate 1 was released today. This post is more a query if anyone has got a build up and running that I can have a look at. Pressed for time right now myself, but maybe I’ll get one going in the next few weeks if no one else steps forward. It looks slightly involved, though not too bad. - SWL
http://www.athabascau.ca/schoolnetProject04/
documents/LOB_Final_DraftWilhelm-Wilde3.pdf
I’ve been searching for this paper without being sure it existed - “Two course developers … investigated and described from their personal points of view the complex and immediate challenges they faced as they designed an online university course based on learning objects.”
Somewhat disappointingly, they ultimately “acquired a ‘ready-made’ commercial website featuring learning objects and electronic material embedded in a comprehensive course website.” Still, this paper lays out the details of what appears to be quite a straightforward attempt to create a new online course by finding and assembling resources. The authors are clearly not evangelists for the LO approach, and make clear a number of its current shortcomings and difficulties.
We desperately need more stories like these, as well as far more serious work on what a real ‘learning object design approach’ to create new curriculum out of existing materials might look like (instead of more pie in the sky ‘automated assembly of instructional materials’ scenarios, please!). One of a number of interesting papers from Athabasca University that resulted from their participation in the SchoolNet Project ‘Learning Objects in a Box’ - SWL
http://www.bccampus.ca/Page95.aspx
Well, hopefully better late then never, a public presence for the BCcampus/Open School BC LOR project I’m working on. There’s not tons of content, but you can see some of our high-level requirements and the results of our product evaluations. I’ve also included the feed from the Apollo-Dev blog using Alan’s handy-dandy Feed2JS script so that people not in the RSS/blog ‘know’ can still keep track of developments in Apollo (note the page I’m posting on here shouldn’t be confused with an official Apollo site, which will probably happen sometime in the future.) - SWL
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/ACF83C.doc
I found the lead to the LAMS website mentioned below in this useful recent report by Sandy Britain for the JISC. The report gives some background on the history and concepts of learning design, and then after laying out a new framework for evaluating learning design tools, provides an in-depth analysis of Coppercore, EduBox, Eduplone, LAMS, Lobster and Reload.
Significantly, though, Britain writes “As of the time of writing this report there are no tools available for end-users that support both the creation and running of an IMS Learning Design at any level.” Still, very useful for accurately portraying the current state of affairs in learning design tools. - SWL
http://www.lamsinternational.com/index.html
You may have heard mention in a number of different forums of the LAMS system, developed by James Dalziel and Macquarie University. I’ve been hearing about it for a year now, but so far the most I had been able to find on this alleged learning design authoring tool was a paper or two. No website, no software.
Well things are looking a bit better - while I still can’t find access to a demo or extensive details on the software, this new site does give some background and a brochure, and at least provides a space to watch for its eventual wide release. I know folks in Australia and the U.K. have had more exposure to this tool so far, and any further details appreciated. - SWL
Recent Comments