On-line learning communities created by e-learning platform

Kurzfassung

A Greek SME presents an e-learning platform that puts emphasis on the productive communication between users. It is easy and fun to use, it concentrates on what is essential for producing successful e-learning sessions, and needs minimum time and effort to get accustomed to it. The company is looking for a license or commercial agreement with technical assistance.

Details

A Greek IT company offers an e-learning platform that promotes effective student/professor cooperation. There is a rich set of flexible tools that require minimum knowledge for both professor and student, and facilitate the successful creation of online learning communities. The product includes visual tools to create the lesson structure and add content, powerful online-test builders, communication tools (chat, forum and personal messages), content scheduling, activity tracking, announcements, content flows, cooperative content building, lesson rules, vertical views of the lesson and many more. No technical knowledge is necessary to create content or use it as a student, all tasks are performed with visual tools and editors. The features list includes the following categories:
• Communication Tools
• Productivity Tools
• Student Involvement Tools
• Administration Tools
• Course Delivery Tools
• Curriculum Design
• Hardware/Software/Languages Supported
The technical requirements for installation and running the platform are minimal. For running the platform in Service Solution, Internet Explorer is sufficient. Everything that needs to be done can be performed through the Web interface. The Server Solution requires MySQL (an open source relational database management system that uses Structured Query Language - the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database), PHP (a programming language that allows Web developers to create dynamic content that interacts with databases) and a version of Linux or Windows to set it up.
Currently the product is available in English and Greek. The Greek company can create any other language by easily changing the language file in cooperation with the partner.
At the technical level, the software is certified as SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)-compliant, which enables educational content re-use and interoperability. Finally, the support of the LDAP protocol (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol - a protocol used to access a directory listing) for identity management allows for smooth integration with existing IT infrastructure.

Innovative Aspects:
The product has been created on the notion of collective knowledge, allowing for exploitation of informal knowledge that is created among user communities. Moreover, the platform offers a unified learning environment where both trainers and trainees can create and share knowledge elements.

The advantages can be summarised as follows:
• Easy to install and use
• Works everywhere with minimal hardware and software requirements
• Competitively priced
• Technologically advanced
• Rich features