Posted by kim-day on April 20, 2010 at 9:47pm
During one of the edu BOF's at drupalcon sf, a small group of us got together to discuss our needs for a lms (learning management system) powered by drupal. Various schools and groups seem to be doing pieces of this puzzle but we would all benefit from getting together to discuss further and hopefully create a solution that could work for more of us as an alternative to blackboard or sakai, etc.
We started a new group here on g.d.o. to help us organize. If this is something you have interest in, please head over and join!
I created the group just an hour or so ago so if you are not allowed to join yet due to it not yet having been approved, please just try to join again a little later.
Comments
Corporate LMS?
Will this group focus only on the academic environment? Or will you also consider corporate users? I have an elearning company that serves the corporate market. I currently use a variety of proprietary LMSs for hosting and delivering my courses. I'm working on setting up Drupal as the CMS for my Flash-based courses. And I'm looking for an open-source LMS for delivering my courses that I can integrate with my Drupal/Ubercart ecommerce site (when it's finished).
It will be interesting to see
It will be interesting to see what direction this group ultimately takes but I suspect corporate LMS needs will definitely be part of the discussions since the needs of those systems overlap a lot with the LMS needs in a purely academic environment.
Thanks for pointing this out!
re: LMS
I dont see a fundamental difference between corporate learning, and any other type of learning,
at the end of the day, the process is the same.
I would like to know the difference between the two.
In my experience the primary
In my experience the primary difference between academic learning and corporate learning is that adults typically (or ideally) learn more from each other than from instructor-led training. The best corporate trainer ultimately functions more as a facilitator rather than as a deliverer of content, drawing as much of the content out of the participants as possible rather than simply imparting it. I'm not sure what impact this kind of difference would have in an LMS, however.....lol.
Behind every big man is a big behind.
re: LMS
Those are very good points,
unfortunately, i dont see how they can not be achieved through the academic setting. Universities, colleges and schools are no longer brick but introducing click.
At the end of the day, it boils down to learning. Even students can be tracked, and awarded marks, based on participation. SCORM is a good standard being implemented as the defacto object sharing model, unfortunately, it has many issues, which are being addressed. Its still a rough diamond, and i dont see what would stop the academic setting from using SCORM, i designed some SCORM materials for an online course which had participants from across the globe, for an academic course.
unless, someone can come up, with a real difference, i would love to learn.
LMS
I agree, strangebike. I think an LMS can include features for both the corporate and academic markets. Especially with the growth of social learning, which is applicable to both. My only question is what the focus of the LMS group will be. I would like the group to focus on both the corporate and academic markets.
The difference between a corporate and an academic approach...
From my observations, the most significant difference between a corporate and an academic approach to the implementation of an LMS is not around content, content types or related features (like SCORM support), but around learner grouping and organization. In the corporate environment, learners are most often grouped by organizational units or structures, by job function, or by location, and many of the student's learning needs are dependent upon these kinds of factors. None of the existing open source LMS implementations I've evaluated have built-in the kind of architecture that supports this type of view. They tend to focus much more on being organized around class quarters/semesters, or longer-term associations between courses, students and instructors. On the corporate side, classes and student-to-class relationships are typically short (usually measured in hours or days instead of weeks, months or years).
While there is much existing functionality in Drupal that can be directly applied to the LMS solution space, some of the currently missing components needed to allow Drupal to be successful as a LMS platform in the corporate environment would include:
1) A flexible role-based access control model that supports a hierarchical organizational structure. This can be used to control the visibility of learning interventions to students, and also to control access to administrative and maintenance functions for learning interventions.
2) Yes, SCORM support
Note that there's a SCORM group (http://groups.drupal.org/scorm), but it hasn't had much traction to date.
re: LMS
I dont think, the issue of hours is as big, as you point out,
modifying a Learning Management System, from days/weeks/Months/year to minutes/hours, can be done in 15 minutes. The very reason, why the applications are open source, is to allow coders to modify. I dont think there is any application in the world that is a one shoe fits all.
Sorry, perhaps my description
Sorry, perhaps my description was a bit unclear. I'm not talking about, say, a field type difference or such a basic configuration or modification decision. This goes more to the core of the metaphors used by the system to organize the various entities and entity relationships within the system.
For example, systems that use an academic approach, tend to be oriented around a semester or quarter model. There are courses, courses have sections, sections are taught by one of a small pool of instructors that are on staff and assigned to the course, a section runs from something between four and sixteen weeks, there are many meetings that take place as part of a section, and so forth. In the corporate environment, the delivery model is usually quite different. Frequently, while a course may be taught many times, any given student will typically only attend a single session (though that session could possibly have more than one meeting), and the session may be taught by a contractor that has no long term relationship with the company, nor any responsibilities outside showing up for the session. That's just a small part of the conflict between the two ways of looking at how learning is supported in the different environments. Until you've actually tried to implement a product based on the academic model in a corporate environment and try to manage real-world data, it is hard to conceptualize how big this barrier to acceptance is.
I've looked at many open-source LMS products that have their roots in the academic market (Moodle, Dokeos, OLAT, ELMS, Docebo, ATutor, Clairoline, ILIAS, Sakai, .LRN and so forth), but none of them have the kind of functionality that is needed in the corporate space, nor do they have the flexibility of Drupal. That's why I'd like to see the corporate marketplace specifically addressed, that would give Drupal a significant competitive advantage here.
Keep it flexible
Having worked in both academic settings that had single-day courses, and corporate settings that had months-long courses, I'd argue this is a useless distinction. A full-featured LMS needs to handle courses of variable lengths. There's little to be gained from approaching that as a distinction between "corporate" and "academic." That just encourages people to group around rigid approaches. It's much more useful to focus on keeping things flexible.
Your comment about none of those LMS having the flexibility of Drupal is precisely why it's not useful to specifically address "the corporate marketplace" any more than it's useful to consider the distinct needs of specific schools. A Drupal LMS should be a flexible LMS, able to address a variety of needs, and everyone involved should represent their own needs. If you find the approach not addressing your needs well enough, make it more flexible.
Very good summary. I agree,
Very good summary. I agree, if the concepts being applied are flexible enough, then both (all?) metaphors can be supported, and that would be the best of all worlds. My experience has been that nobody has done this well in the past with the various different LMS approaches, so let's learn from that. I would suggest that an approach based on minimizing requirements is unlikely to get us there.
LMS
The reason I emphasized content is to make the case that SCORM tracking is essential for a corporate LMS, even if not required for academic purposes. Otherwise, I completely agree with jjkd. The ability to assign and track learning in a hierarchical structure is critical for corporate. As is the ability to delegate administrative access to different levels of the hierarchy.
From my perspective, another critical corporate LMS requirement is the flexibility to create course bundles, or programs, consisting of multiple courses. A program could be configured differently for different organization units, or even employees. A program might include a course, then an exam that the student must pass (passing score defined in the exam and tracked by the LMS) in order to progress to the next course in the program. A student might be given, say, two chances to pass; then the student would have to re-take the course. The LMS would need to be able to track program completion, in addition to course completion.
Bikeshedding
Hello, all,
It was great to talk with many of you at DrupalCon, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this group goes.
However, at the outset, I think we need to be careful not to get overly bogged down in "Must have feature X" or "Must serve demographic Y" discussions.
If people can focus on developing a core set of tools that allows for expansion into different areas, we'll get farther, faster. The simpler we can keep the base functionality, the better, as each instance of will require some level of customization.
So, what is the simplest set of components required to run a class?
Of these components, what already exists?
Of the components that don't exist, are there people within the community who are in active development on them?
Identifying the minimum level of functionality required for a launch, and determining the fastest way to get there, will move things forward more quickly.
Cheers,
Bill
FunnyMonkey
Not Bikeshedding...
Hi Bill,
I respectfully disagree. While I agree that bikeshedding rarely helps any project get anywhere, I don't believe that this is bikeshedding. This is not about customization, this is about fundamental architectural decisions regarding scope. The question Taylor asked and the points that I added go to the heart of the question, what specifically is this effort? Is this an effort to specify a distribution and/or additional functionality/modules to meet the minimum requirement of being 'useful' to an academic environment? If so, that's fine, just say so, and those of us who need an architecture that can support corporate applications will know that isn't this project.
SCORM module
There's already a SCORM module for Drupal. If people are interested in integrating that with this (so far hypothetical) LMS, great. And if there's something in the design of this LMS that makes such integration difficult, that's a good indication that this isn't modular enough. That said, if this is designed to work only with SCORM, that's also a good sign it isn't modular enough. And more importantly, such integration can't possibly happen until the LMS actually exists, so that should be the first focus.
LMS
A Learning Management Information System, is simply an LMS. Whether its for academia, corporate or a Kindergarten. I have implemented these systems in both worlds.
Coming up, with a suitable application for academia or the corporate world is wishful thinking, its like coming up with one religion for all human beings. In my experience, implementing these type of solutions, will vary from one University to another, or one organization. This is due to the simple fact, that every organization has different business processes.
An LMS for Harvard will differ significantly from one for GWU. In the corporate world, the way learning is done, or implemented will definitely differ, because of the uniqueness, of how that training will be executed. To expect that a super application will solve this is not only wishful thinking, but also far from reality.
Inorder to cater for the needs, for a Uni or Organization, the LMS developer, has to modify the code. I think its only basic applications like Microsoft word which can achieve such a noble feat. You will find them, very suitable for Academia and the corporate world. When you decide to use database management systems (read LMS), u have to get your hands dirty. There is no shortcut.
What is important (and not very important) is to have the core features. And there is no predefined list of core features. I have a colleague who doesnt use joomla or Drupal, he designed his own Content Management System, for the simple reason, every project is different. So he gets Joomla and Drupal modules, and integrates them into his CMS. I find him quite a character, but it makes sense to him.
This is my opinion, and i hope am wrong.
LMS
It feels like this is where I came in. My question to start was, is the group going to consider only the academic market? If so, then the "components required to run a class" may be the appropriate focus. However, if the group is going to also consider the corporate market, then running a class is only a part of the picture. For example, a corporate LMS must run SCORM-compliant courses. I'm not a developer, but if there is interest in the corporate market, is this something that should be taken into account earlier rather than later in the development process? Don't know, just asking.
I develop and sell online courses for businesses and other organizations. I work with several proprietary LMS vendors. My selfish interest is in an OS LMS that works for corporations. So I'm really interested in the direction the group will go.
Silos
I think the fundamental challenge we are up against is that the open source development model tends to lead to silos. There are a number of useful modules, but the linkages between them are spotty at best. Sakai is plagued by the same phenomenon, although I have to admit, Sakai is way ahead of Drupal in this regard.
I think the core of the problem has to do with how dynamically created student information is stored and disseminated. For instance, if I give a student a quiz, using the existing Quiz module, the data is stored in a table generated by that module. If I give an assignment, using the Gradebook module, that data is stored in a table generated by Gradebook. If I create an exercise using my own homegrown module, the data ends up in my table. If I turn a book into a pseudo-SCORM module, the page tracking data ends up I don't even know where. While it is possible to pull everything together using a complicated database query, the Views implementations are inconsistent, and from the user side, there is no ONE place to go to not only see, but control student data. I don't want to have to go into one module's UI to adjust one grade, and another module's UI to adjust another grade. That is the work-flow in Sakai, and it is confusing and unsatisfactory. So I guess what I'm saying is that we need a master data-storing, data-manipulation module that every other LMS module developer would agree to integrate with in a consistent and reliable way. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the master module could publish it's own set of hooks which each module would need to implement. If we had such an agreement, I think we could make progress. Here are some types of data I think the master module should be able to access (or generate) and manage.
student rosters - (with a mechanism to handle or possibly create rosters independent of Organic Groups)
student grades - generated by any number of modules
userpoints
group or section ids to distinguish subsets of students within a roster
No doubt there is more, but even if it stopped there, I would find it invaluable.
Re: Silos
I agree.
Although I don't think it's a problem that data is stored in module specific tables, there should be a system to generate overviews based on that data. Technically that can be done in several different ways and how exactly is not important now.
A teacher should have one overview that shows the progress of his students through his courses, regardless of the modules used in those courses.
How does this compare to what
How does this compare to what the group envisions?
http://www.joomlalms.com/
Rather than SCORM vs.
Rather than SCORM vs. not-SCORM, academic vs. corporate, maybe this is what I'm really trying to ask -- to what extent will the proposed LMS support:
I'm not a developer, but I think the LMS requirements for these different types of learning are different.
LMS features
Moodle has all the above features you have mentioned.
In developing SCORM compliant courses, i noticed that
ADL the body in charge of coordinating SCORM, has a test suite, which is very erratic.
You can develop a SCORM object which fails to pass the test, and yet its not faulty. Their test suite is full of bugs, and you have to tweak it, to pass the SCORM tests. However, even with the SCORM objects failing to pass the test, the objects run smoothly on many LMS.
So, is this Drupal LMS
So, is this Drupal LMS project designed to:
I have used ADL's SCORM 1.2 RTE and had just the opposite problem. My courses ran in the RTE but not in the LMS I was using.
Drupal LMS
Thats an interesting problem. If the SCORM material passes the test, but cant run in the LMS, then it means that LMS is not SCORM compliant, however they are several tweaks, that can be done, to make the LMS scorm compliant. One approach is to write the scorm code in such a way, that it will work with your LMS. They are many options, but they require investing in a few hours.
Actually, I finally did get
Actually, I finally did get it to work on the LMS. I had left out some SCORM code, tho it took a long time to find. Question is, why didn't it fail in the RTE? Who knows?
Scorm
It didnt fail due to a myriad of reasons. One of them, is that the suite is far from a finished article. The actual reason is not important. However the efforts of ADL are in good faith.
Drupal LMS
It is my sincere opinion that the purpose of this project is to develop the framework that will provide a set of modules that will provide LMS capabilities similar or better than Moodle, Blackboard, Sakia, etc.
This issue of SCORM is foreign to me as I have never worked with LMS in a corporate environment.
Following the line of discussion thus far, I believe is taking us down a specific path which is one that should be considered but I feel misses the bigger picture of what type of services does an LMS provide and how do we use Drupal to provide them.
Frankly, I am more concerned with the development of tools for use rather than meeting a particular outside standard. Mind you - I am not saying it shouldn't but I want to get the bigger picture addressed.
I think we should endeavor to provide Drupal users with the ability to create classes, give exams, post grades, etc.
There will be those who will have specific needs that are beyond these and they can be addressed in separate areas. For instance, one of things that we will need at my college is the ability to tie any grading function into our Banner ERP system. Others may have people soft. Others may have a need to have a shopping cart for students to pay for a specific class. These things I see as additional to the overall goal of providing LMS functions.
Just my opinion.
If you wait by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.
didactics design of a drupal lms?!
what about the didactics design of a lms. i think we should think about it.
beware of technocratic terms...the human being is not a learning maschine.
LMS, content, didactics
Didactics are in the content, not the LMS. The reason I'm using Drupal for education is that it allows me almost total freedom when it comes to the design of my content. Every subject, every student and every course is different. An LMS should not force the (didactic) design of the content in any way.
The job of an LMS is managing students, grades, course schedules, etcetera. When you look at current LMS's like Blackboard and Moodle you see that that is the focus of those systems, and they almost totally forgot the content side. And that in turn is the reason a lot of content creators turn to Drupal.
Of course depending on your exact definitions of the terms there might be some overlap :)
I think the same way
In our online trainings, we focus on the content. Course management only is necessary overhead. That Drupal offers us a huge spectrum of possibilities to manage as well as to present content is the reason that we moved from Moodle to Drupal for the relaunch of http://campus.freistil-consulting.de.
Jochen Lillich, CTO freistilbox Managed Drupal Hosting
from knowledge to competence
i think the hole elearning thing is the massive change : from distribution to reflexion and kollaboration.
my basic ieda is that human knowing is fundamentally a social act. this simple observation has profound implications for the way we think of and attempt to support learning.
i hope we find a way to speak about this in münchen drupal dev days..perhaps at a mass beer
ray
from knowledge to competence
I won't be in München, so I'll just continue the discussion here :)
At our university we've been doing that reflection and collaboration already a long time, since before e-learning, so it's not that new :) It's not the be-all end-all solution for every student either, so a course should always contain a mix of learning styles.
In the end it comes down to whether you put the "collaborative learning" features into the LMS feature set or not. If you do then yes, that part of the feature set does involve didactics.
Social scientists are very keen on definitions:
Knowing is not an act (but a state?). Teaching is a social act. Learning does not need to be a social act. If you fall from the stairs you've learned that that hurts, even though you where doing it totally on your own... :) But in many cases the learning is much more efficient when there is a social component in the process.
And I'm pretty sure there are didactics experts that disagree ;)
Re: from knowledge to competence
Based on this line, there is no 'A' list of features, as they will vary from one Uni to another. However the ability to add more features is what is important. equally important is the ability to modify existing features. Which is available in any open source application. Your statement on Moodle not being flexible, might be right to you, but am hardly convinced.
In the end it comes down to whether you put the "collaborative learning" features into the LMS feature set or not.
Re: from knowledge to competence
Again, where did I state that Moodle is not flexible?
I said In my experience with both Moodle and Drupal, when it comes to content management I've found that it's easier to extend Drupal than it is to extend Moodle
I even said that that might have changed in recent versions of Moodle.
Re: from knowledge to competence
maybe this was not your post. Sorry for that.
'When looking at didactics, the traditional LMSs have actually very little to offer.
But a plain Drupal install has not much more to offer! The power of Drupal when it comes to didactics is the available modules, the ease with which you can make a module and (most important) the fact that Drupal does not limit you in any way. A teacher can structure his content in the way that he thinks is best for his education.'
Re: from knowledge to competence
Yes, and that is not the same as saying that Moodle is not flexible. (Moodle is not even mentioned there)
With the definition of didactics that I gave (being didactics are in the content) and given what the content creation options are for a plain install of your average LMS and Drupal, there is very little in both.
So to add rich, interactive and adaptive content, both will need to be extended.
I then state that Drupal is easy to extend (and thus flexible). I do not say anything about the extendibility (flexibility) of Moodle at all.
Read what I actually say, not what you want to think that I say.
Re: from knowledge to competence
I wonder who posted this?
The job of an LMS is managing students, grades, course schedules, etcetera. When you look at current LMS's like Blackboard and Moodle you see that that is the focus of those systems, and they almost totally forgot the content side. And that in turn is the reason a lot of content creators turn to Drupal.
Back to more important issues:
In order to build a powerful LMS, we need to look at the good features in the existing commercial and OSS like Blackboard, Moodle, Sakai, etc and the areas where improvements are needed. Since the LMS will be Drupal based, we also need to address the shortcomings in Drupal. I am preparing a document detailing challenges in existing LMSs which i will share at a later time. People on this list, who have implemented LMS for large sites, should also share the hurdles, they have faced, in relation to performance, and other optimization issues.
HERE HERE!!!
I will be working on developing a list of features as well. From here is where we should start.
If you wait by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.
I think it would be helpful
I think it would be helpful to also look at features of some of the commercial LMS's. I've worked with GeoLearning, Plateau, and TOPYX, for instance.
Wanted features
Yep, that's also something I posted. And that does again in no way state that Moodle is not flexible, like you claim I did.
But indeed, back to the topic at hand. Gmasky already started a features/component list here:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/63248
Collaboration and participation are key
In "Open Source: Narrowing the Divide between Education, Business, and Community", Tim O'Reilly is cited:
I think that Drupal as a platform is very well suited to build such an architecture on.
BTW, great idea -- let's have a BOF in Munich! Of course with a Mass or two. ;-)
Jochen Lillich, CTO freistilbox Managed Drupal Hosting
LMS, content, didactics
I would like to agree with you, but its not easy to do so.
Moodle provides the source code, which you can modify to suit your needs including look and feel. Blackboard is commercial with licenses at over $50,000, however, you can pay to have the design modified.
LMS, content, didactics
I'm not sure what you want to say exactly.
True, both Moodle and Blackboard (with Building Blocks) have ways for a programmer to extend their functionality, but Drupal is a lot easier to extend.
When looking at didactics, the traditional LMSs have actually very little to offer. But a plain Drupal install has not much more to offer! The power of Drupal when it comes to didactics is the available modules, the ease with which you can make a module and (most important) the fact that Drupal does not limit you in any way. A teacher can structure his content in the way that he thinks is best for his education.
There are no didactics involved in the design of DrupaLMS, as long as that flexibility remains. That's what I meant with "Didactics are in the content, not the LMS".
re: LMS, content, didactics
Moodle does not limit you in any way. I am not spokesperson for moodle, and i dont think there is one platform which is perfect (i stated this earlier). The reality is that open source software is usually developed to meet a specific need. Am sure you know this. The developers of Moodle, designed it for a specific purpose, but they didn't put limits (read open source).
So you are free to make changes, go to forums, or pay a developer.
I read a post comparing sakai and moodle, and the author was not only biased (due to commercial interests in sakai), but also displayed his limited knowledge on the subject. He started by disputing the statistics of moodle users, and said most of the stats come from high school students, who have downloaded a copy on their pc.
In conclusion, you can use Drupal, Moodle, Blackboard, or MS Word, whichever solves your need, then you are good to go. When you state, that this platform, is not flexible (has very little to offer), some people might wrongly believe you. A better approach is to say, i was not able to do this (in the forums), and you might get a solution.
re: LMS, content, didactics
Next time you reply to a post, please click the "reply" link on that post, so your post is nested below the one you reply to and the context isn't lost.
Of course every piece of software has a focus. I think the focus of the standard LMSs is very different from the focus of Drupal. That's why I use both Moodle AND Drupal for the things they do best.
I've never said that Moodle limits you on any way. In my definition, being flexible is not the same as having much to offer. The latter refers to the existing feature set, while the former refers to how easy it is to extend that feature set. In my experience with both Moodle and Drupal, when it comes to content management I've found that it's easier to extend Drupal than it is to extend Moodle, since the focus of Drupal is content management. That might have changed in the most recent versions of Moodle of course.
When I had to pick a system I already knew that nether Drupal nor Moodle would do what I wanted out of the box. So nether had much to offer in terms of features I needed. So I had to put effort into making either do what I want, and when I noticed that it's easier to make Drupal do what I want I went with that one. Especially since they are both open source.
But if someone needs LMS features and not CMS features, they're probably better of with Moodle as things are now.
Regardless of that all and back to the topic of this little sub-thread that was started by tha ray, I think didactics are an aspect of the Content feature set, already covered by Drupal, and not the LMS feature set that we might want to add to Drupal. So as long as the "LMS-module" does not reduce the content-management features of Drupal the discussion about the "LMS-module" does not need to address many didactic discussions.
Drupal & Moodle
Hi Guys,
I've been following this discussion since DrupalCon SF, and have been wondering where to chime in.
On the Drupal vs Moodle question, one option is to use both. Over the past year a dev group I work with has been integrating Moodle & Drupal for a number of large learning communities that require what both Drupal and Moodle have to offer.
We add Moodle to the mix because it's very good at what it does (providing a wide range of complex course options), and because many clients already rely on it. Although we do develop for Moodle, it's a developer's nightmare compared to Drupal, and not good as a single solution from our perspective.
For our LMS solutions, we use Drupal as the forward-facing site because different communities want different things for their website, and it's easy to do this in Drupal. More than a CMS on steroids, Drupal is a fully extendable web framework for building (almost literally) any kind of site imaginable. It has an amazing developer-driven community (also open to non-developers), which churns out super-rad modular solutions every day that we can all use to plug 'n play for our own needs.
Functionally speaking, Drupal is the main system that ties everything together for us, because it works well with other systems. Last year at DrupalCon DC, there was a session called Promiscuous Drupal, which has stuck with me. The main thrust of that presentation was to show how Drupal can be one tool among many, and how Drupal in particular can play nice with other tools through web APIs. So as opposed to having separate Drupal and Moodle installations (or trying to do everything in either system), we've worked to integrate the two because the learning communities we work with need what both have to offer and are looking for a seamless experience.
Development so far has lead to a product called EthosCE, which leverages how we've integrated Moodle & Drupal. We're working to finish abstracting our main modules enough to contribute back on d.o. as soon as we can.
In the current version we also rely heavily on Drupal's Organic groups, Spaces, and Features modules to extend reproducible features on the Drupal side. It'd be great to talk more about this way of doing things here... because a lot of that is sharable.
Anyway, although we don't have modules ready for you to test-drive yet, we're working on contributing that asap for community feedback and contribute to these larger shared goals. In the meantime, we're definitely interested in connecting with other people here about LMS solutions that can work for various kinds of learning communities.
sounds promising
Integration with Moodle sounds like an excellent idea. Any idea how soon your solution will be ready for d.o? Will there be a Drupal7 version?
Full Circle
Reading your comment I could not agree more. While I am certainly becoming a Drupal fan for almost everything web-related, I find it hard to believe that it would be a good use of the Drupal community's time to re-create another open-source LMS system on the Drupal platform.
That being said, what would be the starting point for someone to want to add LMS functionality to Drupal? What kind of site would need extending and what would be the short-term and long-term goal? Perhaps a corporate user community site? Perhaps an association site?
My bias perhaps, but I see Drupal as the core aggregation platform for lots and lots of community-provided content, sliced, diced, and prioritized however the community or even individual users want it. Turning that content into courses would be my personal goal for an LMS. Now, if that can be accomplished more easily by exporting SCORM (are there other standards?) packages from Drupal and importing them into a dedicated LMS, then that might just be a good significant first step, no?
maybe
There is an existing module (http://drupal.org/project/scorm) that offers SCORM export. As far as other standards, there is AICC, but I don't know much about it. It came out of the aviation industry, and it's been around a long time.
Anything we export from Drupal to SCORM would immediately become static. My preference is to build dynamic content in Drupal and keep it dynamic. If we can draw in SCORM stuff from another location, and integrate that with the true Drupal content, it would be awesome.
Several of the existing scorm authoring tools are easy enough for a faculty member to use out of the box with no training. These tools have established a usability standard Drupal is a long, long way from achieving.
I'm going to have to go watch that presentation on Promiscuous Drupal.
It looks like Eduglu,
It looks like Eduglu, OpenAtrium type stuff and EthosCE are similar. Which is a good sign, right? That so many smart people are using the same tools. I know you said you are working on releasing modules. Also installation profiles, and modules you created with features to get the job done as well as the custom modules you needed to write?
Guess I'm looking to get oriented to the LMS workspace as it relates to drupal (and integration with moodle).
Cathy Theys
Need SSO from from Drupal to Moodle
Do you have SSO module working in your solution or you have a hack that works? We need it for one of our client and have not find a solution yet. Please help or advice. Thanks!
ServanTek
Serving with technology
http://servantek.org.ua
If you setup Shibboleth you
If you setup Shibboleth you can just it use it along with http://drupal.org/project/shib_auth and http://docs.moodle.org/en/Shibboleth We do this.
Drupal evangelist.
www.CoderintheRye.com
Moodle integration
Hi,
See http://docs.moodle.org/en/Integration_FAQ for some pointers from the other side ;-)
hth
Frank
Frank
My LinkedIn profile
Shared sessioning
We've used several different methods. Our current method of choice for Drupal/Moodle shared sessioning is Moodle’s contrib Drupal Auth plugin.
Code has not been committed to CVS yet for Course module, but when we do that will also have instructions for setting this up... coming soon :)
Shared sessioning
Scott, is this similar method that is described here Drupal SSO for Drupal/Moodle sites that share both domain name and database?
Will your method apply to Drupal hosted on main domain and Moodle on a subdomain?
I am looking forward to more information. Thanks for sharing, I will be monitoring the posts.
ServanTek
Serving with technology
http://servantek.org.ua
I see the Course module... others?
We're very interested in trying the open source version, possibly hosting with you folks in the future. Which modules do I need to set up to try this? I see that the Course module is now up at http://drupal.org/project/course -- what else is needed?
The Course project page
The Course project page should help you get started. There is also a list there with a bunch of supported modules (course_quiz, course_webform etc).
Under the "extras" is a link to the Moodle support project (https://drupal.org/project/course_moodle) which we branched out from core Course module. Course is pretty stable, but the Moodle integration still needs some work (on both ends, in Drupal and Moodle for webservice support).
Thanks
I've got most of the course module bits installed and enabled now, though I can't get course_moodle working yet. I tripped over quite a few dependencies while trying to install Course that weren't listed on the project page.... UUID, Chart, SCORM, etc. I'm going to experiment with creating courses in Drupal, but we're really very interested in the Moodle integration. Do you have this working as part of EthosCE, or do you need development support?
Foundation for an LMS
You may want to look at the work being done at the Penn State eLearning Institute as a starting point for a LMS model - https://elearning.psu.edu/elearning/elms
summary observations
I have some observations that might answer some questions posed above.
What is an LMS?
My first observation is the various definitions of LMS. Did you know that before LMS became the one way to describe all learning systems, that there were other acronyms? For instance:
Course Management System (CMS)
Learning Content Management System (LCMS)
Both of these are the more descriptive way of defining which type of LMS you are talking about. Go ahead and google these two. You will see different results and for a reason.
In the old days, systems like Bb, WebCT, Angel, and Moodle were called course management systems. Why? Because they were designed to give higher ed instructors an online environment that could facilitate common classroom activities such as discussions, collaborative writing, homework submission, assignment support, and lectures. Traditional learning activities (e.g., didactics).
So, where did LCMS come in? These have been around for awhile and offered by companies who specialized in SW that produced computer-based training (you remember CBTs?). One day the DoD learned that the computer based training materials/courses that had been migrated to Internet-based management systems were being done so on proprietary systems. They learned that they couldn't move "page-turners" or learning games or simulation packages from one LCMS to another. SO ... SCORM was defined.
The government said protocols needed to be put in place and all learning experience developers had to comply so that the government didn't have to commit to one LCMS. The LCMS needed to be able to take any packaged learning experience and manage it (access, student access, completion rates, sequencing, etc). The LCMS for CBT-like learning packages were not originally designed to have a class roster, discussion, homework submission, student-to-student interactions, instructor-to-student interactions. I would wager that many out there still don't.
What is the difference between corporate training and academic education systems?
Do you see the difference given the above? Until recently, the learning experiences for corporate and government were about delivering content and interactions for the individual learner. AND this is still the case in many situations. Side note - The DAU offers both CMS and LCMS environments BTW.
Some higher ed institutions with money are creating and using SCORM packages to deliver content. Book editors are creating packages that load into Bb and similar course management systems. Bb is supporting SCORM. BUT learning in higher ed is much more than training page-turners, simulations, and games. It is about the student-to-student and instructor-to-student interactions. Course management systems are focused on managing all aspects of a course and its students. It may or may not be integrated with the University registrar / grade system.
Corporate LCMS are more about offering bundles of learning experiences designed for a particular role in a corporation and then tracking the interactive performance of the corporate learner in the learning packages. Learners enter and exit courses in an LCMS on their own schedule because these types of systems are designed for self-paced experiences. Some corporate learning environments go in the higher ed direction also but I would venture not many (from my experience). AND when they do, they aren't using only their corporate LCMS where they have their 1-hr SCORM compliant packages running.
What should be the focus?
Depends ....
Accept the fact that higher ed model is about course management and for the most part is NOT following the corporate/government training SCORM compliant training model. They are simulating the semester long classroom activities. If lectures (content delivery) are being offered, they are often using many different tools (screencast, ppt, pdf, html page-turner, etc). This is why Bb, WebCT, Angel, Moodle are popular COURSE management systems with higher ed. They help instructors facilitate learning.
Accept that the majority of corporate/government LCMS's have historically been designed to manage the learning content packages. Did you know that the SCORM geniuses actually thought that sequencing SCOs was not part of what an LMS should do? ...hence the late addition of sequence management protocols to SCORM.
that's my 2 cents.
corporate vs. academic
I like your post idcm, especially the distinctions you made between corporate and academic systems. Which takes me back to my original question of 4/25: which direction will this group take? Personally I would love to see a Drupal-based open source LMS to serve the corporate market, the market that my company serves. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. However, I think the group needs to decide based on factors such as: current and potential future competing systems, open source and proprietary; consulting opportunities around a Drupal-based system; and personal interests of the developers.
Competencies in Drupal
If you are interested in learning management, maybe you are interested in competencies. I have been working with some folks from the curriculum group and we are trying to define a way to collect, distribute, manage, etc. Drupal competencies.
This is a first stab at some requirements for the "system" - http://groups.drupal.org/node/81754
You can get caught up with the discussions at http://groups.drupal.org/taxonomy/term/20858
dive in and make your requirements list
Given Drupal's modularity, I would recommend making a list of all the functionality you need in a LMS (corporate or higher ed) and then create the modules to add that functionality. To make the list, my recommendation. Each person create a post with ONE functionality your LMS will need. Let each thread be flushed out.
Remember - many learning management related modules already exist. You might find that 2 out 10 functions listed can be done already or it could 8 out 10 - who knows. Create your post, do a search in DO, if you find one or modules that are close to what you want, come back and post that information - what works in those modules and what doesn't.
An overall view of the functionality posts list from everyone could reveal a framework that is needed to manage things - again, who knows.
Tip, don't mix functionality - like student grades with online discussions. Some functions will be rolled together in the long run but depending on what you want, it could mean separate modules so people can pick and choose what they want and build the Drupal LMS of their dreams.