Facebook Integration

eFront allows users to connect to the platform via their Facebook account. By using the Facebook connection some info from Facebook is transferred to efront (specifically the user status and avatar). If the eFront user changes his/her status this change is also reflected on his/her Facebook profile.

The administrator enables the Facebook integration though the system settings and the Facebook tab (in ‘External tools’) by entering the Facebook API key and secret code. The admin can then choose to allow connection with Facebook, Facebook data acquisition (avatar and status exchanges) and the external login to eFront through a Facebook account.

The basic steps to create the FB integration are outlined below, or you can go directly to our wiki page for more on social extensions.

1. Go to http://developers.facebook.com/ and click on “Create new App”

2. Give a name to the application

3. Below is an example of settings you have to set up. Save your API Key and secret code because you will need it to enable the connection.

4. Go to eFront as admin and select: System Settings -> External tools -> Facebook. Add the API key and secret code and enable all Facebook options

5. Logout of eFront. You should now see a new option to login with your Facebook account!

If you’re confused about the differences between a learning management system (LMS) and a learning content management system (LCMS), you’re not alone. Not only are the names similar, some suppliers are positioning LCMSs as the new wave of LMSs. In fact, an LMS and an LCMS are complementary but very different systems that serve different masters and address unique business challenges.

In essence, an LMS is a high-level, strategic solution for planning, delivering, and managing all learning events within an organization, including online, virtual classroom, and instructor-led courses. The primary solution is replacing isolated and fragmented learning programs with a systematic means of assessing and raising competency and performance levels throughout the organization. For example, an LMS simplifies global certification efforts, enables companies to align learning initiatives with strategic goals, and provides a viable means of enterprise-level skills management. The focus of an LMS is to manage learners, keeping track of their progress and performance across all types of training activities. It performs heavy-duty administrative tasks, such as reporting to HR and other ERP systems but isn’t generally used to create course content.

In contrast, the focus of an LCMS is on learning content. It gives authors, instructional designers, and subject matter experts the means to create e-learning content more efficiently. The primary business problem an LCMS solves is to create just enough content just in time to meet the needs of individual learners or groups of learners.

Rather than developing entire courses and adapting them to multiple audiences, instructional designers create reusable content chunks and make them available to course developers throughout the organization. This eliminates duplicate development efforts and allows for the rapid assembly of customized content.

How does an LCMS fit within an LMS infrastructure?

Because an LMS can have a direct impact on the work of thousands of learners and manages all aspects of organizational learning, experts recommend starting with an LMS that can be easily integrated with an LCMS.

IDC’s report : The Learning Content Management System: A New E-Learning Market Segment Emerges explains: “LCMSs and LMSs are not only distinct from one another, they also complement each other well. When tightly integrated, information from the two systems can be exchanged, ultimately resulting in a richer learning experience for the user and a more comprehensive tool for the learning administrator. An LMS can manage communities of users, allowing each of them to launch the appropriate objects stored and managed by the LCMS. In delivering the content, the LCMS also bookmarks the individual learner’s progress, records test scores, and passes them back to the LMS for reporting purposes.”

Differences and overlap

Both an LMS and an LCMS manage course content and track learner performance.

Both tools can manage and track content at a learning object level, too. An LMS, however, can manage and track blended courses and curriculum assembled from online content, classroom events, virtual classroom meetings and a variety of other sources. Although an LCMS doesn’t manage blended learning, it does manage content at a lower level of granularity than a learning object, which allows organizations to more easily restructure and repurpose online content. In addition, advanced LCMSs can dynamically build learning objects based on user profiles and learning styles. When both systems adhere to XML standards, information is passed easily from the object level to the LMS level. The following chart, based primarily on research conducted by Brandon Hall, summarizes the capabilities and differences between the two systems:

For more, please refer to the original article

This week I would like to share my favorite YouTube videos on the subject!

1. Using Facebook to teach: Bullis School teacher Sara Romeyn talks about using Facebook as a teaching tool in her AP U.S. History Class.

2. Facebook used in the college classroom: Since 2011, Niagara County Community College Instructor Kara Morhous Spoth has used Facebook groups to enhance her English 102 classes. A Facebook group allows members to communicate with one another, and to receive notification of what the administrator posts on the group’s wall. Faculty can use a Facebook group to post audio and visual supplements to class material; notify members of upcoming events and schedule changes; provide a digital space for members to ask questions and post comments on the group’s wall; and give members the option to use group chat and Facebook messages to study for tests and discuss upcoming tasks.

3. Social networking sites have educational benefits: University of Minnesota researcher Christine Greenhow breaks down how her research has found that social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace can have an impact for learning and educational growth for high school students. By working with students in a Minneapolis high school to study how they use the social sites, she has discovered that the benefits may just outweigh any risks.
This video is part of the Expert Perspectives series at the University of Minnesota.

It’s also relatively easy to create apps for Facebook, making it a great canvas for developers to add cool new functionality and get users involved pretty quickly. We have written about Facebook apps for elearning before in this post!

For those interested in using Facebook with students the following links may be of use: [Resource: Facebook as an “interactive learning resource”?]

1) Stephen Heppell: Using Facebook in the Classroom This page outlines the dos and don’ts of using Facebook with students. Examples include the following (and much more):

• Do – build a separate teacher page for your “teacher” presence.
• Do – keep your teacher and personal page very separate
• Do – post pictures of school/lessons/trips – even diagrams you put on the board (snap them with your phone and post them) – it reminds students that you are there, generates a pride in the school and reminds them that this is not a vacuous space!
• Don’t – ‘friend’ students yourself – not even as your “teacher” presence.
• Don’t – accept complete ignorance of Facebook as an excuse for dangerous school policies like blanket bans. Instead offer to be an action researcher, and try it out for a year.

2) Perceptions of undergraduate Graphic Design students on the educational potential of Facebook  Abstract: The popularity of Facebook among university students inevitably raises questions on the educational potential of this Social Networking Site for Higher Education. From the limited literature on the instructional uses of Facebook, one can draw conflicting conclusions. Benefits were identified through the communicative potential, student participation in study groups and through informal learning, i.e. learning that takes place outside the formal structures of the learning environment. In contrast, it is also argued that the instructional benefits of Facebook are not straightforward. This phenomenographic investigation examines the perceptions of undergraduate Graphic Design students in a higher education institution, on the use of Facebook for teaching and learning. Characteristic of Art and Design education is the centrality of the studio and student self-reflection. Despite some literature that considers Facebook provides a viable alternative to the physical studio, the participants in this investigation expressed a preference for face-to-face instruction and consider Facebook as complimenting rather than replacing studio practices. Some participants benefited from the use of Facebook by joining support groups and exploring information relevant to their studies. Further research can investigate how Facebook can be embedded in studio-based teaching and learning.

The study found that “the interviewees in this investigation perceive educational benefits based on the communicative potential of Facebook. The diversity in the form and pattern of use poses less of a challenge for not all Facebook activities promote communication and it would be possible to focus on those that do.”

Official citation for this article is: Souleles, N. 2012. Perceptions of undergraduate Graphic Design students on the educational potential of Facebook. Research in Learning Technology 20: 17490. http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v20i0.17490

3) Students’ perceptions of using Facebook as an interactive learning resource at university This article is published in the AJET (Australasian Journal of Educational Technology) and has a good amount of data to support the assumption that students would use Facebook as part of their learning. The article states that Facebook as a “learning aid suggests that it has the potential to promote collaborative and cooperative learning” but further study is required to investigate how it can enhance the learning outcome.

Official citation for this article is: Irwin, C., Ball, L., Desbrow, B. & Leveritt, M. (2012). Students’ perceptions of using Facebook as an interactive learning resource at university. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 28(7), 1221-1232. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet28/irwin.html

4) I’ll See You On “Facebook”: The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate  Another good academic article on the “effects of teacher self-disclosure via Facebook on anticipated college student motivation, affective learning, and classroom climate”. The study concludes that “certain forms of face-to-face self-disclosure can have disastrous effects on teacher credibility” and that “teachers can strategically reveal pictures, quotes, and personal information that present them as competent and trustworthy instructors who have the students’ best interests in mind”.

Official citation for this article is: Joseph P. Mazer, Richard E. Murphy & Cheri J. Simonds (2007): I’ll See You On “Facebook”: The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate, Communication Education, 56:1, 1-17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03634520601009710

5) Student engagement – differences between the VLE and Facebook This quote sums it up nicely:  “In the main, the Facebook page, which is run by and for the students without tutor involvement, is centred on support for learning and skills development and in every case I saw, answers to problems that emerged from discussions were factually correct. In addition, the students offer one another impressive levels of support and encouragement. From the evidence of their own Facebook group, then, students are not unwilling to work and learn collaboratively.” Read the full article for more!

In my next post I will share my favorite YouTube videos for using Facebook for elearning!

To install the eFront WordPress plugin go to: Administration Panels > Plugins > Add New and search for eFront. Find the plugin and click Install Now.

Installing eFront WP plugin

Alternatively, you can download the eFront WP plugin (v2.2.4) from here. After downloading the plugin, extract its contents into the WordPress plugins folder. You can find more information about managing and installing WordPress plugins here.

After you install the plugin you can find it in the list of installed plugins (Administration Panels > Plugins > Installed Plugin). There click on the link ‘Activate’.

Setup

After activating the plugin in order to be able to use the eFront features you need to setup some eFront details.

Go to Administration Panels > Plugins > eFront

Fill the required fields with the details for your corresponding TalentLMS domain.

• eFront Domain: The eFront domain which you want your WordPress site to link to
• eFront Admin Username: The username of an administrator’s account in your eFront domain
• eFront Admin Password: The password of the corresponding administrator’s account in your eFront domain

Attention!!

In order for your eFront WP plugin to work, you have to enable the XML API in your eFront installation. To do so  login to your eFront domain with an administrator’s account and go to System Settings > External tools. There, click the Enable XML API option and make sure to configure which Ips are allowed to connect to the API. Click save and you are ready to go.

Activating your XML API in your eFront system

Attention!!

In order for the plugin to best integrate with WordPress you MUST change your Common Settings in the Administration Panels > Settings > Permalinks to other than default (we strongly advise that you use Post name)

Using the plugin

eFront WP plugin current offers two shortcode commands (more details here). You can use these two shortcodes in any page or post you like. Those two are:

-          [efront-catalog]
This shortcode command allows you to list your eFront lessons and courses in their corresponding categories in some WP page or post.

-          [efront-signup]
This shortcode command allows you to have a signup form for new users to register to your eFront system.

As soon as you activate the plugin two WordPress pages are instantly created (more details on WP Pages here). The first one is called Catalog and the second one is called Signup and each one contains the corresponding aforementioned shortcode.

Cache Control

eFront WP plugin is automatically caching all the data (courses, lessons, users etc) it retrieves from the corresponding eFront domain for optimal performance. If you need to flush your cache or to update your data stored in there by the plugin, you should clear your cache first. You can do this by going to Administration Panels > eFront and clicking Clear cache.

eFront Options – Customizing your Catalog and your Signup Page

eFront options page – Customizing templates for catalog and signup page

You can customize your Catalog and your Signup page by going to Administration Panels > eFront > eFront Options. There you can find all the available options about the catalog and the signup page.

Catalog:

You can choose between two different templates for your catalog. The first template allows you to have your lessons and courses presented in a table with pagination enabled or not. And your courses’ and lessons’ categories on the side. You can customize the place where the categories are going to show up, how many items (lessons and courses) you are going to have per page and whether you shall have pagination links on top, on bottom or both of the list of your courses and lessons.

An example of this template you can see in the following screenshot, where categories are placed on top of courses and lessons, three items are shown per page and there are pagination links both on top and at the bottom of your lessons and courses.

Catalog table template

The second template allows you to have a list of your courses, lessons and their categories in a tree-like representation. The following screenshot shows an example of this template.

Catalog tree template

Signup:

For allowing new users to register to your eFront system through your WordPress site you can customize the signup process as following.

You can choose to have your users stay in WordPress after they have successfully signed up or redirect them in your eFront system.

Furthermore, you can choose whether you want each of your newly registered users to your eFront system to be registered (as subscribers – more on WP roles here) to your WordPress site or not.

eFront Sync

eFront options page – Sync users

If you want to synchronize your eFront and WordPress users you can go to Administration Panels > eFront > eFront Sync. By doing this eFront users will be synchronized with WordPress users. If you choose to perform a hard synch, this will force the details of your WordPress users to be overwritten by the corresponding details in your eFront system.

eFront Edit CSS

eFront options page – Edit eFront WP plugin CSS rules

Users can add/remove or modify css rules that come along with eFront WP plugin. You can use this advanced feature to customize the way your WordPress site and the eFront plugin integrate.

Extending eFront WP plugin

If you want to extend the functionality of the eFront WP plugin take a look at the at this guide to Writing a Plugin. You are going to need PHP development skills to do so.

eFront WP plugin is a wrapper around eFront API. For more details about eFront XML API which is used for communicating with third-party applications check here.

Feel free to extend the Plugin to use any other functionality that is made possible by the API.

Sign #1: 75% of packages are still on SCORM 1.2, 10 years after the initial release of SCORM 2004 [1] [2]

Sign #2: There is no certification process for tools and packages for the latest SCORM 2004 4^th edition. This is the case although several years have passed since 4^th release. Currently, someone can be a 4^th edition adopter but *not* certified. [3]

Sign #3: ADL itself heavily supports Tin Can as the successor of SCORM.[4]

In essence, SCORM 2004 always lived in the shadow of SCORM 1.2. Now, with the introduction of Tin Can API it seems certain that its adoption rate will decline even further.

Reasons SCORM 2004 Failed

There are a multitude of reasons why SCORM 2004 failed. Here are most prominent (and yes, we refer to SCORM 2004 in the past tense quite deliberately):

Complexity

The major contribution of SCORM 2004 was the “simple sequencing model”. In fact, it was anything but simple. It was a lot of work for LMS vendors to implement and more importantly, it was too complex for many courseware developers to use. Even the simplest of sequencing required a room full of flow-chart diagrams, dozens of field settings – and even then you needed to be an expert to actually understand what it was doing.

The sad fact is that SCORM 2004 had some nice extensions over SCORM 1.2 which generally made sense, but was hidden under the sequential model nightmare.

For example, a major problem with SCORM 1.2 was that when you took a SCORM quiz there was no way for the LMS to know what the actual questions were. You could access the kind of the question, the correct response, the student response and the score – but not the actual question. This is one of the areas where SCORM 2004 was profoundly better than SCORM 1.2. It included a full text question description and a descriptive identifier for answers. This meant that you could do some effective reporting on questions and the distribution of answers. It was a dramatic improvement but only a few took notice.

Low adoption

This was a side-effect of high complexity. Pedagogically, SCORM 2004 offered important new opportunities but at a disproportional cost.  In other words, the added benefits from the standard were unbalanced by its complexity. The end result was low adoption from vendors and instructional designers.

Even when vendors offered support for SCORM 2004 this was handicapped to great extent. For example, many rapid elearning tools that are available for creating courses DO NOT allow you to build anything easily other than basic SCORM 2004. Almost none of them have an interface for creating a dynamically sequenced Multi-SCO package.

Technology shift

10 years is a long time. Since SCORM 2004 was introduced new technologies have come and gone, smartphones have become mainstream, gamification has been introduced, Cloud & lean solutions are hot topics. We are living in a much different, and more connected, world yet SCORM is still an isolated, browser-based, LMS-centered standard. SCORM 2004 had to change in order to adapt to such a dramatically different environment and rather than do that ADL decided to save itself the trouble and start from scratch through what we now know as Tin Can or Experience API (xAPI)

On not being pragmatic

When SCORM was first introduced it answered a real-world problem – that of the standardization of learning packaging and delivery. And it succeeded because until that point in time there was no adequate way to do that job. On the other hand SCORM 2004 tried to address less obvious problems. It had a higher vision and tried to allow or enforce sound pedagogical concepts but was proven less pragmatic.

There is one important real-world issue that SCORM 2004 deliberately avoided dealing with and that is making SCORM a concrete standard. SCORM is a reference model and not a true standard – you can’t plug this into a wall and have everyone work the same way. There is still too much variation in how compliant LMSs implement UIs associated with the SCORM engine. Will content be loaded in a new window? A frameset? How large a window? How will the table of contents be presented? What navigation request does closing the browser imply? Content authors should be able to rely on a consistent set of UI expectations.

Lessons to be learned and the Tin Can future

Tin Can is trying to succeed where SCORM 2004 failed. Nothing is perfect though as ADL admits [5]. Ongoing compromises are not a bad thing per se, but can certainly be tricky.[6]

Simplicity matters

It seems like the need for simplicity is something that Tin Can endorses. Simplicity drives adoption and without adoption no standard can succeed. In essence Tin Can is much simpler that SCORM 2004 and even simpler than SCORM 1.2 (still, on the latest 0.95 and upcoming version 1 of the standard some complexity elements emerge like support for multiple languages – in essence this is good but comes with higher complexity for technology providers).

Technology-shifts can render you irrelevant

Another important characteristic of Tin Can is that it is actually technologically ‘agnostic’. It can be used inside the LMS, outside the LMS, embedded in a mobile phone or in a videogame. That provides some assurance against technology-shifts and opens new possibilities for capturing interesting learning interactions from informal activities.

Ongoing project support is important

An interesting decision regarding Tin Can is that ADL hired a company to drive the Tin Can project (Rustici Software). What that means for the future of the standard is still not clear, however, currently, the marketing and support effort is much improved.

Freedom and Standardization are opposite forces

Unfortunately, Tin Can does not help in the path towards standardization. It does however offer even more freedom to content creators by letting them, for example, define their own verbs used on statements. Interoperability of content between LMSs is somewhat improved due to the simpler messaging system and absence of Javascript; however, standardization of presentation will not be benefited from Tin Can as it is shaped today.

Resources

1. http://scorm.com/blog/2011/08/scorm-stats-then-and-now/
2. http://scorm.com/scorm-stats/
3. http://www.adlnet.gov/scorm/scorm-certification
4. http://www.adlnet.gov/the-definite-indefinite-future-of-scorm
5. http://scorm.com/project-tin-can-phase-3-known-weaknesses/
6. http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/street/pl38/comp.htm

The most notable addition to this version is Tin Can support. We took the time to bundle also several UI improvements, a WordPress integration plugin, a new introductory course, and a number of additional enhancements  to make your favorite learning tool even better.

So check out what’s new!

Tin Can

This is the first version of eFront with internal support for Tin Can.  eFront has implemented the 0.95 version of the standard, which is the most recent one. On top of the implementation you will find a robust way to filter down the reports per user, action or module.

Simple / Complete mode

eFront is becoming more complete with each version. Completeness comes with an unavoidable complexity factor. Starting with this version eFront offers a simple/complete switch on the header than can hide or reveal several elements. And here’s the best part:  you can fully customize the simple/complete behavior from Settings > Customization.

UI improvements

This version makes use of several bootstrap elements for popups and drop-down menus. We also introduce a redesigned header and a Go-to dropdown menu on admin for instant access to common functions.

Introductory Course

All new installations come bundled with a short introductory course about eFront. This is based on the brand new eFront videos you can find on our YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/eFrontLearning/videos?view=0

WordPress plugin

We have created a WordPress plugin that may come in handy for anyone that wanting to further customize his/her learning portal. With this plugin you can achieve the following:

1. List your eFront courses and lessons and their content in WordPress.
2. Allow your users to signup to eFront through WordPress.
3. Allow your users to get or buy eFront courses or lessons.
4. Achieve good integration performance through caching.

You can find more info on this plugin and download it for free from the following URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/efront/ and a sample implementation at: http://wpdemo.efrontlearning.net/

Other improvements

This version comes with several additional improvements on Certification, Relative lessons schedule and Facebook integration fixes.

For a detailed log of changes and related discussions check the forum post at: http://forum.efrontlearning.net/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7983

eFront LMS has been a Best of Elearning! award winner for the past 2 consecutive years and we need your help to make it 3 years in a row!

If you have 1 minute (and you know you do! ) please click on the link below to vote for eFront Learning in the following categories:

• Category #1: Best Learning Management System (SaaS, Cloud-based, or open-source only)
• Category #2: Best Learning Management System (Enterprise-based, behind the firewall)
• Category #27: Best Open Source Solutions (Any category)

Here’s all you need to do:

1. Click on the “vote now” link below
2. Fill in categories 1, 2 &/or 27 with your own reasons of course
3. Scroll down the page, fill in your details and click submit!

Click to vote now

And here’s why your vote matters to us

“In a recent survey, more than 85% of respondents have personally recommended an e-learning solution to a peer over the last 12 months. And, 61% agreed that award-recognition impacted their decision to consider or purchase from the vendor. The Elearning! Awards program formalizes this process by publishing the recommendations of e-learning users and honoring “Best-in-Class” solutions.” ~ ELearning! Magazine

If you’re interested in seeing previous winners (& we were amongst them ) – please click here

Thank you from the team at eFront!

So, when developing online learning materials, it’s important to define the content that needs to be learned; determine what the learner must do as a result of completing these learning materials, and so decide on the most appropriate ‘treatment’ for the content. Users must interact with online learning materials to navigate through the materials; amass information and make decisions.

Considering what the learner needs to know or do – rather than what the teacher wants to teach – involves you in ‘interactivity’. So here are ten things to bear in mind about interactivity when you’re developing online learning materials:

1. Allow the learners to control their learning – so they’re more likely to engage with the whole learning activity. You should always let them see where they’re going on their learning journey and what options they have at each stage of that journey.
2. You should cater for different preferred learning styles. Not everyone wants to engage with the same type of interaction. Offer learners choices of interaction to go some way to ‘personalising’ the materials and so generate maximum engagement and motivation.
3. Give the learners a reason to explore the materials and gather the information they need. Don’t ‘push’ information at them. Rather, let the learners ‘pull’ that information from the learning materials.
4. Challenge the learners’ understanding – not just to find out how much they already know and, so, how much they need to learn but also to make them receptive to new ideas and ways of doing things.
5. Give the learners choice over how they’ll learn – building in opportunities for those who need more information to get it as well as for those who need less information to learn by experiment and experience.
6. Emphasise – in the learning materials - that these choices produce consequences. This can be done via establishing a scenario with various results depending on the learners’ decisions.
7. Generate ‘tension’ throughout the materials. If you make learners care about the decisions they take, they’ll become more engaged with the learning materials and motivated to not only ‘succeed’ within the parameters of the learning materials but also to apply, in the real world, the lessons they’ve learned.
8. Look for other ways – that is, things not specifically related to the materials’ learning objectives – to reward the learner for persevering with the learning materials. This could include permission to play a game (contained within the learning materials) for a while once certain key points are reached.
9. Give helpful feedback following any assessments the learners take. That’s easier said than done!
10. Make the materials look attractive to the user. Visually attractive materials aren’t necessarily the most effective – but if they’re not visually attractive, they won’t attract learners’ attention and, so, they’ll be ineffective anyway.

Instituted tastefully, interaction can help to make learning materials more intuitive for the user – making their message more memorable.

There are many online learning authoring tools on the market – offering a wide range of features and functionality. In this market, open source solutions are not as well evolved as they are in the LMS market, but some developments are taking place in this area.

Among the current key rapid authoring tools are:

• Adobe Captivate – Not for the dilettante, being priced at some £1,750. Adobe has had to address HTML5 issues and, no doubt, will embrace the issues posed by the up-and-coming Tin Can.
• Articulate – The Storyline product is proving popular but is still closely allied to converting PowerPoint into Flash.
• Camtasia – The Camtasia suite is a series of screen capture products, and Camtasia Relay could be of interest for lecture/presentation capture and then integration into, say, Lectora.
• Composica – An Israeli product that is widely used by professional e-learning authoring houses. It copes well with Middle Eastern and East Asian text – and ‘thin client’ infrastructures.
• Jackdaw – A British product that uses template screens to speed up production and can create engaging environments giving a 3D context to the learning.
• Lectora – A popular choice of authoring tool – especially with the professional development community – suited to materials dealing with detailed as well as mere ‘procedural’ learning.  Lectora will publish both Flash and HTML5 for Apps and rendering through iPads and smartphones. It complies with SCORM 1.2, 2004, AICC, Tin Can (Lectora 11 onwards) and XML.
• Mohive – Now part of the French leadership and management business, CrossKnowledge, but originally developed in Scandinavia, it doesn’t – as yet – appear to have an HTML5 publishing output and there seems to be no mention of Tin Can. Mohive could be said to sit in the market above Articulate and Captivate and below Lectora and Raptivity.
• Quick Lessons – A Brazilian product that creates simple content, supports several authoring teams and publishes via Uzzui to Facebook. This hosted solution appears to be weak on HTML5 and doesn’t have a clear Tin Can upgrade path – yet.
• Rapid Intake and Easy Generator – A cloud-hosted tool, supporting both Flash and HTML5 outputs but, at present, with limited creativity and interaction functionality.
• Raptivity – From the US/Indian Harbinger Knowledge Products, this well-developed tool is widely used, especially by professional developers. It supports HTML5 output to mobile devices but appears to say nothing, at present, about Tin Can. Raptivity’s ‘claim to fame’ focuses on the speed of content creation. It also integrates with other tools, including Lectora.
• Snap – A starter tool, from the Lectora stable – priced at $99.
• Xerte – This open source – and, thus, low cost – authoring tool from the University of Nottingham is gaining popularity among further and higher education establishments. It offers both cloud based and server based development environments but doesn’t offer the hosting solution itself.

Articulate and Raptivity tend to be the most popular of these tools at present but any user will have her/his favourite tool(s). [If you'd like to list them here please add them in comments below!]

By Bob Little

For over 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning – especially e-learning – and technology-related subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia. You can contact Bob via bob.little@boblittlepr.com His e-book, ‘Perspectives on Learning Technologies’ (e-book; ASIN: B00A9K1VVS) is available from The Endless Bookcase and from Amazon. It contains over 200 pages of observations on issues in learning technologies, principally for learning & development professionals.

1.    Please tell us a little about yourself and your organization

I have been in the elearning and VET sector training world since 2000 when I was engaged by Southbank Institute of TAFE in their Engineering faculty. I have held several committee positions nationally, mainly in the telecommunications and electronics industry skilling areas. I left TAFE in 2006 to set up an elearning department for one of the private mining RTO’s here in Queensland before starting my own business late 2007.

We are a specialised elearning content development company for the mining industry and all of the associated trade areas. We cover a lot of different facets of the sector from first aid, to plant maintenance and everything in between.

Having worked with TAFE I was familiar with a lots of LMS’s but none that wowed me.  Then after a lot of research I came across the eFront LMS. I loved the system. For a relatively complex system as far as output goes, it was very functional and for me fairly easy to understand. We matched it against the likes Blackboard, Moodle and Janison it wins hands down.

Anyway, we loved the system so much we started to refer it to our clients and the relationship with eFront has grown from there. Now with the TalentLMS on the market we are so excited about being able to provide clients in Australia with a LMS solution regardless of their size or budget. I can’t wait to see where we are in 5 years time!

2.    How would you describe the state of elearning in Australia today?

I should first clarify what I believe to be the difference between elearning and online learning. There has been a lot of resistance from trainers and educators. This is mainly due to job security rather than their dislike for elearning. Online learning (prevalent in TAFE & Universities) is merely taking paper based or video resources and putting them on the internet for students to access, download and view. Whereas true elearning is the development of training content from paper based to learner led resources. This is where you require instructional design and the ability to sit in the participants seat in front of a computer and have the content ‘talk’ to you whilst you ‘interact’ with it. This is the work that we do. We take paper based resources and we use graphical designers, instructional designers, and animators etc to build them into a ‘storybook’ of learning.

In my opinion, the elearning market in Australia is still in its infancy. Online learning is very popular with TAFE’s and Universities, but true elearning is something that the nation is still coming to terms with.

3.    Regarding elearning – what differentiates education and the workplace?

This is an interesting question in that they are not really that dissimilar. Except for my before mentioned style of learning i.e. online versus elearning, the only real difference is that workplaces are far more open to a blended delivery methodology and of course the elearning method over the online method.

A workplace’s key focus is ease of access to the material, ease of delivery (not much reading), clear concise information and the limited downtime of its employees.

Education on the other hand is all about throwing as much information out there as possible, creating projects for the participants, ensuring that they engage with Tutors etc.

Both have a place in education and training for different reason and are based on the required outcomes and the target market. And that really is the difference, ‘Education’ versus ‘Training’.

4.    What characterizes the Australian elearning market?

The Australian market is very immature in a way, especially from the ‘elearning’ point of view. There is a real lack of knowledge as to how elearning works, what SCORM is, what elearning can do and how to fit it into your training regime.

The cost of content development here in Australia is still, unnecessarily, very high. That in itself has a huge impact on the uptake. I guess that is the reason that a lot of

5.    What do you think the future holds for elearning in Australia? What is the direction of elearning?

Australia’s elearning market is growing fairly rapidly, but at the same time it is not directional. Every provider of both content and Learning Management Systems has a different take on what constitutes best practice.

As the market gains maturity, I really think that there will be three market winners:

• Robust learning management systems that easily enable reporting out to other systems;
• A simple easy to use LMS interface that reports with rigor whilst at the same time enabling ease of access and use by learners and administrators; and
• Content that is interactive, cost effective and future proofed.

I know that seems like a lot to ask for but that is where the market is heading.

There is also a definite swing to hosted Learning Management Systems, from major corporations down to small RTO’s. We talk about it as, taking the IT out of training and education.

The buzz word here for the past 2 years has been ‘blended delivery’. That is, a mix of face-to-face, elearning/online learning, on the job training and practical skills – simulated or in the workplace.

This is becoming more and more prevalent every year. The move to blended delivery by the major educational institutions will assist market growth and ultimately help to showcase the abilities of the elearning market as a whole.

When Australian businesses, educational institutions and learners from all walks become familiar with the ‘blended model’ it will rapidly become the norm and the new expectation for users of training and educational content.

If you would like to tell us about your experiences regarding the Australian elearning market please add your comment below!

Yours in elearning,

Roberta - feel free connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter @rgogos