Online Learning Solutions

Learning platform
A learning platform is an integrated set of interactive online services that provide teachers, learners, parents and others involved in education with information, tools and resources to support and enhance educational delivery and management.

The term learning platform refers to a range of tools and services often described using terms such as educational extranet, VLE, LMS, ILMS and LCMS providing learning and content management. The term learning platform also includes the personal learning environment (PLE) or personal online learning space (POLS), including tools and systems that allow the development and management of eportfolios.

The specific functionality associated with any implementation of a learning platform will vary depending upon the needs of the users and can be achieved by bringing together a range of features from different software solutions either commercially available, open source, self built or available as free to use web services. These tools are delivered together via a cohesive user environment with a single entry point, through integration achieved by technical standards.

Facilities
A VLE should make it possible for a course designer to present to students, through a single, consistent, and intuitive interface, all the components required for a course of education or training. Although logically it is not a requirement, in practice VLEs always make extensive use of computers and the Internet. A VLE should implement all the following elements:

• The syllabus for the course

• Administrative information including the location of sessions, details of pre-requisites and co-requisites, credit information, and how to get help

• A notice board for up-to-date course information

• Student registration and tracking facilities, if necessary with payment options

• Basic teaching materials. These may be the complete content of the course, if the VLE is being used in a distance learning context, or copies of visual aids used in lectures or other classes where it is being used to support a campus-based course.

• Additional resources, including reading materials, and links to outside resources in libraries and on the Internet.

• Self-assessment quizzes which can be scored automatically

• Formal assessment procedures

• Electronic communication support including e-mail, threaded discussions and a chat room, with or without a moderator

• Differential access rights for instructors and students

• Production of documentation and statistics on the course in the format required for institutional administration and quality control

• All these facilities should be capable of being hyperlinked together

• Easy authoring tools for creating the necessary documents including the insertion of hyperlinks - though it is acceptable (arguably, preferable) for the VLE to be designed allowing standard word processors or other office software to be used for authoring.

Characteristics
LMSs can cater to different educational, administrative, and deployment requirements. While an LMS for corporate learning, for example, may share many characteristics with a LMS, or virtual learning environment, used by educational institutions, they each meet unique needs. The virtual learning environment used by universities and colleges allow instructors to manage their courses and exchange information with students for a course that in most cases will last several weeks and will meet several times during those weeks. In the corporate setting a course may be much shorter, completed in a single instructor-led or online session.

The characteristics shared by both types of LMSs include:

• Manage users, roles, courses, instructors, facilities, and generate reports

• Course calendar

• Learning Path

• Student messaging and notifications

• Assessment/testing capable of handling student pre/post testing

• Display scores and transcripts

• Grading of coursework and roster processing, including wait listing

• Web-based or blended course delivery

For more please refer to :-

• Learning Platform
• Similar Terms
• Facilities
• Transferring Course Content
• Systems Available
• Learning Management System
• Characteristics
• Learning Content Management System (LMS)
• Learning Management Industry

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