| Title | About Project |
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| Process |
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Decision Making Course Development Competitive Products Development Cost |
Review of Competitive Products
Objectives:
- To find out what products are available in the current market
- To learn what kinds of features they have, and advantages and disadvantages
- Mature messaging and workgroup collaboration environment including communicative tools
- Attractive graphic interface with well-developed messaging features
- Client software is available for free of charge
- Easy-to-learn and easy-to-manage system
- Easy-to-use interface
- Extra email and news group clients are required
- Utilizing the Lotus Notes/Domino groupware environment
- Deep and impressive feature set
- Steep learning curve for LearningSpace
- No HTML knowledge is necessary
- Easiest to use with attractive user interface
- Cross-platform server available
- $6350 for 200 concurrent users
- Richest and most fully developed features
- $3,000 annually for unlimited use
- Balance between ease of use and complete feature set
- Great for mainstream faculty
- $1,000 for annual technical support
- ClassPoint
- Real Education
- Asymetrix
- BlackBoard
- Virtual-U
- POLIS
- Classware
- Convene
Summary:
- FirstClass
Interactive Learning Network (ILN)
Other Available Products:
Note:
This Competitive Products Review is based on a product review report
"Web Course Tool Selection Committee Report" at University of Texas in
July 1998 and the information provided on each product's home page.
The committee at University of Texas followed a sub-set of the rating criteria published by the British Columbia Standing Committee on Educational Technology in the evaluation Initial products selected for review were Interactive Learning Network, Learning Space, TopClass, Virtual U, WebCT, and Web Course in a Box. The five committee members each reviewed two products and were able to narrow the choices to three for intensive review. They were TopClass, WebCT, and Web Course in a Box.
Product Review Details
FirstClass Collaborative Classroom (FCCC) from SoftArc is a mature messaging and workgroup collaboration environment, which includes communicative tools and an intranet Web server. It allows clients to access data with a Web browser.
While FCCC contains none of the integrated testing or coursework features of TopClass, Interactive Learning Network, or WebCT, its graphic interface is attractive and its messaging features are well-developed and it is easily learned by the user, since the user interface has the familiar look and feel of a computer OS file manager.
From a user's standpoint, FirstClass Collaborative Classroom excels in the areas of workgroup collaboration and messaging. The FCCC graphic user interface is attractive and clear, yet contains significant functionality. Minimal hardware overhead allows use of older computers in schools and homes. However, strictly speaking, FCCC is not a Web course tool; it is a distance education tool. Its distinguishing features was then, as now, an easy-to-use, attractive interface with well-designed, colorful icons.
Servers are available for MacOS and Windows NT. Servers are easily administered. Client software (free of charge) is available for MacOS, Windows 3.1, Windows '95, and Windows NT. Regular users licenses are priced in groups of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, and 250. Volume licenses are also available at special prices.
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CourseInfo, founded in 1996, offers a product with an intuitive, graphical, point and click interface which allows instructors to design, build, and maintain their courses, incorporating material from existing word processing, multimedia, and presentation software. The company has announced plans to merge with Blackboard Inc.Interactive Learning Network (ILN) v1.5 is an easy-to-learn, easy-to-manage system for online course work Instructor interface is streamlined and student access is clear. Generally, choices are fewer (and feature set less deep) than those available for WebCT, but creating and managing content is correspondingly easier.
The largest advantage of ILN v1.5 is its interface, for both instructors and students. Getting up to speed quickly is easier in ILN than in WebCT, but the feature set isn't as deep. Whereas WebCT has built-in functions that seem to have been influenced by learning theory (extensive feedback, integrated glossary, per page self-quizzes, posted goals for each section), ILN offers basic functionality that may be adequate for some implementations. Also, ILN offers a relatively slick, simple look-and-feel with an integrated instructor control panel that makes course management easy. Implementation options range from use of disk space on the corporate server (for a few courses) to company installation of ILN server components on your own server.
Communicative functions include a Java-based chat room, an internal message board, links to external email and course news group. The communicative features of ILN are adequate, but not as extensive as those of WebCT. For example, WebCT automatically captures transcripts of chat rooms and contains email: no such features are included in ILN. ILN contains both a threaded, internal bulletin board system and a news group, both of which serve basically the same function.
Developed by Lotus Corp, LearningSpace utilizes the Lotus Notes/Domino groupware environment for course development while users have the flexibility of accessing LearningSpace from Notes or WWW. This product enjoys widespread use in the corporate environment because of its security and replication features and its database architecture.
LearningSpace is a classroom prep tool that sits on top of five Lotus Notes databases. These are the Schedule, Media Center, Course Room, Profile, and Assessment Center dBs The product is mature and the feature set is deep and impressive. Both Lotus Notes and Learning Space have good cross-platform capabilities, and the look and feel cross-platform is extremely similar. The instructor (or course designer) must have the Lotus Notes client as well as Learning Space, but only a Web browser is required for the students to have access to the course materials.
The learning curve for LearningSpace is steep, which is a function of its feature set. However, with some time and patience, it is possible to become proficient in designing courses with little to no reference to the manual. Experience in using the Lotus Notes client can be helpful, but is not necessary. There is extensive online help.
The Web interface is excellent. Powered by the Domino server the Web page looks almost exactly like the Learning Space workspace on the designer's desktop. This allows for seamless transition to a Web interface with absolutely no HTML knowledge required. Attachments and multimedia presentations (such as PowerPoint) can be added to the classroom on the Web, again with no HTML knowledge.
The assessment center allows for testing, but not timed testing. There are the usual options in the testing center, multiple choice, T/F, short-answer. The multiple choice and true/false sections are auto-graded by Learning Space, but the instructor is required to view each page before the tests are saved to the database as "marked." The instructor can change the automatic scores generated by Learning Space.
Adopted by the State University System of New York, TopClass from WBT Systems in Dublin, Ireland provides a clean interface, extensive course creation and management tools, and is the only product used widely on all major platforms. While its authoring and administrative interface is not as straightforward as that of Interactive Learning Network (ILN), TC does have the advantage of having the full functionality of course creation/editing tools available from a single page (unlike WebCT). Pricing ranges from $975 to $6350.
TopClass does not offer the option of built-in styles for course presentation but does offer the ability to set background color and link colors universally. Some automatic page customization is possible (setting headline size, etc.). One can effectively customize content by direct page entry (HTML optional, not required); or content can be uploaded, page by page. In the area of communicative tools, TopClass offers intraclass threaded discussion and e-mail. Unlike WebCT and ILN, TopClass contains no chat function.
A wide variety of testing options is available in v2.0, including use of test question "pools," which allow questions to be reused. A nice feature of assessment pages is that they can be embedded with course material; an assessment page can be included at the end of a chapter (for example). Test results can be linked to additional content being made available to students.
Advantages of TopClass include a simple user interface, a balanced feature set, and cross-platform server availability. Binary course material is transportable across platforms; i.e., a course created on UNIX can be transported later to NT or MacOS, and vice-versa. Cross-platform server availability, adequate authoring tools, and an attractive user interface combine to make TopClass a Web course tool worthy of further consideration.
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Developed by the University of British Columbia and adopted for wide-scale use by numerous institutions, WebCT offers a variety of important instructional features. WebCT is feature-rich and open-ended. The product's feature list is inclusive, and custom course content can be uploaded or created from scratch. Limited choices in interface construction allow some flexibility in "look and feel" and presentation.Once the basic course has been created, the process of editing and revising course material is cumbersome. As a result, overall course creation interface in WebCT has been judged as "fair"- manageable, but not particularly convenient or intuitive.
Course content is logically displayed in hierarchical outline form. Clicking on an outline link transfers the student to the corresponding page. Each page of course content contains a navigation bar in the top frame (customizable by course designer). Besides usual navigation features - home, back, forward, refresh - the top frame contains links to features such as glossary, search, bulletins, and self-test.
Testing features are powerful, relatively comprehensive, and follow sound pedagogical principles. There are four types of auto-corrected questions (multiple choice, checkbox, fill-in-the-blank, and matching) plus manually corrected essay questions. The course designer has the ability to set a time limit for a test, as well as the number of times student can take a test. Another handy feature is a visual display of questions answered/not answered in the right, vertical frame; this frame also displays time remaining in which to complete the test.
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A product of Virginia Commonwealth University, Web Course in a Box is the most intuitive of all products surveyed. Web Course in a Box (WCB) is an easy-to-use Web authoring tool, which has been designed with the goal of making Web course development accessible to mainstream faculty. The template-based system was designed at Virginia Commonwealth University, in conjunction with IAT (Institute for Academic Technology), as a method of providing Web-enhanced instruction that does not require use of HTML, that provides consistent look-and-feel among courses, and that provides automated file upload and access control.The design interface employed in WCB was created specifically to minimize the faculty learning curve. A course creation wizard guides an instructor through the process of creating a course, step-by-step, with online help and examples. The course creation interface in WCB is frames-based, with menu selections available from a right, vertical frame. This approach allows easy navigation among sections and the ability to access features non-sequentially.
WCB distinguishes itself for both faculty and student ease of use. The fact that WCB is characterized as the definitive "low end" Web course tool does not necessarily mean that its feature set is lacking. From one perspective, WCB contains just the right features, and not more. Some features that may be perceived as lacking - limited quiz question types and student tracking - will be addressed in future upgrades. Authoring features in WCB are direct and functional, whereas WebCT and TopClass provide opportunities for the faculty author to become lost in a series of mouse clicks. WCB's authoring interface, while not particularly attractive (uses a red color scheme), provides important features within a single area and makes it easy to continually access and update sections already created.
Web Course in a Box is recommended for instructors who want to get up to speed quickly and who have no previous HTML knowledge. As is the case with any computer application, WCB is not designed for those with little or no computer experience. A reasonable amount of effort and attention is required in the process of automated Web course creation, but WCB designers have ensured that this process is as painless as possible.
Web Course in a Box is available for UNIX, Windows NT, and MacOS servers (MacOS: v2.0 uses WebTen only). CGI functionality is provided by Perl scripts; source code is available at no cost. WCB is freely available for use in higher education. A technical support subscription service for one year is available for $1000 per institution. This service provides e-mail and telephone support, an Instructor's Guide, and pre-release beta versions of WCB.
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