Forgot your password?
KN Fast Folders
Technical sheet: Claroline
In this sheet the results of the evaluation are presented in a table format.
|
||||
| Functional features | ||||
| Didactics/Learning flow management | Claroline allows to create learning paths for the classroom. Each learning path can be done with a set of modules (or the entire group of modules) that are within the course. Once the modules are choosen, we can set up the order and the dependences among the included items. | |||
| Tests and assesment | Tests cannot be imported but can be created within the system. Questions with single and multiple choice, with matching answers and with blank fields to be filled in are available . It's possible to track navigation and view tests statistiscs. Data for each object (available tool) can be seen. The same statistics are available for each user. | |||
| Media formats/Authoring | Content can be created within the system (it can be viewed as html file), and imported in whatever format (pdf, doc, txt, html, etc). SCORM modules are also supported, but only for packaging. Content can be organized into folders. | |||
| Course monitoring | Users can be enrolled by the the teacher/admin or can enroll by themselves. It's possible to track a lot of informations (particular objects, particular lerners or access time) and the data is presented in tables. | |||
| Communication | The chat functionality is available for synchronous communications; internal email, forums and notes/files sharing can be used for asynchronous communications. Email can be sent also to external addresses. | |||
| General look and feel of the system | The system makes use of css and it's possible to personalize almost everything, but customizations are at platform level (users cannot choose a different style or change it). | |||
| Permissions handling | Permissions are handled in a role based style. There are 4 predefined roles: administrator, teacher, user and guest. It's not possible (in an easy way) to modify these roles or to create a new one. The users can be organized in group. | |||
| Other features | There are a lot of localizations (almost thirty) and LDAP is also supported with an extra module. Users can share notes. | |||
| Maintainability | ||||
| Quality of technical documentation | There is no documentation available for developers. | |||
| Scalability | There are a lot of Institutions and Universities that are using Claroline. We can estimate that for one istallation more than 5 thousands users and 150 courses can be supported, but it's not clear if the system can easily grow horizontally. The system is very reliable. | |||
| Extensibility | The code is quite clear and code conventions are normally respected; at the moment, APIs haven't been defined and there isn't a plug-in concept available (we would prefer a separation between the code in php and the GUI in html). User requirements and bugs are handled within the forum and there is a public CVS system. There are 6 stable versions released. | |||
| Adaptability/standard compliance | The system is supporting SCORM 1.2 but only for packaging. | |||
| Usability | ||||
| User documentation | Documentation is available for users (only in English), for authors (multilingual but old) and administrators (in English). | |||
| Generating content | The system is really easy to use and it possible to create tests and contents within the environment, and to modify what we have done. | |||
| Level of expertise needed | For all the system operations and for all the actors involved in the tool, no special level of expertise is required. Everything can be done in a simple way and without any training. | |||
| Other | The system is easy to navigate, and customizations are possible at platform level. Materials available in the Internet, like SCORM modules, whatever type of document and HTML pages, can be used. The permissions system is not really flexible but it's easy to understand. | |||
| Support quality | ||||
| Note | It possible to get support regarding hosting, services and everything around Claroline writing to info mail address. | |||
| Total cost of ownership | ||||
| Type of users | Schools and Universities are the most predominant users, but also public administrations and companies are in the net. There are a lot of prestigiuos Universities that are using Claroline (the list is on the web site) and the number of users is quite big (many thousands). | |||
| Financial stability | The project started in 2002 and the core team is composed of about 10 members (not eveybody fulltime employed) but there are a few developers all around the world. The team is funded by the Catholic University of Louvain and the Louvain Foundation. | |||
| One time cost | There are no special hardware needs. The software requirements are: Apache, MySQL, PHP and some php module (mysql, zlib, preg). To set up a running system it's needed less than one day. | |||
| Recurring costs | Periodical activities are the same for all web systems: patching the OS or the tools installed. Sometime a system reboot should be done. | |||
Last modified
2005-01-19 04:40 PM
