Free asp content management system

Business management guru Peter F. Drucker estimates that the global market for online education is potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Web courses offer "24/7" availability to all learners, and open the door to a new concept of "continuous enrollment," where programs can theoretically start at any time throughout the year. They also enable schools to deliver courses to students at remote locations who might not be able to attend traditional colleges.

Higher-education institutions are turning to the Web to expand their reach without expanding their physical plants, and most colleges, universities, and two-year schools are developing online materials to supplement on-campus courses, or courses that are offered entirely on the Web.

The downside of this huge potential is that choosing the right online course management system has become a complicated process.

Putting Courses and Campuses Online With Web Courseware

Pioneering faculty members typically learned on their own to use HTML (hypertext markup language), HTML editors, and templates to put course materials online. But now, a wide variety of software authoring products enable faculty members to convert documents to Web formats automatically, and add interactive online multimedia elements without learning HTML.

Most faculty members simply do not have the expertise, time, or inclination to use HTML, nor do they have the time to compare the many Web courseware options. Because there is no single standard for creating and distributing Web courses, and numerous products can be used, the potential for chaos on individual campuses is great.

A growing trend among higher-education institutions is to select and support a single online management system for developing and managing Web courses. Administrators try to choose one product that best balances the delivery of powerful online tools with easy-to-use interfaces.

Kim Chambers (kim@gulley.vpa.uconn.edu), manager of the Instructional Resource Center at the University of Connecticut, said that decision must be campuswide to avoid confusion and duplication of efforts. Most higher-education institutions fail to approach the selection in an organized way, resulting in the purchase of competing systems for different departments, Chambers said.

What Course Management Systems Have to Offer

Nearly all course management packages provide a consistent development interface for faculty to post traditional course elements, such as the syllabus, class schedule, lecture notes, assignments, study questions, announcements, and test results. Most also offer personalized two-way communications features through text-based e-mail, course bulletin boards, threaded discussions, and live chat rooms.

However, special tools in most systems also offer options such as the ability to automatically create course-content indexes, administer and evaluate online tests, calculate and report student grades, enable students to upload assignments and projects, integrate online simulations, and link to related content anywhere in the world.

In addition, a number of packages offer page-tracking features that report individual and class data on the use of online course materials, such as the sequence, elapsed time, and decisions made in accessing each instructional page.

Growing numbers of systems even offer interactive communications devices such as online chalkboards, audio and video connections where students can use inexpensive cameras with their computers to see and hear real-time presentations and meet with professors and classmates virtually. Although systems have common elements, they also offer unique features so costs range widely, from as little as $5 per student per course to $3,000 for unlimited numbers of courses and students on multiple campuses.

Narrowing the Choices

The field is already glutted with more than 50 competing products and services (see "Online Course Management Systems and Services" for examples), and there is no end in sight. Some of the products are commercial versions of systems developed at colleges and universities, but others are migrating from business applications to higher education.

Online Course Management Systems and Services

There are growing numbers of competing online course management and development packages, and the selections change and are upgraded continually. The following is a broad cross-section of examples recommended by colleges, universities, and organizations throughout the United States (in some cases a company offers more than one management product). This list is not intended to be inclusive, but will provide starting places.

* Academic Systems Corp. (http://www.academic.com)

* Authorware (http://www.macromedia.com/software/authorware)

* Blackboard (http://www.blackboard.com)

* Campus Cruiser (http://www.campuscruiser.com)

* Campus Pipeline (http://www.campuspipeline.com)

* Click2Learn (http://www.click2learn.com)

* Collegis (http://www.collegis.com)

* Compass (http://www.vistainc.com)

* Convene (http://www.convene.com)

* Docent (http://www.docent.com)

* eCollege--formerly Real Education (http://www.ecollege.com)

* e-education (http://www.e-education.com/software.html)

* Eduprise (http://www.eduprise.com)

* Embanet (http://www.embanet.com)

* etudes systems (http://www.etudes.cc)

* FirstClass (http://www.firstclass.com)

* Generation21 Learning Systems (http://www.gen21.com)

* IntraKal, Anlon Systems Inc (http://www.anlon.com)

* The Learning Manager (http://www.microsoft.com/education/planning/online/partner/campus.asp)

* LearningSpace (http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/learnspace)

* Mentorware (http://www.mentorware.com)

* Prometheus (http://www.prometheus.com)

* TopClass (http://www.wbtsystems.com)

* Vcampus (http://www.vcampus.com)

* Virtual-U (http://www.vlei.com)

* WebCT (http://www.webct.com)

* WebMentor (http://www.avilar.com)

There is little agreement about which are the top systems, so it is easy to make regrettable selections if campus decision-makers are not aware that better options exist.

Confounding the situation even more is the fact that new product versions reach the market continually, and that companies are acquired by competitors. For example, the popular "Web Course in a Box" was recently purchased by Blackboard .com. Product lines purchased by competitors may be discontinued, merged with other products, or reintroduced under new names.

A related issue is the lack of standardization among online learning products for incorporating local materials, but that is being addressed through efforts such as the IMS Global Learning Consortium Initiative (http://imsproject.org), which will designate those with IMS compliance. Although the situation may eventually stabilize so a few major products emerge to dominate the industry--as has been true in other application areas such as spreadsheets and word-processors--that is unlikely to happen soon.

Nevertheless, you can't afford to delay the process. I recommend that you establish a representative campuswide committee to review products and services. Web sites for each company make it easy to compare products, and obtain background information, supporting research, contact information, and pricing options. Many sites also offer system tutorials, sample courses, links to installations at various institutions, and opportunities for free trials.

Three of the more popular products are Blackboard.com, which powers online teaching and learning environments at more than 3,300 leading colleges, universities, K-12 schools, associations, and corporations around the world; WebCT--Web "Course Tools"--that has enrolled over 6 million students at more than 1,350 institutions in 55 countries; and eCollege--formerly Real Education, used by hundreds of colleges and universities to offer thousands of courses.

Checking Other Campuses

I also recommend that you use search engines to find out which packages have been used in institutions comparable to your own, and contact faculty and administrators on those campuses for comments.

For example, searching on the term "Web course management"--include quotes around phrases--using Altavista (http://www.altavista.com) or Fast Search (http://www.alltheweb.com) will each report more than 350 hits, and using Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) yields more than 6,800 sites, many of which will have local interest.

A number of colleges have compiled sample product comparison charts, such as those at Truman State University in Missouri (http://www2.truman.edu/~cpoyner/ gridcomparingproducts2.html), Wichita State University (http:// www.mrc.twsu.edu/mrc/im2/ websystems.htm), and the Center for Curriculum, Transfer and Technology in British Columbia (http:// www.ctt.bc.ca/landonline/choices.html). These may be useful guides for making your own comparisons.