Putting Educational Innovations into Practice.

LMS Integration in support of AL$

The Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$) community includes those interested in bring digital content and tools into the learning management system. I am a consultant to AL$, specializing in LMS integrations and am a resource to help inform the community about what is happening in this area as well as to attempt to answer technical questions.

The intent of this forum is to discuss how digital content and tools can be or are being integrated with LMS platforms across the CSU. This is also a forum to raise question about the open and commercial options, the relevant standards, and the specific integrations options.

I'll be posting some best practices, industry news, etc. I invite all to ask questions.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Kahn on April 23, 2012 at 7:22am

While there are many open courses today, it can be a challenge to insert these courses into your learning management system in order to teach with them. The IMS Common Cartridge format is a standard for package course content, web links, discussion topics, and assessments that can be imported directly into Blackboard and other LMS products.

The Washington State Open Course Library has packaged 42 courses in this format. They are available for download and review on the Connexions site, here: (http://cnx.org/lenses/sbctc/endorsements?b_size=100).

The course titles appear below:

Elementary Algebra (m41512)

Intermediate Algebra (m41420)

Precalculus I (m41414)

Precalculus II (m41514)

Calculus I (m41427)

Calculus II (m41486)

Calculus III (m41489)

Introduction To Logic (m41513)

Introduction to Statistics (m41487)

Introduction To Business (m41494)

Principles of Accounting I (m41503)

Principles of Accounting II (m41504)

Macroeconomics (m41501)

Microeconomics (m41502)

Engineering Physics I (m41493)

Introduction to Chemistry (Inorganic) (m41472)

Introduction to Physical Geology (m41490)

Introduction To Oceanography (m41495)

General Biology with Lab (m41507)

Human Anatomy and Physiology 1&2 (m42750)

US History I (m41499)

US History II (m41492)

US History III (m41491)

Pre-College English (m41496)

English Composition I (m41476)

English Composition II (m41506)

Introduction To Literature I (m41500)

Public Speaking (m41423)

Technical Writing (m41511)

Art Appreciation (m42759)

Music Appreciation (m41510)

Introduction To Philosophy (m41497)

Cultural Anthropology (m41488)

Physical Anthropology (m41484)

General Psychology (m41508)

Lifespan Psychology (m41498)

Research for the 21st Century (m41515)

Try College / College Success Course (m41505)

Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Kahn on April 30, 2012 at 7:04am

Developing (or using) a Common Tool for Almost Any LMS

Key Concepts:

1) From within most learning platforms, redirect the browser to an external site, passing along contextual information.

2) Context includes the users ID in the LMS, their role such as "instructor" or "learner", the course ID where the redirect started, and some information about the LMS.

3) This data can be used to support a number of use cases, the two most popular being:

-- signing into an external tool without a visible challenge

-- making assignments in an external tool with launch points back in the LMS

4) This approach means you may be able to write the same tool for multiple management systems but with a single development effort. Similarly, you can adopt a common tool across more than one LMS.

5) There is good support across the LMS products. To learn more ask in this forum or visit IMS (www.imsglobal.org)

Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Kahn on May 7, 2012 at 6:58am

Many of you will have heard of IMS Common Cartridge. This is a format created by an educational standards body. The intent is that you can assemble web content, links, discussion items, tests, presentations, documents etc and place them in a single package to support a course of study. This package (the content and its organization) can be imported in many LMS products. The virtue of using the package is that any content the LMS handles in a special way, such as tests who results flow to a grade book, are imported properly with all linkages put in place.

If you want to make one of these packages, you can use SoftChalk, as many folks do across the CSU. Alternatively, there is a free assembly tool here:

http://www.imsglobal.org/developers/alliance/CCBuilder/index.cfm

Give it a try and share your feedback here.