OPEN SOURCE ELEARNING PLATFORMS AND SOFTWARE FOR ONLINE TEXTILE ENGINEERING LEARNING

• Published in: The International Scientific Conference eLearning and Software for Education Vol. 3; p. 534
• Main Authors: Buhu, Adrian, Buhu, Liliana
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Bucharest "Carol I" National Defence University 01.07.2015
• Subjects: Core curriculum; Course Content; Distance learning; Education; Educational Environment; Educational Technology; Internet; Learning management systems; Online Courses; Online instruction; Professional Education; Registration; Servers; Teaching; Training; Web 2.0

Since late 2012, there has been conversation about the overlap between the LMS and MOOC platform markets. While most of the edtech community continues to focus on the major MOOC platforms (e.g.: Coursera and EdX), each of the major LMS makers now has a solution for teaching MOOCs as well. For example, Blackboard's Course Sites has offered "open enrolment" courses since April 2012, the very month Coursera was founded, although the organization's official press didn't mention the acronym "MOOC" until early/mid 2013. Moodle held a MOOC on their LMS MOOC platform called Learn Moodle on September 2013. LMS-based MOOC platforms offer a unique opportunity for instructors. Rather than having to rebuild course content within the walls of Coursera or EdX or entering into new, complex legal agreements, these platforms jump start the course delivery experience and can even use the native export/import tools of institutional LMSs to bring existing course content into a familiar LMS product. Similarly, taking a MOOC on an LMS MOOC platform can give instructors another unique experience - that of using a traditional LMS as a student. The most popular e-learning platform in 2014 is: Moodle, Blackboard, Kenexo, Digitalchalk, eFront, .LRN, Dokeos, Sakai, etc. Some of these are free, almost free and some have freemium options available for educators. In this article is presented front open source solution for creating an LMS MOOC platform. This platform is faster and more user-friendly, while being certified SCORM. eFront comes with a set of features to create content, tests, assessments, track progress, issue certifications and add-ons to support wikis, blogs, YouTube videos, picture lists, F. A. Q's, external links, etc.