LMS Comparison-Kohler

LMS Comparison Project
Jodi Kohler

Out of the list of LMS’ I chose to do research on Sakai and Joomla. One of my previous article posts dealt with Sakai being open source so I was curious to see what it had to offer. As for Joomla, I simply liked the name.

JOOMLA

Communication Methods
Joomla offers a variety of communication tools. This software promotes synchronous and asynchronous discussion through use of the forums and email. These discussions can even be shared with other courses and departments. Joomla also offers real-time chat. Students can also subscribe to the course through an RSS feed and have updates sent to them as the course is updated.

Content Organization and Platform Interface
The designer of the course can edit the appearance of the site by altering color, icons, even the headers and footers to add school logos. Students and Instructors can post to the course calendar that is shown on the home page. The administrator can also assign roles to the users. These roles could be teacher, teacher assistant, student, administrator or parent. The software also allows the instructor to decide if guests can have access to the course.

Course Development and Course Delivery Tools
Joomla, like Wimba, has an interactive whiteboard that allows for group web browsing. Since Joomla is SCORM 1.2 and 1.3 compliant it offers tools such as WordForce, QuizForce and PowerPoint Force to create documents that meet diverse learning styles. I looked through one of the PowerPoints and quizzes. They look very professional and easy to navigate through. Instructors can also upload test questions into a test bank that can be shared and used with other instructors. As for assessment, there is a long list of possible test formats. A few of these options are multiple-choice questions, short-answer response and matching. There is also an online grade book that records student performance. This grade book can then be exported to an excel document for further data analysis.

Student Interface Tools
One option that I liked about Joomla was that students are able to attach their notes to any of the provided resources and create a study guide. As stated earlier students can subscribe to the site via RSS to receive updates on their grade. Students also have a home page where they can analyze their progress and look for upcoming assignments and deadlines. There are also online tutorials for students and teachers on how to use the site. Of the tutorials that I watched, they were clear and easy to understand.

Likes and Dislikes
I liked that the SCORM tools were easily accessible and allow for professional looking deliverables without having to know JavaScript. Also, I like that Joomla has e-commerce. I didn’t have any dislikes to this site.

SAKAI

Communication Methods
Sakai offers a lot of the same communication methods as Joomla. Communication can stake place both synchronously and asynchronously. The interactive whiteboard in Sakai also allows for two-way voice chat. One feature that I found different from Joomla is that students are able to create email groups with their class list.

Content Organization and Platform Interface
The instructor can create learning sequences that are either based on a hierarchy of topics or dates. The format looks very similar to Moodle; however, having the “user links” promotes more online interaction between users not necessarily in the same course but in the system. Similar to Joomla, on the home page there is a course calendar that stores upcoming events and deadlines. The administrator can assign limitations on the size of a file that a student can upload. Sakai also offers a design wizard to aid teachers in creating a course. Editing colors, icons headers and footers can alter the design of the page.

Content Development and Course Deliver Tools
The only difference between the interactive whiteboards in these two LMS’ is that Sakai’s has MathML Editor allowing for math symbols to be typed into text that can be shared. The test offerings in Sakai and Joomla are very similar with the exception of a couple of missing options.

Student Interface Tools
With Sakai students have a drop box that allows them to store and share files. Students also have a personal home page where they can check their grades on graded assignments. Like Joomla students can subscribe to the site through RSS to receive updates of this information. One major difference is that Sakai allows students to create social networks to help them share interests, study tools or simply to socially interact with each other.

Like and Dislikes
I like the social networking feature. This would be a great way for students who have already taken the course or for instructors to casually share their experiences. If I had to choose between the two sites I would go with Joomla. I like the navigation appeal and the ease of the tutorials. I got a little lost while I was working in Sakai.