1) Organizational and Personal Needs: gaining knowledge is directly related to what learners value in life and in their work by giving relevant options and choices to the learner and taking into consideration their perspective as much as that of the instructor.
2) Comprehensiveness: Is it compatible with with other databases and software? At my school we are currently using two different programs to track and store student data--Class XP and Integrade Pro. IGPro is compatible with ClassXP because we can upload grades and we can also email parents progress reports using IGPro. I find it annoying at grade reporting time, esp progress where I have to upload individual grades, but at report card time I can 'hotfile' grades from IGPro to ClassXp where I don't have to enter them in manually--it uploads them for me. The school is transitioning from this system to a new one called PowerSchool from Pearson. I'm looking forward to the new system, because it allows parents to view students grades for every assignment, but it seems disappointing that we can't have an LMS or some type of authorware software to encourage more interaction among students and teachers.
3) Scalability: I'm not sure what this means. This one confuses me.
4) Longevity: We need to select an LMS in a K-12 setting that is built by company that will last a long time because schools depend on the stability and we can't have a system running and all of a sudden a company goes bankrupt or out of business and does not offer the service anymore. It would be chaotic.
5) Cost Structure: This ties into the last one since software solutions cost a lot of money. We need to select the type of system in a K-12 setting that provides us with the features we will an Return on Investment (ROI).
6) Cross-stakeholder application: An LMS in a K-12 setting must be responsive the the needs of various groups from teachers to administrators to counselors--those that manage the training programs and those who particpate in them. The stakeholders need to a have a tracking and monitoring system that allows for clear and continuous channels of communication for the benefit of the student.
7) Practicality: It needs to be integrated into the fabric of the information infrascture that is already in place otherwise it may create confusion amongs stakeholders, including students and parents. This is usually resolved through enterprise resource management (ERM) software in order to allow communication and information sharing.
8) Electronic Commerce capapbility: allows students and univ officials to track transactions, manage rosters and attendance, track student participation, course calendars, manage instructional materials, etc. This reminds me of SDSU WebPortal.
9) Support a whole host of instructional features: user-friendly access to students and instructors, use of a variety of media files (e.g. text and video animation), support application, file and screen sharing, synchronous and asynchrounouss conferencing, test development and scoring capability, generate reports on test results for students.
10) Support a whole host of technical features: server compatibility with operating system in use, web browser/client compatibility, ease of deployment, ease of administration.
11) Measurability of ROI: satisfaction (of all stakeholders), knowledge and skill acquisition (measured through tests scores and interviews), improved performance (we have to be able to measure/calculate the difference between the cost of the old system and the cost of the new system, in terms of improved performance in the skills taught in the a certain course or program. In corporate or gov't setting, we also measure whether need to be able to measure whether training is matched to the needs of the learner?
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