BCcampus selects The Learning Edge to power repository

http://www.bccampus.ca/Page514.aspx

Early this year we went (back) out to RFP for software to power a ‘learning object repository’ for BCcampus. OpenSchool BC and the Alberta Online Consortium, both from the K-12 world, were also partners in the RFP.

In May we reached a decision to go with The Learning Edge, an LCMS product from Australia. There were many good proposals, but overall we were very impressed with the maturity of the solution (which given the history became increasingly important), its support of standards, and its interoperation with existing repositories and CMS (all of WebCT, Blackboard and Moodle are supported out of the box). It also comes with a Java-based WYSIWYG editor, which has the potential to greatly assist with re-contextualizing and re-using content from the repository, though in the multi-institutional settings all three organizations inhabit we are cautious about how much uptake of that tool we will see.

Really, though, the fun has just begun; we are now proceeding to get our instance up and running and configured. The challenge isn’t the software – that’s also one of its real strengths, a very powerful administrative interface – the challenge is the process pieces, workflows, schemas, etc. We aren’t starting from scratch, much of the work we did last year will still apply, but I’m also not expecting to get it perfect on the first try. Part of the trick will be devising a reasonable change management process that allows us to innovate some of the interface and logic while still fostering user adoption and familiarity. Wish me luck! We are aiming to open the doors in October, though my expectation is for a ‘soft launch’ that slowly grows. – SWL

The Learning Edge LOR/LCMS Software

http://www.thelearningedge.com.au/

One of the 6 finalists in our evaluation of various learning object repository packages in the BCcampus LOR project I am currently managing, The Learning Edge is from a relatively small company based in Tasmania, Australia. Even though we ended up going with another option, we were really impressed by this software and on the straight-ahead basis of features it actually looked to be the strongest of the lot that we looked at. Boasting a clean interface that was incredible customizable through a set of powerful administrative tools, the software impressed on many fronts; it was one of the few that seemed to be cracking the nut of digital rights management, and had an impressive workflow engine and a Java-based authoring and aggregation tool that was quite powerful. If you are in the market for a learning content management system (which is a closer description than just a ‘learning object repository’ to what this software actually is) and are looking for a commercial product you might do well to include this one on a list of those to examine more closely. – SWL