Please note: The data for this study came directly from the six vendors reviewed. As a user, if you disagree with the presence or absence of features for a particular CMS product, please contact the vendor with your feedback.
Intralearn is not included in the table above, because Embanet does not sell server licenses. Intralearn itself sells server licenses several at a time for a middle five-figures.
Table 6. Comparative scores on the presence and absence of specified feature sets. | Top |
Corrections Submitted by Users and Vendors after October 13, 1999 | Top |
From: claude@futureu.com (Claude Whitmyer, CIO) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999
While we checked the accuracy of this report with representative from each vendor, it is always possible that misunderstanding of specific feature definitions may have resulted in answers that are later thought to be inaccurate by those same vendors. In addition, users often report that certain features a vendor thinks are present, either are not really there or don't work as the user would hope.
For both of the above reasons, FutureU invites vendor and user feedback to this report.
At FutureU we're always interested in a diversity of experience and opinion. If you want to join in a discussion about the pros and cons of the Course Management Software reviewed here, drop in to our Online Learning Exchange and join the discussion forum to post your contributions.
From: pbanhazl@intralearn.com (Peter Banhazl) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999
I am the Executive VP at IntraLearn Software Corp. and loved the
comprehensive job you did on Course Management Systems.
Please note that there was one error in the IntraLearn from Embanet
chart...IntraLearn does Batch Loading (doesn't do Batch Deleting, however).
The chart had it listed as a No
From: Joseph Delaney
Teaching Excellence Center
Rutgers University
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999
I just read your comparison of Course Management Software at
and found it very informative and
helpful, by far one of the most thorough reports that I have seen to
date.
However, I noticed more than a few inaccuracies concerning WebCT (the
product that I am most familiar with), and this of course calls into
question the accuracy of all of the data. Rather than just criticize,
I thought I would provide some details about WebCT in the event that
you want to update your report.
Keep in mind that I do not know the exact criteria by which you
define all of the features, but I think that some of the following
should qualify for WebCT (version 1.3). Some of this will change with
version 2 which is due next month.
These are the areas that I believe are incorrect:
Learning Tools:
(Student Area)
Private Directory: N
Batch Upload: N
Annotation/Markup: N (If I'm wrong about this, I'd love to hear where the feature is hidden)
Collaboration Tools:
(Asynchronous)
Bulletin Board (one-to-many): a qualified "Yes" -- the "student tips"
feature does this, but students can shut it off.
Whiteboard: Y
Archive: Y
E-mail attachments: Y
Message attachments: Y
File Storage: N (Y for groups)
Private Directory: N
Public File Library: N
Authoring Tools:
Automated TOC/Index: I'm not sure what you mean by "automated" but
this should be "Y". If it really is no, then the entry for "Automated
Glossary" should be "N" as well since adding a glossary and index are
similar processes.
Batch Upload: qualified "N" -- it supports zipping and unzipping files
Batch Delete: Y
Course Management Tools:
Announcements/Bulletins: Y (same as "Bulletin Board (one-to-many) above)
(Student Management)
Batch Upload: Y
Batch Delete: Y
(Attendance/Participation Tracking)
Participation: Y (although it might not meet your full criteria)
(Assessment)
Quizzes-Timed: Y
Course Archive/Backup: Y
Course Replication: Y
Administrative Tools:
Automated Registration: N
Student Transcript: N
(Costs)
Hosting Service: Y
Annual: $250 - $3000 (based on # of students)
(Platform)
Windows NT: Y
Annualized License Fee
1 Year (for 100 students): $500 ($3000 is for unlimited students)
From: Stephen Gilfus
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 16:43:00 -0400
Claude,
It was a pleasure speaking with you today and I hope to see you at EDUCAUSE
. . . . I have included
the additional features that seemed to be missing from your evaluation and
have added some commentary so that you could easily understand their
applicability. I have also included a copy of your web page and marked
everything that I changed in RED so you could easily see the impacts on your
site. In addition I have recalculated the scores at the bottom of the page
for your convenience.
Steve
Director of Product Strategy
Blackboard Inc.
========= Eval Change ==========================================
Area = Collaboration Tools
- Message Attachments
Courseinfo allows message attachments in both the email as well as the
discussion board communication areas.
- Group Pages
CourseInfo allows users to create multiple groups and provides each group
with their own set of communication tools as well as file sharing.
- Team Building
CourseInfo allows users to contact one another through the email specific
users and allows them to collaborate in team environments through the use of
group pages. Motivational team building is provided through group
collaboration and file sharing.
Area = Authoring Tools
- Batch Upload
This technical facility allows users to batch upload a group of files that
may exist in a web structure or a multitude of files that are
interconnected.
Area = Course Management Tools
- Student Presentation/Project Pages
The group areas can be used for either groups of students or single
individuals and allow individual students to post documents and other
project files that they have created during the course.
Automatic Grade Calculation
- CourseInfo Automatically calculates the students grade as they take tests
and quizzes in the system. In addition this infromation is stored in the
online gradebook.
- Timed Assessments
Instructors to allocate timed sessions for tests and quizzes.
Area = Administration Tools
- Automated Registration
CourseInfo provides all the necesssary tools required to batch upload
students to the system.
- Claude you probably can't see this at a system basis as
you need administrative access. I would be more than happ y to provide you
with temporary access if needed, or I could show you directly at EDUCAUSE.
- Student Transcript
A transcript of how the student is doing in the course is stored in the
gradebook and can be printed upon request. Simply search by user and pull up
all their grades for the course.
- Demo/Real Course
Instructors can create a course on Blackboard.com for no cost and can keep
the course their indefinitly.
Table 6. Comparative scores on the presence and absence of specified feature sets. (As recalculated by Steve Gilfus, Director of Product Strategy, Blackboard Inc.)
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 18:06:48 -0400
From: Kristi Lozano
Subject: cms study
Hi, I find your study inaccurate in relation to WebCT. We use both WebCT
and Web Course in a Box and WebCT is much more powerful than WCB. You
need to revisit this study and look at WCT more closely. I find it
troubling to find misinformation on your site. Both WebCT and WCB have
new versions to compare. Please update your study with WCT 2.0 and WCB
4.0 or take it down. My director said the author was in the WCB vendor
booth at Educause so there may be a little bit of bias marketing going
on.
Thank you,
Kristi Lozano
Assistant Director, Instructional Technology
Instructional Development Center
Florida International University
Dear Ms. Lozano:
Thanks for voicing your concern. At FutureU, we appreciate and encourage a diversity of opinion.
FutureU is an independent consulting firm and content provider whose e-books and courses run in any Course Management System.
We feel very fortunate that MadDuck technologies was generous enough to host us in their booth at Educause. But as I am about to explain, our relationship with MadDuck had nothing to do with how well they did in our comparison report.
If you will read the "Methodology" section closely, you will find that we sent the features list to each vendor and the answers we include in the report are the ones that the vendor reported. We asked all vendors to report on their most current versions.
The answers included for WebCT came from Phillip Chatterton, Sales & Marketing Coordinator, ULT Canada (WebCT's parent company).
There are two logical ways that you can get your opinions about WebCT heard:
1) Contact WebCT and let them know that you disagree with the answers that their agent supplied to us. Urge them to send a new set of answers. When we receive those new answers, we will update the report to reflect them (after some testing to be sure that they actually work).
2) Join a discussion forum in the FutureU Online Learning Exchange to let your opinions be known to the online educators participating there. We will open the Learning Exchange discussion forums sometime this month and will be happy to send you an invitation when that happens. In the meantime, you can get a sneak peak at the whole virtual community for online educators at http://www.futureu.com/olx.html
Thanks again for your concern. We welcome your ideas on any subject related
to online education and we look forward to hearing more from you in the
near future. Your interest and attention to detail would be a valuable
addition to our Online Learning Exchange. I very much hope you will visit
the site often.