LON-CAPA

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CORPORATE INFO

LON-CAPA open-source community and development: www.lon-capa.org

LON-CAPA services: www.educog.com

PRODUCT CATEGORIES

Academic Enterprise System

Course Management Systems (CMS)

e-Education Enterprise Software

eLearning Platform

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Open Source - Course Management Systems (CMS)

Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

The software was developed by the Laboratory for Instructional Technology in Education at Michigan State University. Funding is provided by Michigan State University, the National Science Foundation, as well as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Andrew. W. Mellon Foundation. The software has origins in two earlier projects, CAPA (a Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach), that provided students with personalized problem sets, quizzes, and exams, and LectureOnline, a project to serve physics course material over the web. LON-CAPA is open-source and completely free to use.

The underlying LearningOnline Network is a content sharing network of currently over 30 universities and colleges, and an equal number of K-12 institutions. Educational content (currently over 60,000 resources) can be shared and re-used at different levels of granularity, both cross-disciplinary and cross-institutionally.

PRODUCT INFO

LON-CAPA 2.0

LON-CAPA (The LearningOnline Network with CAPA) is a learning content and course management system. It offers an underlying shared content pool from which instructors across departmental and institutional boundaries can assemble granular learning content for their courses.

It has strong assessment capabilities, both formative (homework and in-class using wireless PDAs) and summative (online and bubblesheet exams), with a one-source multiple-target strategy for the content.

It offers students portfolio space in which they can stage materials for submission to projects, and provides a number of tools for synchronous and asynchronous student-student and student-faculty communication. LON-CAPA scales well with number of students, as load- balancing is possible across the whole network of servers at participating institutions.

LON-CAPA is open-source software, which means you are free to download it, use it, modify it and even distribute it (under the terms of the GNU General Public License).

SLOAN-C EFFECTIVE PRACTICES

The Sloan-C Effective Practice Site focuses on five pillars of quality in online education: student satisfaction, access, learning effectiveness, faculty satisfaction and institutional cost effectiveness. For each of these areas, pillar editors are collecting practices that are innovative and replicable. Below are links to effective practices related to this company's products and services.

Faculty Satisfaction: Computer-Assisted Personalized Assignments, Quizzes, and Examinations – Michigan State University

Learning Effectiveness: Effective Feedback to the Instructor from Online Homework – Michigan State University

CASE STUDIES & ARTICLES

Following is a set of case studies and articles provided by LON-CAPA illustrating the use of their products. Please see www.lon-capa.org/review.htm for the most up-to-date list.

An Evaluation of Open-Source E-Learning Platforms Stressing Adaptation Issues (August 2005)

Effective Feedback to the Instructor from Online Homework (June 2005)

An Analysis of Asynchronous Online Homework Discussions in Introductory Physics Courses (April 2005)

EduTools Review LON-CAPA Version 1.3 (April 2005):