OLAT - Online Learning And Training

Category: LMS platform products — Other products by this author

Screenshot — click to enlarge

Current release: OLAT - Online Learning And Training 5.1

Released Apr 25, 2007 — tested with IMS CP, Scorm 1.2, RSS

OLAT 5.1 is mainly a consolidation release. As you can see from the release notes, the OLAT team included over 170 bugfixes and improvements. We decided that before implementing new features we needed to improve the existing features. Nevertheless OLAT 5.1 includes some new features: New Wiki engine, Glossary and the HTML-Editor improvements.

List all releases… Full release announcement…

Get OLAT - Online Learning And Training for all platforms (57MB)

5.1.2 OLAT easy installer (not recommendable for productive use)

Get OLAT - Online Learning And Training for all platforms (52MB)

OLAT 5.1.2 Source Code (see documentation on olat.org for more information)

Project Description

Project resources

• Documentation
• Releases
• Contact address
• Project page
• Issue tracker
• Support
• Code repository

OLAT - The open source learning management system (LMS)

Overview

OLAT stands for "Online Learning And Training" and has been developed by the University of Zurich. It is a Java based LCMS, which means it combines learning- as well as content-management options. OLAT focuses more on the content than some other LMS do. The creation, administration and evaluation of online-activities as well as management of collaborative work are only some of the system’s strengths.

Server requirements:

There is an easy installer available for quick installations and for testing. For productive environments we recommend building OLAT from the source code according to your operating system and the processor type. For a customized installation you will need an Apache webserver, Java SDK, Tomcat Servlet Engine and a database like MySQL or PostgreSQL. The installation guide helps the user to install OLAT.

What does OLAT offer?

OLAT delivers a whole variety of tools and functions. The focus is thereby on different editors, which allow the creation of online-tests and course-content directly over the web-interface. Here OLAT offers substantial options, so tutors and learners do not have to identify to a specific pedagogic concept. Especially the open structure of OLAT for the creation of content makes OLAT powerful in this area. Of course OLAT does offer the usual features like forums for sharing information, Wikis, chats and a very sophisticated data-manager, which does not only offer saving of personal data as well as documents within a course or group, but the comprehensive sharing of data. This feature can be a plus when it comes to interdisciplinary learning-environments.

Another feature regarding the arrangement are a comprehensive system for registration for courses with limited participants, detailed statistic analysis of the particular course as well as personalized RSS messages. OLAT uses an own system for the grading of the participants. The points can be given by either the online-test environment or manually by the teacher.

Besides the many functions for the creation and evaluation of course-content OLAT enforces collaborative work through an intelligent group management system. That means that individual working- or learning-groups can be created and administered online (e.g. through forums, shared data-filing, member-management, etc.). The collaboration is supplemented by an instant messaging function, which allows to get in contact with all registered users to share messages in real-time. The instant messenger is Jabber-based and can be used with the implemented webbased chat-client or with any available Jabber-client. OLAT wants to advise students even if the are on school brake: An example could be the writing of collaborative essays, etc. OLAT does of course offer notification- and information-functions that can be shown by the system (e.g. info about deadlines, etc.) and a real calendar for managing the course events or personal events.

The LMS from the learner’s (students) point of view

In each users "Home" section OLAT offers links for a direct access to courses, settings and works groups as well a the “tip of the day” and a little comic for amusement. Furthermore the student can access his bookmarks and groups (working-groups, learning-groups, etc.) to get to a specific point in the system. On the "Home" section there are also current advices and messages for students, their grades (achieved points, finished classes and test, etc.) as well as a little private notebook. The calendar shows the current events from the subscribed courses or published by the groups the user is subscribed to.

Every user has the option to store data and documents in his own private or in the public folder. The user may publish his files if he wants to and even access the personal folders via WebDAV. The design of the "Home" page can be customized by sliding the particular sections on the work space or simply blind them out. Via the settings each user can change his or her personal data and set the language (German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Greek, Polish, Chinese, Lithuanian, Persian (Farsi), Portuguese and Russian are offered) of his or her interface.

Regarding courses there is the course-catalogue with the university calendar and an enrolment option. Additionally to that all courses in which the student participates in are listed under “courses”. On click leads to the course menu. Next to the usual options (like forums, current announcements for the particular course, etc.) the particular course contents are listed as menu points on the left side. One click on the available tests opens up the test window, where, very well structured as well, the course content is queried by various methods. Automatically conducted tests are evaluated directly at the end.

The LMS from the authors (administrator) point of view

While navigation through the web interface in the mentioned window the option “course editor” (for editing of the basic data), group management (for creating working-groups), rights-management (for awarding rights to individual users), data archiving (for the provision of documents) and grading tools (for grading of individual users) appear. Additionally over the point “learner’s resources” a test and survey editor for the creation of adequate forms is available. As a plus OLAT offers an own import module to import ready-made data (e.g. tests in QTI or complete learning content as IMS content packaging or SCORM format). It is also possible to associate any data-types (e.g. PDF documents) to a course offer. New courses can be submitted through a specific form. For the administrator of the system an own administration area for the general allocation of rights and settings of numerous technical details is supplied. In general the administration area is very well done and in contrary to numerous other LMS very well structured and concise. Likewise to the user area the navigation is very fast and adaptive.

Didactic Value and final remarks

OLATs overall strengths are the group-and course-spanning functions for information and document sharing, the many possibilities for the creation of learning content as well as the very well structured and concise menu structure. In contrast to numerous other LMS the OLAT web interface is very easy to handle and learnable within short time. It is just a harmonious package: All offered options and functions are created consistently and work well together – users will like OLAT instantly. This comes as an advantage when it comes to the administration. Unlike other LMS, in OLAT teachers and student work on the same web interface, the only differences are specific rights for the teachers regarding content management. This brings a high didactic value especially regarding communication of learning content or course spanning work. Also the administration of working- and learning-groups is solved appropriately. If you are looking for a easy to handle LCMS with the focus on content like online-tests and collaborative work, OLAT is one of the top choices.

OLAT 5 feature overview:

Personalized authoring and learning environment
• Manage your files via HTTP or WebDAV
• Calendar (per course and personal calendar)
• Configure your personal home portal
• Be up to date about news and changes via e-mail or RSS feed

Flexible course system
• Based on IMS Learning Design concepts
• Build a personalized course structure that fits your needs
• Building blocks like discussion boards, task/assesments, Wikis, tests, questionnaire, enrollment etc. available
• Full-Text Search

Shibboleth integration
• Full Sibboleth integration
• Single sign-on e.g. via Switch AAI
• Control the access to courses by AAI attributes

Support for collaborative work
• Share resources with other authors (learning resource repository)
• Build project groups outside course context
• Use discussion forums, file share space, contact forms...
• See who is online and chat with others using Jabber

Administrative course tools
• Course editor: create your course using OLAT course elements
• Group management: manage your learners
• Rights management: grant specific users access to course tools
• Assessment tool: assess your learners
• Archive tool: download logfiles (Apache style) and runtime-data

Compliance with e-learning specifications
• IMS QTI 1.2.1 runtime engine and editor
• IMS Content Packaging (CP) runtime engine
• SCORM 1.2 runtime engine

Online Help
• Context sensitive help
• Comprehensive help, manual, tutorials and discussion forum