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| Product Name | ATutor 1.5 |
|---|---|
| Developer Name | University of Toronto (ATRC) |
| URL | ATutor 1.1 |
| Review Date | August 05, 2005 |
| Forums | ATutor 1.5 Discussions |
| Reviewer | Email Review Staff |
| Communication Tools | |
| Discussion Forums |
Discussions can be viewed by thread. Posts can include URLs, and can be either plain text or formatted text. Discussion threads are expandable and collapsible to view a list of topics or view an entire conversation on one screen. Threads can be sorted by author, topic, post date, and activity level. Students can enable or disable notification of new posts sent to their email. Threads can be locked by the instructor from reading and/or writing, or attached to the top of a thread list so important threads appear first. Active threads appear near the top of the thread list. An administrator can share discussions across courses, departments, or any institutional unit. Discuss |
| File Exchange |
Student and instructors can upload files in most document formats to a shared course library, or to a shared group library. Students can share content from their personal folder with other students, and with an instructor or teaching assistants. Students can submit assignments into a drop box. Discuss |
| Internal Email |
Students can use the internal email feature or instant messaging tool to communicate with other enrolled students. Discuss |
| Online Journal/Notes |
Students can keep private or shared notes, associate notes with private or shared files, and print out compiled notes from within their personal work area. Students can make notes in a journal and can select to make them private or to share them with their instructor or with other students. Discuss |
| Real-time Chat |
There is a PHP-based chat tool for course or group level messaging. Students can see who else is online within their course, or group. Instructors may monitor chats. The system creates archive logs for all chat rooms. Instructors can schedule chats using the groups calendar. The chat tool supports multiple simultaneous group discussions. Discuss |
| Video Services | |
| Whiteboard |
The software supports a instructor-controlled whiteboard that can have multiple instances in the same course using the Java/Jabber based AComm addon for ATutor. Discuss |
| Productivity Tools | |
| Bookmarks | |
| Orientation/Help |
The system includes an online course to help students, and instructors, learn how to use the system. Students can access context sensitive help for any tool, or for fields within tools. Discuss |
| Searching Within Course |
Students can use keywords to search a single course, all of their courses, or all available courses. Discuss |
| Calendar/Progress Review |
Calendering functionality is available through the ACollab addon for ATutor. Private, group, and course calendars can be used to keep track of assignments, deadlines, due dates, etc. RSS feeds are available for a number of resources that can notify people using aggregators of changes to materials. Discuss |
| Work Offline/Synchronize |
Students can compile seleted course content, or an entire course, into a downloadable content package for viewing offline in an accompanying content viewer. Upon re-entering a course, students have the option of resuming at the last page viewed. Instructors can record synchronous sessions so that students can review them asynchronously at a later time. Discuss |
| Student Involvement Tools | |
| Groupwork |
Group functionality is available through the ACollab addon for ATutor.Instructors can create group activities, and assign group leaders to create and manage groups. Each group has its own group home page, file exchange area, discussion forum, chat room, group email list, assessments and shared calendar. Students can collaboratively author a document using a version control tool, and can annotate their edits. Discuss |
| Self-assessment |
Instructors can create self-assessments that students can take multiple times. Automatically scored multiple choice and true/false, as well as random question tests are available. Discuss |
| Student Community Building |
Students can create study groups. Students can send email to their groups, use a shared chat space and notice board, and share material privately within the group. Students from different courses can interact system wide using shared discussion forums. Discuss |
| Student Portfolios |
Students have personal and public folders that can be shared with other students, with group members, with a course instructor, or with teaching assistants. Discuss |
| Administration Tools | |
| Authentication |
Administrators and instructors can set courses to be publicly accessible, or can protect access to individual courses with a username and password. System has a password reminder option. User logins can be encrypted with SSL. Discuss |
| Course Authorization |
Instructors can assign students limited access to instructional tools based on pre-defined roles or permissions, and create teaching assistants or additional instructors, each with their own custom privileges. Administrators can be created with limited access to play various administrative roles. Administrators or instructors can customize roles, create new or custom roles, create an unlimited number of custom organizational units and roles, with specific access privileges to course or administrative tools. Instructors or students may be assigned different roles in different courses, or in different groups. Discuss |
| Registration Integration |
Students can self-register. Administrators or instructors can batch add students to a course using a delimited text file, and send a system generated email message to students inviting them to join courses. Student registration can be authenticated against a master list generated from a student information system or other directory system. Discuss |
| Hosted Services |
The product provider offers: a free hosted systems for a small number of courses: hosting contracts vary from a set fee per course, to school, or board level and offer: a secure facility with environmental control, a direct T3 connection, with load balancing across all systems, 24x7x365 monitoring, and nightly backups. Discuss |
| Course Delivery Tools | |
| Course Management |
Instructors can selectively release course content and assessments based on specific start and end dates. Discuss |
| Instructor Helpdesk |
Instructors can access an online instructor manual, context sensitive help, and an instructor support forum hosted on the product provider’s site. Discuss |
| Online Grading Tools |
Instructors can assign partial credit for certain answers. Instructors can view grades, by student, and for all students on all tests. Instructors can delegate the responsibility for grading assignments and tests. Instructors can manually edit all grades. Instructors can create a comma-delimited version of test scores for export to an external spreadsheet program. Instructors can provide feedback on all assignments through links to the relevant course content, and through annotations. Discuss |
| Student Tracking |
nstructors can get reports showing the number of times, the time and date on which, and the frequency with which each student accessed course content. Instructors can get a report that shows number of attempts and time per attempt on each assessment for individual students. Instructors can share tracking information with students. Instructors can get a report showing the duration of time each student or all students spent on course content. Discuss |
| Automated Testing and Scoring |
Instructors can create automatically scored true/false and multiple choice questions, and randomize questions from a larger pool, with optional required questions that appear on all randomized tests. Instructors can set dates and times during which students can access tests. Instructors can provide individual feedback, override automated scoring, and create individual, unit specific, or course level tests. Instructors can also create survey questions. The system provides test analysis data for individual test items, for individual tests, and for surveys. Instructors can differentially weight tests. Discuss |
| Curriculum Design | |
| Accessibility Compliance |
The product provider self-reports that the software complies with the WAI WCAG 1.0 guidelines at the Double-A level and with Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act. Students can configure the system and save those settings for future visits. The system implements the following accessibility features: a. content optimized for use with screen readers, b. an HTML-based chat that is usable by assistive technologies, c. documentation to help assistive technology users configure the system, d. a content authoring tool with an accessibility checker, e. ability to provide alternatives to programmed, video, or graphic content, including a tool to add alt-text (a text alternative) to uploaded images, f. explicit labels for all form fields, g. content readable without style sheets, h. XHTML 1.0 compliant templates and custom style sheets (CSS classes) to control the system appearance Discuss |
| Course Templates |
The software provides support for template-based content creation. Course content may be uploaded to a file manager, imported from, or exported to, a learning object repository, imported directly from the Web using a URL, or imported from an HTML editor. Instructors can clone and modify the default the templates, or create new templates. Instructors can add to, or remove course functions from course templates. Discuss |
| Curriculum Management | |
| Customized Look and Feel |
The system provides 2 default course look and feel templates, as well as others that can be downloaded and installed. Institutions can create their own look and feel templates. Institutions can apply their own institutional images, headers and footers, across all courses, or across categories of courses. Instructors can change the navigation tabs, tools icons available, and the number and order of menu items for a course. Discuss |
| Instructional Standards Compliance |
The software supports the creation, importing and exporting of IMS 1.1.3 and SCORM 1.2 conformant content packages. The software has self-tested compliance with SCORM 1.2 Runtime Environment Specification (LMS-RTE3). The system includes tools to facilitate the migration of course content between different versions of the software, and to facilitate migration to, or from, other compliant learning management systems. Discuss |
| Instructional Design Tools |
Instructors can create both linear and nonlinear learning sequences, organized hierarchically by course, lesson, or topic. Instructors can organize learning objects into learning sequences, that are reusable. Discuss |
| Content Sharing/Reuse |
Instructors can share content through a central learning objects repository where it can be shared by instructors and students. The system supports sharing content across course and institution boundaries. Instructors can designate their files to be publicly accessible. Discuss |
| Hardware/Software | |
| Client Browser Required |
The software supports any browser although Internet Explorer 4+, Netscape 6+, and Opera 5+ are recommended. Discuss |
| Database Requirements |
The system requires a MySQL database. Discuss |
| Server Software |
The software requires PHP, MySQL and web server software such as Apache or Microsoft IIS. Discuss |
| UNIX Server |
The software is available for most versions of Linux or Unix. Discuss |
| Windows Server |
The software is available for a variety of Windows web servers. Discuss |
| Pricing/Licensing | |
| Company Profile |
The software was originally developed at the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre at the University of Toronto. Discuss |
| Costs |
The software is free for most uses. Discuss |
| Open Source |
The software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Discuss |
| Optional Extras |
Administrators can download and import system languages, and create new language packs on the product web site. There are currently more than 25 language packs available. Using a PostNuke Module (pnATutor) or the Mambo Module (Mambo ATutor), the software can be integrated with a Portal/Content Management System. The ACollab addon provides group functionality. The AComm addon provides an accessible Java-based Instant Messaging and Whiteboard tool. The system can display RSS feeds. The system supports the creation of Wikis. The ATalker addon provides text to speech functionality and customization. Discuss |
| Software Version |
The current software version number is 1.5 Discuss |
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