The Pulsar eLearning Management System (PLMS), or "WBT Platform" in short, is a content management system dedicated to facilitate the production and the hosting of e-learning content, or web based training (WBT). This platform has a smooth and professional look and feel, a high level of compliancy (browsers, graphics formats, SCORM packages etc.) and also provides to the WBT designer plenty of useful features like a navigation bar, an automatic glossary, several reusable quizzes, an embedded video player and many other functionalities.
During several years, we have enhanced a generic reusable LMS Graphical User Interface for the WBT’s, following the needs and requirements. This interface is made up of several components, which are the skeleton of the screen. All components are then filled with the information, animations, diagrams or exercises needed to achieve the learning objectives.
We also developed several WBT generic functions, which are reused from project to project and allow improved interactivity and give attractiveness to the WBT interface. Amongst other, we have:
- Enhanced 3D graphic objects: World Sphere, 3D Airports, etc.
- Generic Quizzes (6 quiz types) with XML-Based parameters (for colours, texts, false or true answers management, feedback on answers, etc.)
- Flash animations and illustrations
- Glossary tool, including contextual Glossary and full Glossary access page
- Related Links page
- Table of Content
|
Architecture
Here you can have a quick glimpse on the inside of the PLMS/WBT platform. As you can see, the LMS interface (light blue) can work as a static version (PLMS Flash) based on separate XML files (light yellow) or in collaboration with our web server (dark blue) that will store the data in a MySQL database (green, at the top).
In both cases it is able to communicate with a SCORM compliant server (orange) that stores the SCORM data in its own database (green, at the bottom).
The classical situation is to develop the content of the WBT on our own platform (we call this design-time), using the web administration part of the platform, and then generate the stand-alone version (PLMS Flash), to be used on a single PC, or to be used in interaction with a SCORM compliant server, like CLIX, or TopClass (we call this run-time). Certainly, when no specific platform is requested by the customer, our own eLearning server within PLMS will be used as a run-time platform in addition to design-time.
Both configurations, with our own eLearning server, or with another SCORM compliant server, support user authentication thru LDAP functions.
Graphics and texts are stored either as XML/HTML separate files (light yellow) or in the PLMS database (green, at the top), depending on the chosen configuration of PLMS platform.
Our eLearning PLMS server is installed as an independent website (J2EE compliant), and communicates with the PLMS repository or database, where it stores all training content information. This allows easy changes or adding of training content, or translation in other languages.
|
PLMS Graphical User Interface
1. General Look & Feel
- The course content is located on the left screen (tutorial section) and interactions are located on the right (interactions section).
- Links in the left sections (tutorial section) can trigger animations, interactions or quizzes on the right section (interactions section)
- The name of the student can be shown on the upper right of the screen
- The navigation through the various topics is made via the Topic tabs at the top
- The navigation through the various modules is made via the Module buttons at the bottom
- Separate navigation system within the flash interactions
- Glossary available on every screen
- Full SCORM 1.2 & SCORM 2004 compatibility (for recording & management of information)
- Possible guided or unguided navigation
2. LMS interface functioning and PLMS Help System
In order to facilitate the navigation through the interface, the LMS interface is explained to the learner. The different parts of the screen and the interaction the learner has to perform during the training are highlighted. He can then use the LMS focusing its attention on the training content rather than how to interact with the LMS interface.
This help is reachable from any page by clicking on the question mark. A specific help is provided for some quizzes when the interaction seems not to be obvious. Inside the training package, a specific colour is systematically used to indicate the leaner the action he has to perform on a page.
3. LMS GUI advantages
- General Layout
- The total size of the frameset, with some text and graphics and the Flash navigation file is generally less than 80 kilobytes. For comparison, that is about the same size as viewing a common image (JPG 800x800) on the web
- The Flash navigation files are only loaded once, meaning that the download times for the pages which change most often are reduced. The use of Javascript and CSS files also speeds up the loading time because those files are cached by the browser
- All the Graphics from the right page are generally preloaded in background when the user arrives on the pages, in order to be displayed instantly when he clicks on an interactive link in the text
- The simpler frame layout is designed for 1024 x 768 resolution but will extend seamlessly to larger resolutions (when needed)
- All styles are kept in a CSS style sheet making it easy to change the look and feel of a module for future courses.
- Navigation System details
- Only 50k in size, loaded only once
- Uses a few JavaScript files which doesn’t need editing
- All data comes in from a clearly readable XML file (that can also be generated on-the-fly by a webserver) which is readable and requires little skill to update and no specialist software
- Fully compatible with SCORM 1.2 / SCORM 2004, and Clix LMS
- The page system also allows students to see how far they are in the current topic
- The glossary will feed data in from an XML file (that can also be generated on-the-fly by a webserver) making updating easy by anyone. It will also work with links in the HTML page.
- Optimisation of interactions
- Interactions are optimised for the web by using scripting to create animations, interactions and content wherever possible
- All graphics are also highly optimised
- A loading screen is presented to show the user progress of the download
- Interactions are usually no larger than 40k but 25k is more typical.
WBT Specific Techniques
- 3D Graphic object modelling
This 3D model allows us to generate 3D models according to the needs of the project. For example, an airport has been modelled allowing to present different views of the same airport. The attention of the learner can be focused to different aspects of the airport keeping a consistency inside the examples.
Example: 3D airport modelling - wireframe view
Example: 3D airport with textures
- Flash Quizzes (questions) and interactions
- Multi choice single answer quiz
The question is displayed on the upper part of the quiz and there is a list of possible answers. The student can pick an answer and click on the “Check Answer” button. The feedback is then given to the student. There is also the possibility to show the right answer if the student is stuck.
- Multi choice multiple answer quiz
Same as above but the student can select one or more answers.
- Fill the gap quiz
The “fill the gap” quiz displays a text with holes the student must fill. The student fills the gaps with his answers, and then can click the “Check Answer” button to verify the correctness of what he wrote down. Correct answers are shown in green, incorrect ones are shown in red. The “Show Answer” button allows the stuck student to be shown the full correct answer.
- Drag-Drop quiz
The “Drag-drop” quiz displays a text with gaps. The corresponding answers are shown as blocks, and the student must drag & drop them in the correct “hole”. When all the blocks are dragged, the feedback is given to the student.
- Link related elements
In this case, graphical representations (diagram, image, animation, etc) or texts are shown to the student, which needs to link the related elements. The user could click on the “Is it correct?” button to check the answers.
- Timeline question
In this case, several pictures are shown to the user at the top of the quiz. The user will have to drag the pictures to the lower part in the right order.
- Other types of questions
- Y/N: Yes or No
- T/F: True or False
- Type-in: a single long field where the student types his answer
Starting from the type of questions already shown, other types that may be requested can be created:
Several flash interactions allow the student to put in application the content of the CBT. Here below you can find examples of some possible interactions. Other types of interaction not presented here can also be developed.
Administration Web Interface
At design time, text pages are easily edited through an online Rich Text Editor (left part of the screen), allowing various kind of prebuilt styles and also compliant with any CSS style sheet. The WBT Platform supports the upload of various kind of visual content (right part of the screen): all the images formats supported by the browser (JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, etc.), Adobe Flash Movies (SWF) and even video data (FLV).
|
Pulsar-LMS