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Product Name Pearson LearningStudio Campus
Developer Name
URL Pearson LearningStudio
Review Date February 09, 2010
Forums Pearson LearningStudio Campus Discussions
Reviewer Email Review Staff
Communication Tools
Discussion Forum
  • Students can receive posts by email as daily digests of subject lines or whole posts.
Reviewer Comments
There are 5 discussion types available:

Discussion - thread based discussion forum
Conversation - non-thread based forum
Debate - forum with defined standpoints
Brainstorm - forum for anonymous generation of ideas
Hotseat - question and answer forum
The most recent discussion postings can be viewed on the user’s personal start page.


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Discussion Management
  • Instructors can allow students to create discussion groups.
  • Posts may be peer reviewed by other students.
  • Instructors can view statistical summaries of discussions displaying participation which can be used to generate grades.
  • Discussions can be shared across courses, departments, or any institutional unit.
Reviewer Comments
Discussion posts can be edited/deleted by a moderator once published.
Discussion contributions can be included in a student's portfolio to form part of a continuous assessment.


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File Exchange
  • Students can submit assignments using drop boxes.
  • Students can share the contents of their personal folders with other students.
  • Administrators can define disk space limitations for each user.
Reviewer Comments
The drop-box is a hand-in folder.

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Internal Email
  • Students can use the built-in email functionality to email individuals or groups.
  • Students can use a searchable address book.
  • Instructors can email the entire class at once at a single address or alias.
  • Students can elect to forward their mail to an external address.
Reviewer Comments
Options to:
Integrate external IMAP/POP3 email accounts in Fronter
Store emails in personal resource folder on the platform
Share common email account with other students/colleagues e.g. student services@university.com


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Online Journal/Notes
  • Students can attach notes to any page.
Reviewer Comments
Once a note has been posted on a document, the owner of the document will be notified by email and on their start page, as well as provided with a direct link to the note.

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Real-time Chat
  • The chat tool supports unlimited simultaneous group discussions
  • Students can create new rooms.
  • The chat tool supports a structured way for students to ask questions and instructors to provide answers.
  • The system creates archive logs for all chat rooms.
Reviewer Comments
Customised chat groups can be created for group work within a room.
Users can have private 'chats' during the regular chat session.


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Whiteboard
  • The whiteboard supports image and PowerPoint uploading.
  • The software supports graphing, polling, and instructor moderation.
  • The software supports group web browsing.
  • The software supports application desktop sharing.
  • The software can archive a recording of whiteboard sessions for future viewing.
  • The software supports two-way voice chat.
Reviewer Comments
A fully integrated Elluminate whiteboard is available through the Fronter Meeting and Fronter Liveroom.

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Productivity Tools
Bookmarks
  • Students can share their bookmarks.
  • Students can create bookmarks in a private folder.
  • Students can bookmark any content material in a course.


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Calendar/Progress Review
  • Instructors and students can post events in the online course calendar.
  • Instructors can post announcements to a course announcement page.
  • Students have a personal home page that lists all courses in which the student is enrolled, new email and all course and system-wide events from their personal calendar.
  • Students can subscribe to RSS feeds to be notified of changes to materials.
Reviewer Comments
Students are able to view their grades on completed assignments, total points possible, and course grade.

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Searching Within Course
  • Students can search all course content.
  • Students can search all discussion threads.
Reviewer Comments
Students can view logs of chat sessions and search through content.

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Work Offline/Synchronize
  • Students can compile and download the content for an entire course into a format that can be printed or stored locally.
Reviewer Comments
All course work and content can be printed in Fronter and used for work offline.
Files can be downloaded by the students
A teacher can download the entire contents of a room with the existing folder structure.


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Orientation/Help
  • Students can access context sensitive help for any tool.
  • The system includes online tutorials for students that help students learn how to use the system.
Reviewer Comments
Documentation and help manuals are also available for specific tools, as well as teacher and administrator manuals.

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Student Involvement Tools
Groupwork
  • Instructors can assign students to groups.
  • Each group can be given group-specific assignments or activities.
Reviewer Comments
Shared Document: Students can work on multiple author documents, making comments and editing each other’s work.
Learning Path: Students can create group presentations on separate or joint 'Pages' and combine them within a sequenced learning path to form a presentation.
Shared Resources: access to resources can be customised so that different groups can have their own or shared resources.


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Community Networking
  • Students can create online clubs, interest, and study groups at the system level.
Reviewer Comments
Fronter Instant Messenger (FIM) chat tool: access can be customised so that all online users within the system can chat together.
Rooms/areas within the platform can be made public allowing all members in the system to collaborate inside.
'Bridges' between different Fronter installations can be made allowing students from separate buildings to take part in courses/collaborate and share resources.


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Student Portfolios
  • Students can create a personal home page in each course.
  • Students can use their personal home page to selectively display their course work.
  • Students can export their personal home page.
Reviewer Comments
Each student will have a personal portfolio where a record of all assignments, tests, discussion contributions and grades are stored.
A student can have an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) where they can work together with teachers and parents to map out learning progress, short and long term goals.


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Administration Tools
Authentication
  • Administrators can allow guest access to all courses.
  • The system can authenticate against an external LDAP server.
  • The system can authenticate using the Kerberos protocol.
  • The system supports Shibboleth.
Reviewer Comments
The system can authenticate against IIMAP and POP3.

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Course Authorization
  • The system supports restricting access based on roles and roles can also be customizedby the service provider.
  • Administrators can create an unlimited number of custom organizational units and roles with specific access privileges to course content and tools.
  • Administrators can distribute the permissions and roles across multiple institutions or departments hosted in the server environment.
  • Instructors or students may be assigned different roles in different courses.


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Registration Integration
  • Instructors can add students to their courses manually or allow students to self-register.
  • Administrators can batch add students to the system using a delimited text file.
  • Administrators can transfer student information bidirectionally between the system and an SIS using delimited text files.
  • The software supports data interchange with student information systems through an event-driven API.
  • The software supports integration with SCT Banner, SCT Luminis, Datatel, PeopleSoft 8 or customized integration with other SIS or portal systems.
  • The software is compliant with the IMS Enterprise Specification for Student Data.


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Hosted Services
  • The product provider offers a hosted solution.
  • Hosting and support services from Commercial Affiliates.


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Course Delivery Tools
Test Types
  • Multiple choice
  • Multiple answer
  • Matching
  • Calculated
  • Short answer
  • Survey questions
  • Essay
  • Questions can contain other media elements (images, videos, audio)


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Automated Testing Management
  • The system can randomize the questions and answers.
  • Instructors can create self-assessments.
  • Instructors can set a time limit on a test.
  • Instructors can permit multiple attempts.
  • The students are allowed to review past attempts of a quiz.
  • Instructors can specify whether correct results are shown as feedback
Reviewer Comments
WebEQ is included in the test tool allowing the inclusion of mathematical equations and formulae in test questions.

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Automated Testing Support
  • Instructors can create personal test banks.
  • Instructors can create system wide test banks.
  • Questions can be imported from external test banks that support QTI.
  • The system provides test analysis data.


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Online Marking Tools
  • Instructors can choose to mark each student on all questions or to mark each question on all students.
  • Instructors can enable students to rate and comment on submissions of other students.
Reviewer Comments
Instructors can select automatic test correction depending on test question types.

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Online Gradebook
  • When an instructor adds an assignment to the course, the software automatically adds it to the gradebook.
  • Instructors can add grades for offline assignments.
  • Instructors can add details to the gradebook in custom columns.
  • Instructors can export the scores in the gradebook to an external spreadsheet.
  • Instructors can create a course grading scale that can employ either percents, letter grades, or pass/fail metrics.
Reviewer Comments
This functionality is a part of the Fronter Absence and gradebook PlusPack and must be bought separate to the standard Fronter Platform.

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Course Management
  • Instructors can selectively release assignments, assessments, and announcements based on specific start and stop dates.
  • Instructors can set up specific course content that is released on a specific date and must be completed by students before they continue with the course.
  • Instructors can personalize access to specific course materials based on group membership.
  • Instructors can personalize access to specific course materials based on previous course activity.
  • Instructors can personalize access to specific course materials based on student performance.


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Student Tracking
  • Instructors can track the frequency and duration of student access to individual course components.
  • Usage statistics can be aggregated across courses or across the institution.
Reviewer Comments
Instructors can get reports showing the number f times, time, date and frequency of each student who accessed course content, discussion forums, course assessments, and assignments.

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Content Development Tools
Accessibility Compliance
  • The product provider self-reports that the software complies with Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act.
  • The product provider self-reports that the software complies with the WAI WCAG 1.0 Level A guidelines.


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Content Sharing/Reuse
  • Instructors can share content with other instructors and students through a central learning objects repository.
  • The repository can be system-wide or for individual organizational units.
  • Tools are available to enable version tracking and linking to specific versions as well as the creation and management of workflows for collaborative content creation and review.
  • The repository supports IEEE LOM and metadata application profiles such as, Dublin Core, Cancore, and custom profiles.


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Course Templates
  • The software provides support for template-based course creation.
  • Course content may be uploaded through WebDAV.
  • The system allows administrators to use an existing course or a pre-defined template as a basis for a new course.


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Customized Look and Feel
  • The system provides default course look and feel templates.
  • Instructors can change the navigation icons and color schemes for a course.
  • Instructors can change the order and name of menu items for a course.
  • Institutions can create their own look and feel templates across the entire system, including their own institutional logos, headers, and footers.
  • The system can support multiple institutions, departments, schools or other organizational units on a single installation where each unit can apply its own look and feel templates as well as institutional images, headers and footers.


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Instructional Design Tools
  • Instructors can organize learning objects, course tools, and content into learning sequences that are reusable.
  • Instructors can create linear learning sequences organized hierarchically by course, lesson, and topic.
  • Instructors can reuse courses as templates for future lessons.


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Instructional Standards Compliance
  • AICC
  • IMS Content Packaging 1.1.3
  • IMS Content Packaging 1.1.4
  • IMS QTI 1.2.1
  • IMS Enterprise 1.1
  • SCORM 1.2
  • SCORM 1.3


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Hardware/Software
Client Browser Required Reviewer Comments
Fronter supports:

- Internet Explorer 6.0, 7.0
- Firefox 2.0, 3.0

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Database Requirements
  • The system supports MySQL.


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UNIX Server

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Windows Server

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Company Details/Licensing
Company Profile Reviewer Comments
Fronter is a European company founded in Norway, now represented in 33 countries around the world. Setting the standard for online learning solutions, Fronter provides a flexible learning solution for the next generation of global education.
Grouped into 5 main areas, tools on the Fronter Platform cover Personal Work and Portfolio, Teaching and Learning, Collaboration and Communication, Publishing, Setup and Administration.


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Costs / Licensing Reviewer Comments
Please contact us at info@fronter.com for more information.

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Open Source

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Optional Extras Reviewer Comments
Fronter offers Pluspacks to supplement the standard Fronter platform. These modules offer additional functionality, and are sold separately according to customer specific agreement.

Pluspacks offered:

Email hosting
Calendar import
Webparts
Elluminate vOffice(TM)
Absence and gradebook
Survey
Digital Exam
Ephorus Plagiarism Control
Elluminate vClass(TM)
Time Recording
Bridge
Creaza
Elluminate Live(R)
Webfronter
Infofronter
SMS messaging
Fronter hosting
User import
Single Sign On
LDAP Authentication
Data Synchronisation
Disclaimer:

Fronter has made reasonable efforts to ensure that all information provided through this website on the Internet is accurate at the time of inclusion. However, there may be inadvertent and occasional errors for which Fronter apologises. It should not be taken as a definitive guide to every area of concern, nor should it be considered sufficiently full and accurate to cover every situation. Further information and appropriate professional advice should be sought. Decisions should be taken in accordance with normal business evaluation methods.
This information is based on version Fronter82, and therefore there could be discrepancies between newer and older versions on the Fronter platform currently in use.
For more details on the tools and functionality offered in the Fronter Platform please contact info@fronter.com


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Reference Citation: EduTools. (2010). CMS: Product Comparison System. Retrieved September 08, 2010 from http://www.edutools.org/compare.jsp?pj=4&i=617