Digital Workshop

Does anyone have a recommendation for a reasonably priced but reliable and user-friendly LMS for use with Opus material? The client only has 200 employees and perhaps only 20-30 a year will go through the first course we will develop, so cost is an issue.

Your question is difficult to answer because there are so many variables involved in discussing LMSes. Do you need expandability, standards compliance, support, etc.

There are low cost LMS systems you can look at.

This link: http://www.brandonhall.com/public/publi ... owcostlms/ takes you to Brandon Hall's website and a review of 17 low cost LMSes. Of course the cost of the report is a bit pricey.


This link: http://www.e-learningconsulting.com/pro ... ystem.html takes you to a simple LMS that is $1,000 for up to 100 users.

You could also do a search for a hosted LMS solution that might be cost-effective for you.

As you can see, there are a tremendously wide variance of capabilities, styles, etc.

I think the best thing to do would be to take a real careful analysis of what you want to do with the LMS, the functionality you need, the cost you ware willing to live with, and what your future needs might be, and then you should be able to better determine what types of LMSes might work for you.l

You can setup a basic LMS without the need to spend a lot of money. One important question is this:What will be the chosen delivery for this LMS?
Internet or Intranet?
To answer to this question is vital since there are different difficulties/paths as per your answer.
If the LMS needs to be located in an office common drive where all the computers are in the same location (building) then your LMS can be easily implemented using Access Database to capture scores, registration, etc and to produce reporting. If this is the chosen way, you can go all the way with opus E-learning options since this is the way I do my own LMS. If you want to use htm you can use the LMS component in Dreamweaver.

2-If you want to deliver your courses on the internet, then things are a little more complex since involve a dedicated server, security, etc. You can build all yourself if you know how or better still, pay big bucks for a company to do it.

I hope this helps a bit
German

Moodle is very flexible and free. It is used by many large organisations as well as for small group courses. Opus flex publications can easily be included as resources. http://www.moodle.org

Atutor is also a free open source LMS

http://www.atutor.ca/

Cheers

Melanie

Dear Andrew.
No doubt this forum is so illustrative! Thank you for this great tip. I did not know of the existence of this great program. I have read what you can do and certainly it has absolute many potentials.

Big thanks for your tip!

German