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Low Cost Course Management Software
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Teaching
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By brianbirgen
Posted Tue Jan 11, 2005 at 10:05:28 AM PDT
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There are a number of high quality course management software programs out there, Blackboard and WebCT come to mind. These program allow you to set up a password protected website for your course in which students can have discussions and chats, in which homework can be assigned and submitted, and in which students can check their grades in progress to verify they are entered correctly. Some of these products also allow for on-line testing. Of course to go with the high quality is a high cost. These products are very expensive and many smaller colleges simply cannot afford to purchase these products.
There is a low cost high quality alternative out there which you may not be familiar with. In fact, it is a free program called Manhattan. This is a high quality course management program which allows students to have discussions, turn in assignments, check their grades, and other things as well. The interface is very clean and user friendly. It does require an apache server (i.e. a Unix/Linux server) to live on. You can find out more at the site http://manhattan.sourceforge.net.
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I should mention that our college provides course management software called Jenzabar, which is quite possibly the worst alternative out there. It was chosen because it interacts well with the registrar's system and the financial aid system. However the course management software is so bad that our department maintains its own apache server with Manhattan on it (IT made it clear they would not support the Manhattan software as long as Jenzabar was available). If you have someone who knows enough Linux to set up a server, you can run Manhattan.
What other alternatives are out there for course management software and what are other people using? Also, are there any innovative ways that you are using course management software? |
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