Annotation of loncom/html/adm/help/tex/Why_LON-CAPA.tex, revision 1.1
1.1 ! bowersj2 1: \label{Why_LON-CAPA}
! 2:
! 3:
! 4: There are tens of learning management systems to choose from. Why
! 5: should you choose LON-CAPA over the competition?
! 6:
! 7: \begin{itemize}
! 8: \item \textbf{Unparalleled assessment engine}: The assessment engine in
! 9: LON-CAPA is the beneficiary of over a decade of development and refinement.
! 10: Few projects are even in the same league of the LON-CAPA project in
! 11: experience with sophisticated homework problems. Sophisticated randomization
! 12: features go well beyond merely randomizing the order of multiple choice
! 13: problems; everything can be randomized, from the exact parameters
! 14: in a given numerical problem to \emph{which} parameters are missing
! 15: for a given student. See our Author's Manual for an idea of how powerful
! 16: the assessment engine is (http://msu.loncapa.org/adm/help/author.manual.pdf),
! 17: or try our Demo Course (http://demo.lon-capa.org/cgi-bin/signon.pl).
! 18:
! 19:
! 20: Along with powerful online assessment, the randomization can be taken
! 21: off-line as well. Customized exams can be printed for each student,
! 22: taking full advantage of the randomization. Most of the usual forms
! 23: of cheating on an exam are effectively impossible when each student
! 24: gets a different exam. LON-CAPA integrates directly with some forms
! 25: of scanning systems (and as long as you can get the input from the
! 26: system in some manner, LON-CAPA can integrate with it with a little
! 27: programmer support), and supports partial handgrading: An instructor
! 28: or a TA can examine a single essay problem on an otherwise multiple-choice
! 29: exam, and encode a score for the essay problem before sending the
! 30: answer form for grading.
! 31:
! 32: \item mention development in an aggresive student cheating environment?
! 33: Should probably be attached to pedagogical advantages, along with
! 34: a mention of tens of thousands of students in the system.
! 35: \item \textbf{Full course support}: LON-CAPA is capable of running your
! 36: entire course from top to bottom. LON-CAPA can host all of the content
! 37: of the course, from syllabuses to actual course materials. It can
! 38: track your students grades, with as much power as you need. Want to
! 39: give students bonuses for getting a problem right on the first try?
! 40: Or insert external grades into the system from an external data source?
! 41: Powerful communication features enable discussion between the instructors
! 42: and students, or among the students themselves. From the initial course
! 43: creation to the final grades readout, LON-CAPA has all the power you
! 44: need to run courses.
! 45: \item \textbf{It's free}\index{free}: The thousands or millions you save
! 46: over expensive course management solutions can be better spent on
! 47: computers, or directly spent on your students. LON-CAPA can frequently
! 48: do more with less then some of the largest commercial competitors,
! 49: too.
! 50: \item \textbf{It's free}\index{free}: As in liberty. No need to buy an
! 51: extra-special license just to have the privilege of developing extensions
! 52: to the system. You have full access to the entire system. You aren't
! 53: restricted to carefully delimited parts of the system the vendor deems
! 54: {}``safe'' for you to access. You also have full access to all the
! 55: data on the system; LON-CAPA never locks up your data. There aren't
! 56: any hidden secrets in the system, either, when you're free to scrutinize
! 57: all of the source code. And it won't become closed later either, thanks
! 58: to the licensing.
! 59: \item \textbf{Large Digital Library}: LON-CAPA's digital library means you
! 60: have access to thousands of high-quality learning resources right
! 61: off the bat, without writing them yourself. Since one of LON-CAPA
! 62: driving motivations is resource sharing, you have full support for
! 63: it at any granularity, from simply using other's freely available
! 64: resource, to a multi-institution grant-funded large-scale collaboration
! 65: project, to simply re-using content used last year in the same course.
! 66: \item \textbf{Power for the Users}: LON-CAPA's grants a lot of power to
! 67: the instructors to control their course; the system imposes minimal
! 68: arbitrary restrictions on the instructors because the design is mature.
! 69: To get an idea of what the instructors can do, see our Course Management
! 70: Manual (http://msu.loncapa.org/adm/help/course.manual.pdf).
! 71: \item \textbf{Improve Student's Performance}: Several studies have repeatedly
! 72: shown that using LON-CAPA can significantly improve student performance.
! 73: One especially interesting result has been its ability to nearly eliminate
! 74: the gender gap in technical subjects such as physics, where men have
! 75: traditionally outperformed women.
! 76: \end{itemize}
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