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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
1.2     ! raeburn    16: the assessment engine is (https://loncapa.msu.edu/adm/help/author.manual.pdf),
        !            17: or view some demo problems (http://loncapa.org/demo.html), or create an 
        !            18: account and an authoring space in the LON-CAPA Test Drive environment 
        !            19: (https://testdrive.loncapa.org).
1.1       bowersj2   20: 
                     21: Along with powerful online assessment, the randomization can be taken
                     22: off-line as well. Customized exams can be printed for each student,
                     23: taking full advantage of the randomization. Most of the usual forms
                     24: of cheating on an exam are effectively impossible when each student
                     25: gets a different exam. LON-CAPA integrates directly with some forms
                     26: of scanning systems (and as long as you can get the input from the
                     27: system in some manner, LON-CAPA can integrate with it with a little
                     28: programmer support), and supports partial handgrading: An instructor
                     29: or a TA can examine a single essay problem on an otherwise multiple-choice
                     30: exam, and encode a score for the essay problem before sending the
                     31: answer form for grading. 
                     32: 
                     33: \item mention development in an aggresive student cheating environment?
                     34: Should probably be attached to pedagogical advantages, along with
                     35: a mention of tens of thousands of students in the system.
                     36: \item \textbf{Full course support}: LON-CAPA is capable of running your
                     37: entire course from top to bottom. LON-CAPA can host all of the content
                     38: of the course, from syllabuses to actual course materials. It can
                     39: track your students grades, with as much power as you need. Want to
                     40: give students bonuses for getting a problem right on the first try?
                     41: Or insert external grades into the system from an external data source?
                     42: Powerful communication features enable discussion between the instructors
                     43: and students, or among the students themselves. From the initial course
                     44: creation to the final grades readout, LON-CAPA has all the power you
                     45: need to run courses.
                     46: \item \textbf{It's free}\index{free}: The thousands or millions you save
                     47: over expensive course management solutions can be better spent on
                     48: computers, or directly spent on your students. LON-CAPA can frequently
                     49: do more with less then some of the largest commercial competitors,
                     50: too.
                     51: \item \textbf{It's free}\index{free}: As in liberty. No need to buy an
                     52: extra-special license just to have the privilege of developing extensions
                     53: to the system. You have full access to the entire system. You aren't
                     54: restricted to carefully delimited parts of the system the vendor deems
                     55: {}``safe'' for you to access. You also have full access to all the
                     56: data on the system; LON-CAPA never locks up your data. There aren't
                     57: any hidden secrets in the system, either, when you're free to scrutinize
                     58: all of the source code. And it won't become closed later either, thanks
                     59: to the licensing.
                     60: \item \textbf{Large Digital Library}: LON-CAPA's digital library means you
                     61: have access to thousands of high-quality learning resources right
                     62: off the bat, without writing them yourself. Since one of LON-CAPA
                     63: driving motivations is resource sharing, you have full support for
                     64: it at any granularity, from simply using other's freely available
                     65: resource, to a multi-institution grant-funded large-scale collaboration
                     66: project, to simply re-using content used last year in the same course.
                     67: \item \textbf{Power for the Users}: LON-CAPA's grants a lot of power to
                     68: the instructors to control their course; the system imposes minimal
                     69: arbitrary restrictions on the instructors because the design is mature.
                     70: To get an idea of what the instructors can do, see our Course Management
                     71: Manual (http://msu.loncapa.org/adm/help/course.manual.pdf).
                     72: \item \textbf{Improve Student's Performance}: Several studies have repeatedly
                     73: shown that using LON-CAPA can significantly improve student performance.
                     74: One especially interesting result has been its ability to nearly eliminate
                     75: the gender gap in technical subjects such as physics, where men have
                     76: traditionally outperformed women. 
1.2     ! raeburn    77: \end{itemize}