OLC

The Online Learning Centre enables the delivery and management of education and training via the Internet. Applications that do this are referred to as learning management systems (LMS).

From a technical perspective it is a web-based application designed to use the MySQL database server for all data management and will run on any web-server platform supported by PHP and MySQL. The application 'self installs'. Once extracted to the web server, a small install script is executed which will set-up the configuration file, create the database and add administrators.

It links a series of functionalities into an integrated suite that allows users to engage with different aspects depending on their requirements. It has a shopfront catalogue, a learner's area, a facilitator's area, a manager's area and an administrator's area.

Learners are able to access online learning material, undertake assessment, communicate with each other, participate in both synchronous and asynchronous discussion, provide feedback, track their own progress, edit their personal details, access recommended external reference sites, consult a bibliography and a glossary and maintain an online journal.

Facilitators, who may also be tutors or assessors, are able to communicate with learners and colleagues, add events to the calendar and notices to the noticeboard, manage the discussion boards and chat sessions, evaluate and make comments on learner's assessment, view learner feedback, authorise issuing of credentials, make anecdotal notes on learner's file and view each learner's level of activity in the Online Learning Centre.

Managers, who may be program supervisors, are able to perform all the functions listed for a facilitator and they also have access to the content management functionality for their nominated programs.

Administrators, who are similar to office managers, have the capacity to allocate access levels, set up any qualification and unit structures, process any applications for enrolment, maintain records, track visitor statistics, post general notices and events, issue completion documentation and generate reports.

Product at a glance
Product type	Application
Target Industry Sectors	Education and Has relevance across all industries
Fault tolerance	General consumer use
Innovation indicators	Business Advantage Earth shrinking Expanding horizons New Business Social change or empowerment of users
Performance indicators	Professionally executed design Real world design User benefits
Potential indicators	Designed for international use Identified potential markets Successful track record
Contact for more information	Marilyn Harvey 0412 025 066

Most Learning Management Systems are difficult to navigate, have a long implementation time, require ongoing attention from IT experts and are extremely expensive. It is this combination of factors that has made it very difficult for many education and training organisations to initiate online learning.

We have been positioning for the success of online learning for the past four years, refining the application, which is now in Version 3, in the light of identified trends. The design principles that guided the development of the Online Learning Centre were:

1. A client's Online Learning Centre can be branded and ready for use within three days.

2. Manager has content management control through the Training Online Authoring Zone (TOPAZ). Learning material displays as a system of folders that can be easily manipulated and edited. Another Australian invented application called Editlive has been embedded in the learning management system so that the writer works with an interface that closely resembles the most widely used browser today. It creates the html behind the scenes as the writer works. It functions via a quickly downloaded plugin and is an OEM product and the cost of it is built into our charges.

3. A series of interactions can be inserted by the author at any time and these can be scenarios, any variation on a likert scale, multiple choice or by sequence. This facilitates real learning, as the interactions require the learner to engage with the process, not just read web pages.

4. Administrator has a Control Panel that enables them to change most of the application wide details and set own parameters for operation. Many of these small editing details would have needed a programming expert in the past. This aspect of the Online Learning Centre is being expanded with each upgrade.

5. It has very extensive records management functionality. The administrator can use as many or as few of these as is needed by their particular organisation - this makes the application very appealing to the target market which can vary from wanting to keep all records online to having very little need for this functionality.

The extensive number of features and the four levels of access make the application quite a complex one. Some special features: (1) A series of Desktops group these functionalities by access level. (2) The grey navigation bar sits across the top of every page and allows the user to track back to previous pages very easily. (3) User has significant control over their personal details via the main Desktop. (4) Quick links allows the user to jump to the last three pages they have used. (5) imessage is an internal messaging system that facilitates contact amongst users, even if they don't have email.

The application has been in commercial use for two years and there have been no incidents or errors that can be attributed to unstable code. One client had 600 learners using their Online Learning Centre for six months and there were no problems with accessibility or speed at any time. The application can accept as many users and cope with as much traffic as can be handled by the hosting server.

Education and training is a compliance driven industry and reports are an extremely important part. This application has a Reports register that allows the administrator to generate a report on just about anything that is in the Online Learning Centre. Reports can be viewed, printed or exported as a CSV file. Statistics are kept on every user and to meet the Privacy legislation requirements, users have access to their own via 'My statistics' on the main Desktop.

By year end 2005, elearning will be the fourth-most-used Internet application behind Web infrastructure, email and search'. (Gartner Research Note: 3 October, 2003).

Online learning is fast becoming mainstream and 2004-2005 will see it firmly embedded as a means of delivering education and training in Australia.

The domestic target market for this application is the 4,000 Registered Training Organisations across Australia. This year our business strategy is to move on this potential by leasing the LMS directly to these organisations.

The international target market is training organisations that specialise in adult learners, excluding the university sector. The business strategy is to develop relationships with a partner in each targeted country.

TOLI has never yet marketed the LMS independently as a software application -it has been used to support our specialist elearning consultancy services. Whenever a client engages TOLI to assist with an elearning initiative they have access to their own branded Online Learning Centre for the length of the consultancy. This has proved very effective as it dispenses with arduous decision making about which LMS to purchase/lease and means the budget can be devoted to consultancy oriented tasks. Sometimes a client will continue to lease their Online Learning Centre after the completion of the consultancy. Some examples:

ETETC are providers of specialist training for the Arts industry. They used our consultancy services to initiate their involvement with online learning and have been delivering workplace, health and safety training and induction online via their Online Learning Centre for past two years (2000 - 2003).

Foster's used their Online Learning Centre for a year long project to skill their sales executives in product knowledge. Their 'Draught Beer Fundamentals' course was available to 600 employees Australia wide (2002). When the project was finished they no longer required the LMS.

ACE conducted a three month pilot project in their Online Learning Centre with a group of teaching practitioners focused on identifying how the online environment could support professional development (2003).

RoadTek deployed training and assessment for supervisors through their Online Learning Centre that enhanced and extended a face-to-face program (2002).

TOLI financed the design and development of version one of the LMS in beginning in 1999. This focused on the delivery functionality and included a very simple content manager. Version 2 was developed in response to the need for a more sophisticated content management functionality and the requirement to maintain records in a way that met the needs of the Australian vocational education sector. Version 3 was released in early 2003 and contains new interfaces, a wider range of interaction capacity and increased records management functionality.

The best way to assess the application is to experience it. Demonstration Online Learning Centre URL:

There are four levels of access set up, to enable judges to experience the different functionality. General rule is 'if it's blue, click on it!'

Feel free to create whatever you are able to - please don't delete anything you didn't create yourself. These programs are linked to each of the access levels:

'Online Learning Centre' explains some features of the application and has some one page brochures that can be downloaded.

'Demonstration Unit' has been set up for potential clients to experience the functionality from a learner's perspective.

'Authoring eLearning' is an short learning program we use to provide our new writers with some background in house style. (1) To see what the learner sees, click on Learner View on the Facilitator's Desktop. A quick click through the learning program will give some insight into the way the application enables content experts to put together online learning programs. (2) Click on Learner records on Facilitator's Desktop to see how an assessor would access and record results.

'Safety Induction': Click on TOPAZ on the Manager's Desktop to see the content management functionality. 'Learning material' takes you to the TOPAZ folder structure. Create sub-sections/pages if you would like to. This is a demo unit for this purpose.

The Administrator Desktop is the entry point for administrative functionalities. Please explore!

Online Learning Centre

Marilyn Harvey
Director
marilyn@toliconsult.com

0412 025 066

Training Online International Pty Ltd
ABN11 080 664 491

PO Box 5101 West End, Brisbane 4101

www.trainingonline.com.au