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using Valamis eLearning

Bradley Borch, modified 10 Years ago.

using Valamis eLearning

New Member Posts: 8 Join Date: 4/23/13 Recent Posts
The org I work for is migrating its site to Liferay. I am also admin for our moodle LMS deployment. There are currently only about a dozen courses in the system, and although that will likely grow, it will not probably ever be very many courses.

My question is about the Valamis elearning app and how it is intended to be used. How would I approach setting it up in Liferay to replicate the functionality of the existing moodle system? Should each course be set up as a "site" in Liferay, and then the Valamis template be selected for that site? If so, I imagine Liferay's normal permissions system can be used so that registered users are allowed access to the system, or to individual courses.

Is there a recommended strategy for deploying Valamis in this way (as a subsection of a typical Liferay deployment, with a separate permissioning and navigation structure)?

BTW, I'm trying to get the app installed but every time I click on "Install" it gets stuck at "Please wait."
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Janne Hietala, modified 10 Years ago.

RE: using Valamis eLearning

Junior Member Posts: 97 Join Date: 6/16/09 Recent Posts
Hi Bradley,

It's great that you're now looking into using Valamis instead of Moodle! Are you currently using Moodle's content building tool or are you using external content authoring tool and deploying content in SCORM to Moodle?

You're in right track. Typical use case is that Liferay site with specific Valamis course template would represent a course. This is the easiest use case. Of course there is a lot of flexibility how you will use the Valamis -portlets in adjacent to your existing Liferay content. In a sense you would be able to build social intranet with Social office including collaboration spaces and combine Valamis eLearning functionality to those.

I would be happy to talk you through a basic configuration and setup via Webex. Contact me at janne.hietala@arcusys.com

I also read from the other thread, that you were able to overcome the Marketplace installation issue. Let me know if you need any other help.

Best regards,
Janne Hietala
Bradley Borch, modified 10 Years ago.

RE: using Valamis eLearning

New Member Posts: 8 Join Date: 4/23/13 Recent Posts
Janne,

Thanks for the quick response!

As I mentioned, I'm currently administrator for a moodle deployment, but at the present time there are only 16 courses in the system, and only two are active. The deployment is intended for a wider set of institutions, but the one that is using it the most is a VERY traditional institution; they are basically NOT using it for anything that could realistically be called eLearning, just for support of traditional lecture-based learning, functions such as discussions, distributing documents, etc., with the occasional rudimentary powerpoint. One of the classes is a distance class, but the instructors wouldn't know SCORM if it bit them (pardon the American idiom).

Having said that, what I think would be useful would be for Valamis to include:

1) Better documentation on how it could or should be deployed (e.g. a "course" is a "site"), and

2) A set of several different (site) course templates that are pre-configured to include the various aspects of a "class" one would expect to find in an LMS. For example, if I add a course in Moodle, it assumes a calendar, it includes a discussion "portlet," it provides user registration and permissions for the class, and provides document sharing and handling. All of these are available in Liferay, but it would be a pain to have to re-create that every time I added a course. It would be ideal if there were a set of templates set up for different types of classes (traditional, distance, module-based, social, MOOC, etc.).

3) A specifically designed navigation portlet that would serve as the front end to sites that were identified as "Courses." It would include information about the "LMS" or the organization that was administering it (e.g. an HR department in a company, or whatever educational organization).

In other words, I don't think it would be that difficult to use Liferay's capabilities to make Valamis into a virtual "LMS in a box" that could be deployed as a subsection of a Liferay deployment.