Presentation

SYNOPSIS
(Title of the Synopsis)

Year -2011
University : College: Centre Code: Student Name: Program: SMU Roll number: Submitted to: Sikkim Manipal University Sky International College 03357 Subhash KC MBA , First Semester 566787878 Mr. Binod Bhusal , Academic Director

Sky International College Sky International College

Approval

I here by approved the synopsis of Mr/Ms ..Subhash KC student of MBA, First semester, having university roll no. 566787878 and fixed the time to attend the presentation on (specify your presentation date) .

Binod Bhusal Academic Director Sky International College Milanchowk- Butwal Nepal

Sky International College

Butwal-11, Milanchowk, Nepal Phone-977-71-541596 Email: skyhelpdesk@skycollege.edu.np Web: www.skycollege.edu.np

Table of Contents
Table of Contents....................................................................................................... 3 1. Introduction............................................................................................................ 4 1.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................... 4 1.2 College background..............................................................................................5 1.3 Purpose.................................................................................................................5 1.4 Requirements.......................................................................................................6 2. Aims and Objectives...............................................................................................6 3. Research on the existing VLE solutions..................................................................7 3.1 Comparison of VLE Solutions................................................................................7 3.2 Advantages and disadvantages of using VLEs......................................................8 3.2.1 Advantages........................................................................................................8 Disadvantages............................................................................................................9 4. Commercial Platform or Open Source?...................................................................9 5. Moodle - Virtual Learning Environment................................................................10 6. Innovation.............................................................................................................13 7. Recommendations................................................................................................14 8. Conclusion............................................................................................................ 14 9. References............................................................................................................16

1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction
With the advent of the twenty-first century, a new generation of development has entered for the human civilization - an era of the information society, which is characterized by the deployment of advanced information and telecommunications revolution, the rapid dissemination of information technology, globalization, social processes, international convergence and multidisciplinary cooperation. A new global information and communication sphere of life, education, communication and industry is formed, which is called info sphere. A global information network is organizational and technological basis of the information society, whose heart is the Internet. The telecommunications revolution is creating extraordinary new opportunities for the establishment and development of network structures in different areas of public life, including politics, economics, science, education, culture, life and safety. The new conditions of social development require the preparation of new professionals, the use of new technologies of training, adequate to the requirements of the Information Society. Development of the Internet has opened up new vistas of evolutionary improvement of the global educational system. Today, traditional methods of education are complemented by new methods of teaching based on the use of the Internet, electronic networking and telecommunications. Distance learning, tele-education, based on Internet technologies have a number of new features and suggest the implementation of certain principles, among which the principle of shared collaboration, integration, entry into the global network community play the key role. Virtual Learning Environment also known as VLE has been attracting the attention of both teachers and learners since olden times. Such learning can take different forms depending on the organization and the technologies of training. Recognizing that the world as a whole will continue to use terminology in various and sometimes ambiguous ways, the VLE term is used for the online interactions of a variety of

kinds of learning, which take place between students and instructors, including online learning (Brandl, 2005). Advantages of the VLE are stipulated by its new functions, empowerment and service delivery of education services to students, distributed according to different market segments and territories, as well as the use of flexible continuous lifelong learning, flexible schedules, and lessons in synchronous and asynchronous modes. VLE enables students and teachers to communicate in synchronous and asynchronous interaction (Gomez, Gordin & Carlson, 1995). In the last few years, the use of web-based education systems has grown exponentially, spurred by the fact that neither teachers nor students are bound to a specific location and that this form of computer-based education is platform-independent (Brusilovsky and Peylo, 2003). across time, space, and pace

1.2 College background

Sky International College is one of the NEPALs leading providers of Management and IT education to students since 2011. With computer-aided programmes supporting all of its classes, courses are designed to teach with twice the speed and twice the success. The Sky International College has many courses covering a wide range of topics and skills at all levels.

1.3 Purpose
Currently, the market of information services offers a significant number of software products for education. Therefore, the problem of adequate choice of a particular information technology for use in the educational process is arising. Education is the cornerstone of economic development in any nations (Ruttenbur, Spickler, & Lurie, 2000). The purpose of this paper is to research on VLE as well as to compare and analyze existing solutions available on the market with the aim of choice and introduction of VLE in teaching and studying at Sky International College , thus increasing the efficiency and quality of education by introducing the latest achievements of information and communication technologies in the learning process. One of the well-documented benefits of VLEs is its ability to provide better communication and collaboration between students and staff (Piccoli et al. 2001)

1.4 Requirements
Selected VLE must meet the following requirements: It must be comprehensive, i.e. cover all stages of study and all participants in the learning process. It must support for SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model). SCORM is a standard international framework for exchange of e-courses. It must be configurable, i.e. must adapt to the needs of the customer, both by changing the settings, and with the help of additional software modules.

It must have a clear and intuitive user interface for students and teachers, who, quite possibly, are not professionals in the field of information technology.

It must provide the maximum number of options for communication between students and teachers, such as forums, instant messaging, audio and video communication.

It must provide opportunities for monitoring of students progress and providing reports to the interested parties.

It must be reliable and stable. And it must be platform-independent and require no additional software to use it.

2. Aims and Objectives

To provide an integrated and efficient VLE solution, with an appropriate academic and technical infrastructure in order to support staff in developing and using e-learning approaches, this will enhance the learning experience of students.

3. Research on the existing VLE solutions

3.1 Comparison of VLE Solutions
At present, the marketplace is populated by a number of various VLE solutions. This research included the following products SharePoint, Blackboard, Moodle, StudyWiz and University. One of the selection criteria was the possibility to install VLE on colleges own server, but this option is not available for University, so this product was excluded from further consideration. Blackboard has also been excluded due to the high cost of the product. Below is a comparison chart of advantages and disadvantages that I gathered for considered products:

Table 1 (Andy Kemp, 2009)

After a comparative analysis of the considered products, we can conclude that the best solution which satisfies all the requirements for creating VLE at Sky International College is Moodle.

3.2 Advantages and disadvantages of using VLEs

3.2.1 Advantages

Technological effectiveness studying using modern hardware and software makes the process more effective. New technologies allow making visual information attractive and dynamic, and the process of education is build based on active interaction between the student and the educational system.

Accessibility and openness of learning - an opportunity to learn remotely from the place of learning, without leaving your home or office. This allows the modern specialist to learn almost all his life, without doing any special trips, vacations, combining studies with the main activity with an emphasis on training in the evening and at weekends.

Freedom and flexibility, access to quality education - there are new possibilities for choosing the course. It is very easy to select several courses from different universities from different countries. One can learn at the same time in different places, comparing different courses between themselves. One day, the network will offer the choice of the best distance learning courses in various specialties. There appears the opportunity of training in the best colleges and Universities, with the most effective technologies, taught by the most highly qualified teachers.

Individuality of learning systems - Distance learning is the most individualized and flexible form of education. The learner determines the pace of learning himself, he can return several times to certain lessons, can skip certain sections, etc. Students learn academic material during the whole period of study, not only during the session, which

ensures a more profound residual knowledge. Such system of training pushes students to study independently and get the skills of self-education.

Disadvantages

Lack of direct full-time communication between student and teacher - when there is no person who could help emotionally; this is a significant disadvantage for the learning process. It is difficult to make a creative atmosphere in the group of students.

PC and Internet access are required - the need for constant connection to access information sources.

High requirements for setting objectives for training, administration process creates complexity for motivating students.

Distance Learning requires a rigid self-discipline - result depends on the autonomy and student awareness.

Generally, students feel a lack of practical training. No permanent control over students High initial cost - including development, courses creation, staff training and the purchase of hardware.

4. Commercial Platform or Open Source?

The problem of choosing the right platform for creating VLE is a key problem and this choice depends on several factors: what are the requirements, which features must be available, on what users the VLE is oriented, and, importantly, what funds are available for purchasing and supporting the required platform. Advantages of commercial platform are well known: the majority of it are reliable products (especially those entrenched in the market), with an appropriate level of customer support, regular upgrades and new versions. However, there are also disadvantages. For example, there is a problem of "closed door": The source code is unavailable, so even small changes at the user

level are extremely difficult and sometimes not possible. The client can try to contact the development company and ask for any amendment or improvements, but it is highly unlikely that such requests will be implemented in a short period, if it ever happens at all. Apart from that, the high cost of any commercial product can be added to the disadvantages, as well as the regular payment for the license and additional payments for the increased number of users and so on. All this has forced us to pay attention to actively emerging Open Source (OS) VLE platforms and to weigh all pluses and minuses in this case. Undoubted merits of Open Source platform lie in the fact that it is the most natural choice for educational projects because its roots lie in the idea of cooperation, and the underlying ideology brings together the talents and experience of many teachers, students, volunteers, programmers in the development and improvement of educational software products. Communication and collaborative tools are widely used in the educational process and, as a result, VLE are installed more and more by universities, community colleges, business, schools, and even individual instructors in order to add web technology to their list of courses and to supplement traditional individual courses (Cole, 2005). Despite the virtual absence of what we call the aggressive advertising, it is possible to find fairly comprehensive table ratings of OS projects on the Internet, which reflect the teaching philosophy, the aspects of functionality, ease of use, technical reliability, and the size of the user community and the anticipated lifetime of a project.

5. Moodle - Virtual Learning Environment

One Open Source Software, which has emerged to meet the growing interest in open-source platforms, is MOODLE (Dougiamas, 2011).

Moodle is one of the most popular VLE in the world. The number of registered installations approaches 50 thousand. The system is used in tens of thousands of educational institutions in 199 countries and translated into 75 languages. Moodle has been successfully used in both high and secondary education, also as a corporate training system.

Moodle is one of the leaders in this industry being developed on the principles of Open Source licensed under the GNU GPL. Moodle implements rich functionality that is comparable to leading commercial systems and even being ahead. This is possible due to the wide community of users and developers from around the world supporting this product. Many Moodle developers are themselves teachers or have been taught in the past, so this product offers the convenience and simplicity of use, combined with a wide range of supported instructional techniques and forms of educational interaction. Moodle is designed to support a way of studying that is called social constructionist pedagogy (Rice, 2006). This style of training assumes that students study better when they work with a teaching material, create new material for others, and interact with other students. The use of this style in the courses is not required by Moodle, but this style is what it best supports. Moodle has begun its development as an Open Source project in November 2001 and since then has caused widespread interest among the educational institutions throughout the world. The first release of version 1.0 was released on August 20, 2002. The initiator and lead developer of the project is Martin Dougiamas from Australia. Moodle can be used on a single-teacher site as well as on 40,000 student university (Cole, 2005). In addition to basic functionality, that already has become the standard for any VLE, it includes the possibility of using up to date teaching materials in web formats, as well as arbitrary files, forums, chat rooms, internal mail, automated tests and SCORM packages. Moodle also supports a lot of their own forms of interaction that bring learning process on a totally different level of effectiveness. Moodle keeps detailed logs of all individual activities that students perform including completed assignments, handed over works and received reviews and assessments for each course (Rice, 2006).

Through these capabilities, Moodle can be used as a stand-alone VLE as well as to support fulltime education or testing. The entire content displayed to the user in Moodle can be processed using a specified set of filters. The basic version comes with a wide range of filters, including auto-linking to the entries in the glossary or database, replacing references to multimedia files playing them in the

embedded player, graphical display formulas in the algebraic formats, multi-language support within a single text, as well as the profanity filter. Controlling access to Moodle, starting with version 1.7, is based on the target system's roles and responsibilities, which can be assigned and overridden in a variety of contexts: the entire system, the categories of all courses, one course, and an element of the course. Moodle interface can be configured by selecting a suitable graphic theme and setting of the blocks that are displayed in the left and right columns. Template interface and a set of blocks can be different for each course. Moodle flexibility and breadth owe to its modular architecture, which is indicated by its name. In addition to the localization of modules and templates, Moodle supports modules elements of courses, types of resources, types of tasks in the test, format, export and import tests, field types in the database module, tasks formats, blocks, filters, and various types of reports, course formats, user authentication and courses subscription. In addition to the modules included in the base system, there is a wide range of additional modules, which can be found at the project site. With the support of all of these modules, the Moodle functionality can be extended and modified without modifying the core system code, which allows future updates to be applied smoothly. Following this principle, one can easily avoid the situation where the update to the next version is impossible because of the huge amount of code modifications, and the support of its own branch demands more and more resources. Moodle is also convenient in administration. Almost all settings can be managed through the administration panel, and only in the most exotic cases the manual-editing of the configuration file is required. Moodle can be called one of the most popular and fastest growing VLE, both among commercial and non-commercial products. Moodle supports all the functions of traditional VLE as well as many other additional and can be easily extended and adapted to the needs of a particular educational institution. With the help of friendly community and a wide range of partners, Moodle users can receive any necessary support.

Managing a VLE can be a very complex task. MOODLE does not hide all this complexity and its detailed on-line help, samples, and wise defaults assist users in setting up, managing and using the VLE (Robb 2004).

6. Innovation
Currently, there is a steady increase of accessibility and expansion of the market for mobile devices, which points to promising developments, technology-related to M-Learning (Mobile Learning). Mobile technology is strategic to various organizations and activities (Nah, 2005). Education is no exception! After the successful implementation of the VLE at Sky International College, the next step might be the development of a mobile client, as an additional useful feature. Advantages of mobile client application:

Allow to move freely and to gain knowledge on the go Ability to learn for people with learning disabilities No need to purchase of a personal computer and a paper-training literature, i.e. economically feasible;

Can improve a group and a single learning experience Training materials are easily spread between users through advanced wireless technologies

It should be fairly easy to use M-Learning system without reading a manual and the studying experience with the support of mobile devices should be entertaining and engaging (Trifonova & Ronchetti, 2003). Thus, the usefulness of these modern means of communication in the learning process is obvious. Mobile devices have the potential to make learning more diverse and fascinating (Sharples 2002). With mobile devices, educational materials are not only readily available to

students, but they can also be delivered to students based on their needs and preferences (Chen, 2005).

7. Recommendations
Effective organization of an educational process in the VLE depends on both the organizational and technical factors such as level of development of information and telecommunications infrastructure of the college and involvement of the trainees in this infrastructure, and on the whole complex of psychological and pedagogical conditions that need to be developed in the process of interaction between the subjects of the educational process. These conditions include the control of the motivational background of training and its development, ongoing feedback and gain control functions for the educational process, taking into account individual differences of learners, linguistic co-creation of all participants of educational process in the support and development of the environment. As shown by experimental study, the conditions providing significant growth of trainees knowledge are the communication functions of the VLE. Significant role in ensuring the effectiveness of the educational process play control functions allowing increasing control (qualitative and quantitative) for self-learning activities. The combination and update of the materials, as well as the creation of a common conceptual site map helping to navigate the content and receive access to the necessary resources or programs quickly becomes the actual task of development of the environment, leading to an increase of its effectiveness as a whole. VLE accumulates a vast amount of information which is particularly valuable for analyzing students behavior and could create a gold mine of educational data (Mostow and Beck, 2006).

8. Conclusion
In an extremely fast pace of our life, time becomes an increasingly precious resource. People must work hard to be successful and to hold a certain position in a society, but it is impossible to work effectively without new knowledge. Development of the Internet and the computerization

of society give excellent opportunities to people, making them mobile than ever. VLE system produces new knowledge at any convenient time. Development of VLE is a daunting task; no mistakes should be made in choosing the right software package. Recommended VLE solution Moodle makes learning system flexible and allows training to be more efficient. This system is a powerful tool in providing of e-learning support to students. To be able to use the system correctly, it is necessary to study the documentation and understand a little bit with the settings of the elements and blocks. In the future, this knowledge certainly will help to create educational tools for students and support the learning process at an appropriate level. As a result, this research work explored different features of Moodle, which can be used to implement successful VLE; various solutions currently available on the market were analyzed; advantages and disadvantages of different systems have been identified; and recommendations to the college for further use in the selection and implementation of VLE were developed.

9. References
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<http://www.andykemp.org.UK/2009/04/comparison-of-vle-solutions/> [Accessed 10 February 2011].

2. Brandl, K. (2005). Are you Ready to "MOODLE"? 9(2): 16-23. 3. Brand, L. van den (1992) Flexible and Distance learning. WestSussex, UK:John Wiley &

Sons, p. 248.
4. Brusilovsky, P., Peylo, C., (2003). Adaptive and intelligent web-based educational

systems. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 13, 156-169.

5. Cole, J. (2005). Using Moodle. OReilly. 6. Cross, J. (2007). Informal learning: Rediscovering the natural pathways that inspire

innovation and performance. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

7. Dougiamas, M. (2011). MOODLE. [online] Available at: <http://moodle.org/> [Accessed

7 February 2011].
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Study, Communications of the ACM, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 85-90.

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inquiry in a technology supported classroom. In J. Greer Proceedings of AI-Ed '95, Seventh World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 17-24). Charlottesville, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.
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Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 91-109.

11. Mostow, J., Beck, J., Cen, H., Cuneo, A., Gouvea, E., Heiner, C., 2005. An educational

data mining tool to browse tutor-student interactions: Time will tell! In Proceedings of the Workshop on Educational Data Mining, Pittsburgh, USA (pp. 1522)
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Environments: A Research Framework and a preliminary assessment of effectiveness in basic skills IT training. MIS Quarterly, 25 (4), 401-426.
13. Rice, W.H. (2006) Moodle E-learning Course Development. A complete guide to

succeful learning using Moodle. Packt publishing.

14. Robb, T. (2004). MOODLE: A virtual learning environment for the rest of us. TESL-EJ,

8(2): 1-8.

15. Ruttenbur, B. W., Spickler, G. C., & Lurie, S. (2000). E-Learning: The engine of the

knowledge economy. Memphis: Morgan Keegan.

16. Trifonova, A., & Ronchetti, M. (2003). A general architecture for M-Learning. Paper

presented at the MICTE 2003 Conference, USA.

(Copyright @Subhash KC, MBA Huddersfield University, Final Synopsis for Presentation 2010)