Technological Evaluation and Optimization of E-Learning Systems Components - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 161

Table 2. continued

Criteria Sub-criteria Description

Quality and completeness of information on the product's web site
Size and level of activity in the developer community
Size and level of activity in the user community
Availability and use of a range of communication channels (email, forums, IRC, wiki, etc.)
Software release history for evidence of sustainability and vitality
Documentation on how
to set up and manage a
repository farm

Community knowledge
base

One code base, many independent repositories

ity, personalization, extensibility, and adaptivity
capabilities of the platforms.
Adaptation received very little coverage in e-
learning platforms. An e-learning course should
not be designed in a vacuum; rather, it should match
students' needs and desires as closely as possible,
and adapt during course progression. The extended
platform will be utilized in an operational teaching
environment. Therefore, the overall functionality
of the platform is as important as the adaptation
capabilities, and the evaluation treats both issues.
There are only a few LMSs evaluations available
in the current literature. Their main focus is on
commercial products. In contrast, the work in (Graf
& List, 2005) is focused on open source products
only, and on customizable adaptation that can be
performed without programming skills.
The LMSs adaptation evaluation criteria
proposed in (Graf & List, 2005) are as follows:

a documented Application Programming
Interface (API);
4. Adaptivity: it indicates all kinds of automatic
adaptation to the individual user's needs (e.g.
personal annotations of LOs or automatically
adapted content).

The evaluation (Graf & List, 2005) is based on
the Qualitative Weight and Sum approach (QWS).
QWS establishes and weights a list of criteria
and is based on the use of symbols. There are six
qualitative levels of importance for the weights,
most frequently, symbols are used:

1. E = Essential;
2. * = Extremely valuable;
3. # = Very valuable;
4. + = Valuable;
5. | = Marginally valuable; and
6. 0 = Not valuable.

1. Adaptability: it includes all facilities to
customize the platform/LMS to suit the edu-
cational institution needs (e.g. the language
or design);
2. Personalization: this indicate the facilities
of each individual user to customize his/her
own view of the platform;
3. Extensibility: in principle, this is possible
for all open source products. Nevertheless,
there can be great differences; for example,
in programming style or the availability of

The weight of a criterion determines the range
of values that can be used to measure a product's
performance. With the criterion weighted #, for
example, the product can only be judged #, +, |, or
0, but not *. It means that lower-weighted criteria
cannot overpower higher-weighted criteria. To
evaluate the results, the different symbols, given
to each product, are counted. As an example, the
results can be 2*, 3#, 3| or 1*, 6#, 1+. The product
can now be ranked according to these numbers.