Integration of Learning and Enterprise Solutions
There are many ways to connect different platforms, learning solutions and enterprise applications. For example, you may want some level of integration between your Learning Management System (LMS), web conferencing/virtual classroom, and your active directory for authentication. Perhaps you also want to connect your email /scheduling programs and different portals built on different architectures.
Where do you start?
The first thing to consider is what is your organization trying to accomplish in terms of meeting your user or student requirements. What do people need? How can you make their tasks easier while reducing overall complexity and administration?
Lets consider some scenarios that take into account of existing platforms, proposed new solutions and end user or student requirements.
Scenario 1 LMS and Virtual Classroom
Recently, this is the most requested area of integration by both corporate trainers and school/university school administrators. Many corporations and most universities have an LMS whether it is a corporate LMS such as SABA or a more university focused LMS such as Blackboard or WebCT. It makes perfect sense to integrate an existing or proposed LMS with a virtual classroom solution.
With the integration of these two platforms, there would be a single sign in by the learner. Here, the learner logs into their LMS, sees the virtual classroom link to a live class session and simply clicks on the link and enters the live online class. In the back of this, the virtual classroom platform registers that a students has joined the classroom and will send the attendance details to either the LMS or another scheduling system via a text file or API.
From a teachers perspective, after logging into the LMS, there could be a button or menu option to "create virtual classroom" session. Behind the button would be an API call, which basically sends the commands to create the classroom session to the virtual classroom platform. There could be other commands as well such as "post" the classroom session to an separate training or class portal.
Scenario 2 Web Conferencing and Active Directory
For more technical setups, this scenario unifies account management and authentication. Incorporating an organizations' Active Directory with a web conferencing / virtual classroom solution aims to reduce account administration by leveraging the single database store of user account information. For large organizations and universities, this would help reduce administration while ensuring more security over which teachers, trainers, and learners are authenticated and permitted to participate in online sessions. This is achieved with the standard protocol LDAP, with handles the way account information is passed between the conferencing solution and the active directory database.
Scenario 3 Web Conferencing and Email
A more simplified level of integration is easily achieved usually via a conferencing plugin. This allows a user to click on a button (from the plugin) in the email application to create an event and use the standard email interface to initiate and invite participants to the meeting. The invitees will then receive an email invitation with meeting details and the link to click on to join the live event. Some web conference email plugins will also automatically update the email calendar to provide a complete view of all physical and virtual meetings.
Scenario 4 Web Conferencing /Virtual Classroom and Portals
There are different ways to incorporate enterprise portals and web sites. Some web conferencing and virtual classroom solutions will have built in authoring tools to set up basic portals. Some organizations may have already developed more sophisticated portal web sites. Integration can be in the form of utilizing the conferencing / virtual classroom solutions' built in API. With no integration effort, some organizations simply choose to use static URL's to reference both portal platforms - those from the conferencing / virtual classroom and those to the campus or corporate portals.
Do you have other scenarios or have experience on any of the above? We'd like to hear from you.
Where do you start?
The first thing to consider is what is your organization trying to accomplish in terms of meeting your user or student requirements. What do people need? How can you make their tasks easier while reducing overall complexity and administration?
Lets consider some scenarios that take into account of existing platforms, proposed new solutions and end user or student requirements.
Scenario 1 LMS and Virtual Classroom
Recently, this is the most requested area of integration by both corporate trainers and school/university school administrators. Many corporations and most universities have an LMS whether it is a corporate LMS such as SABA or a more university focused LMS such as Blackboard or WebCT. It makes perfect sense to integrate an existing or proposed LMS with a virtual classroom solution.
With the integration of these two platforms, there would be a single sign in by the learner. Here, the learner logs into their LMS, sees the virtual classroom link to a live class session and simply clicks on the link and enters the live online class. In the back of this, the virtual classroom platform registers that a students has joined the classroom and will send the attendance details to either the LMS or another scheduling system via a text file or API.
From a teachers perspective, after logging into the LMS, there could be a button or menu option to "create virtual classroom" session. Behind the button would be an API call, which basically sends the commands to create the classroom session to the virtual classroom platform. There could be other commands as well such as "post" the classroom session to an separate training or class portal.
Scenario 2 Web Conferencing and Active Directory
For more technical setups, this scenario unifies account management and authentication. Incorporating an organizations' Active Directory with a web conferencing / virtual classroom solution aims to reduce account administration by leveraging the single database store of user account information. For large organizations and universities, this would help reduce administration while ensuring more security over which teachers, trainers, and learners are authenticated and permitted to participate in online sessions. This is achieved with the standard protocol LDAP, with handles the way account information is passed between the conferencing solution and the active directory database.
Scenario 3 Web Conferencing and Email
A more simplified level of integration is easily achieved usually via a conferencing plugin. This allows a user to click on a button (from the plugin) in the email application to create an event and use the standard email interface to initiate and invite participants to the meeting. The invitees will then receive an email invitation with meeting details and the link to click on to join the live event. Some web conference email plugins will also automatically update the email calendar to provide a complete view of all physical and virtual meetings.
Scenario 4 Web Conferencing /Virtual Classroom and Portals
There are different ways to incorporate enterprise portals and web sites. Some web conferencing and virtual classroom solutions will have built in authoring tools to set up basic portals. Some organizations may have already developed more sophisticated portal web sites. Integration can be in the form of utilizing the conferencing / virtual classroom solutions' built in API. With no integration effort, some organizations simply choose to use static URL's to reference both portal platforms - those from the conferencing / virtual classroom and those to the campus or corporate portals.
Do you have other scenarios or have experience on any of the above? We'd like to hear from you.
posted by Anwar McEntee at
1:33 PM
|
0 comments
