History of virtual learning environments
Encyclopedia
A virtual learning environment
(VLE) is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers in the management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance learning. In North America, a virtual learning environment is often referred to as a "learning management system
" (LMS).
1948
Develops the "Interactive Learning Network" ILN 1.5, and installs it at several academic institutions including Cornell University, Yale Medical School and University of Pittsburgh. The ILN was the first e-learning system of its kind to leverage an install on top of a relational database MySqL. http://www.cquest.utoronto.ca/env/aera/aera-lists/aera-c/97-11/0123.html
Later that year in October 2000, deploy the ArsDigita Community Education System (ACES) at MIT Sloan School. The system is called Sloanspace. The ArsDigita Community System as well as ACES in the next few years grow to OpenACS and .LRN
Virtual learning environment
Defined largely by usage, the term virtual learning environment has most, if not all, of the following salient properties:* It is Web-based* It uses Web 2.0 tools for rich 2-way interaction* It includes a content management system...
(VLE) is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers in the management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance learning. In North America, a virtual learning environment is often referred to as a "learning management system
Learning management system
A learning management system is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content...
" (LMS).
Pre-1940s
- 1728: March 20, Boston Gazette contains an advertisement from Caleb Phillipps, "Teacher of the New Method of Short Hand," advising that any "Persons in the Country desirous to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston."
- 1840: Isaac PitmanIsaac PitmanSir Isaac Pitman , knighted in 1894, developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in Stenographic Soundhand in 1837. Pitman was a qualified teacher and taught at a private school he founded in Wotton-under-Edge...
begins teaching shorthand, using Great BritainGreat BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
's Penny Post. - 1874: Institutionally sponsored distance education began in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1874 at the Illinois Wesleyan UniversityIllinois Wesleyan UniversityIllinois Wesleyan University is an independent undergraduate university located in Bloomington, Illinois. Founded in 1850, the central portion of the present campus was acquired in 1854 with the first building erected in 1856...
. - 1890: International Correspondence SchoolsInternational Correspondence SchoolsInternational Correspondence Schools, also known as ICS Learn and ICS, is an educational institute established in 1890 that provides correspondence and distance learning courses...
(ICS) is launched by newspaperman Thomas J. Foster in Scranton, PennsylvaniaScranton, PennsylvaniaScranton is a city in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, United States. It is the county seat of Lackawanna County and the largest principal city in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area. Scranton had a population of 76,089 in 2010, according to the U.S...
and becomes the world's largest study-at-home school. - 1883: The Correspondence University of Ithaca, New YorkIthaca, New YorkThe city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
(a correspondence school) was founded in 1883. - 1892: The term “distance education” was first used in a University of Wisconsin–MadisonUniversity of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
catalog for the 1892 school year. - 1906-7: The University of Wisconsin–Extension was founded; the first true distance learning institution.
- 1909: The Machine StopsThe Machine Stops"The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review , the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928...
a short story by E. M. ForsterE. M. ForsterEdward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
, which describes an audio/visual communication network being used to deliver a lecture on Australian music to a remote audience. - 1920s: Sidney Pressey, an educational psychology professor at Ohio State UniversityOhio State UniversityThe Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
, develops the first "teaching machine." This device offered drill and practice exercises, and multiple choice questions. - 1929: M.E. LaZerte, Director of the School of Education, University of AlbertaUniversity of AlbertaThe University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
, developed a set of instructional devices for teaching and learning. For example, he "developed several devices and methods to minimize instructor/testor involvement, so as to increase the likelihood of gathering data in a consistent manner." One mechanical device that he developed was the "problem cylinder" which could present a problem to a student and check whether the steps to a solution given by the student were correct.
1940s
1945- Vannevar BushVannevar BushVannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer...
describes a hypertextHypertextHypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
-like device called the "memexMemexThe memex is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the hypothetical proto-hypertext system he described in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think...
" in his article As we may think in The Atlantic.
1948
- Norbert WienerNorbert WienerNorbert Wiener was an American mathematician.A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a...
writes about human-machine communications in his landmark book "CyberneticsCyberneticsCybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine" (MIT Press, 1948).
1953
- The University of HoustonUniversity of HoustonThe University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
offers the first televised college credit classes via KUHTKUHT-Technical firsts:The station is also noted in Houston for many technical firsts at the local level. In 1981, KUHT became Houston's first closed captioned television station, and ten years later, in 1991, it became the first station in Houston to offer Descriptive Video Service , and other services...
, the first public television station in the United States. The live telecasts ran from 13 to 15 hours each week, making up about 38% of the program schedule. Most courses aired at night so that students who worked during the day could watch them. By the mid-1960s, with about one-third of the station's programming devoted to education, more than 100,000 semester hours had been taught on KUHT.
1953–1956
- B. F. SkinnerB. F. SkinnerBurrhus Frederic Skinner was an American behaviorist, author, inventor, baseball enthusiast, social philosopher and poet...
develops "programmed instruction" and an updated "teaching machine".
1956
- Gordon PaskGordon PaskAndrew Gordon Speedie Pask was an English cybernetician and psychologist who made significant contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and educational technology....
and Robin McKinnon-Wood develop SAKI, the first adaptive teaching system to go into commercial production. SAKI taught keyboard skillsTypingTyping is the process of inputting text into a device, such as a typewriter, cell phone, computer, or a calculator, by pressing keys on a keyboard. It can be distinguished from other means of input, such as the use of pointing devices like the computer mouse, and text input via speech...
and it optimized the rate by which a trainee keyboard operator learned by making the difficulty level of the tasks contingent on the learner's performance. As the learner's performance improved the rate of teaching increased and instructional support was delayed.
1956–1958
- Harvey White, a physics professor at U.C. Berkeley, produced 163 high school physics lessons at Pittsburgh's PBS station WQEDWQEDWQED may refer to:*WQED , a television station licensed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States*WQED-FM, a radio station licensed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States...
that were broadcast into public schools in the area. Each 30 minute lesson was also filmed and subsequently distributed to dozens of educational/public television stations. In the academic year 1957 - 1958, White's television physics course was used in many thousands of public school classrooms across the nation in which over 100,000 students were enrolled. This course already made evident two important characteristics of distance education that carry over to contemporary online instruction: enormous economies of scale and higher labor productivity of the classroom based teacher/tutor/facilitator.
1957
- Frank Rosenblatt invented the "perceptronPerceptronThe perceptron is a type of artificial neural network invented in 1957 at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory by Frank Rosenblatt. It can be seen as the simplest kind of feedforward neural network: a linear classifier.- Definition :...
" in 1957 at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in an attempt to understand human memory, learning, and cognitive processes. This was the beginning of machine learningMachine learningMachine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, is a scientific discipline concerned with the design and development of algorithms that allow computers to evolve behaviors based on empirical data, such as from sensor data or databases...
.
1958
- Charles Bourne and Douglas EngelbartDouglas EngelbartDouglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs...
publish an article in DATAMATION magazine that outlines the requirements of and a proposal for a National Technical Information Service for the USA.
1959
- Rath, Anderson, and Brainerd reported a project using an IBM 650 to teach binary arithmetic to students.
- The University of ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
first produces Sunrise Semester, a series of courses delivered via broadcast television.
1960
- PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) system developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignThe University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
. The rights to PLATO are now owned by PLATO Learning, which delivers managed course content over the InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. The PLATO system featured multiple roles, including students who could study assigned lessons and communicate with teachers through on-line notes, instructors, who could examine student progress data, as well as communicate and take lessons themselves, and authors, who could do all of the above, plus create new lessons. There was also a fourth type of user, called a multiple, which was used for demonstrations of the PLATO system. - Project XanaduProject XanaduProject Xanadu was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu have declared it an improvement over the World Wide Web, with mission statement: "Today's popular software simulates paper...
, the first known attempt at implementing a hypertext system, founded by Ted NelsonTed NelsonTheodor Holm Nelson is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1963 and published it in 1965...
. - Teaching Machines Inc, a group of psychologists produced a series of programmed learning texts. The texts were based on the work of B.F. Skinner, breaking complicated tasks to a one-step-at-a-time activity (terminal learning objectives). Grolier and TMI marketed Min-Max (a teaching machine) with machine programs and programmed text books.
1962
- Douglas EngelbartDouglas EngelbartDouglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs...
publishes his seminal work, "Augmenting Human Intellect: a conceptual framework". In this paper, he proposes using computers to augment training. With his colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute, Engelbart started to develop a computer system to augment human abilities, including learning. The system was simply called the oNLine System (NLS), and it debuted in 1968. - The initial concept of a global information network should be given to J.C.R. Licklider in his series of memos entitled "On-Line Man Computer Communication”, written in August 1962. However, the actual development of the internet must be given to Lawrence G. RobertsLawrence Roberts (scientist)Lawrence G. Roberts received the Draper Prize in 2001 and the Principe de Asturias Award in 2002 "for the development of the Internet" along with Leonard Kleinrock, Robert Kahn, and Vinton Cerf....
of MIT.
1963
- Ivan SutherlandIvan SutherlandIvan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal...
develops SketchpadSketchpadSketchpad was a revolutionary computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis, for which he received the Turing Award in 1988. It helped change the way people interact with computers...
, the first graphical user interface for a computer, and publishes a description of it in his PhD. dissertation at MIT. - The first computer for instruction is installed at Orange Coast CollegeOrange Coast CollegeOrange Coast College is a community college in Orange County, California. It was founded in 1947, with its first classes opening in the fall of 1948. It provides two-year associate of art and science degrees, certificates of achievement, and lower-division classes transferable to other colleges...
, California. The OCC program leads the way. Bernard Luskin serves as director of the first teacher education program funded by the Federal Government under the Educational Professions Development Act to train develop the national curriculum for data processing and train the first 100 teachers. - A chapter in the Daily Express Science Annual, entitled Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning, describes interactive teaching machines and shows photos of a number of systems including The Grundy Tutor, The Auto Tutor and the Empirical Tutor. These electronic devices present frames of information followed by questions, and branch to other frames depending on the button pressed by the learner. The article states that the Auto Tutor was designed by Norman Crowder, an American psychologist. It describes a British machine, the Empirical Tutor thus: "In addition to the printed programme it can use film sequences, slide projectors, tape recorders or even real apparatus, which the student may use to help him to decide how to answer the question in the frame". The article also refers to a language teaching system developed by Professor Rand Morton of Michigan University. A science fiction story in the same Annual, by Brian Aldiss, predicts mobile learning, wearable computing, brain–computer interfaces, the development of personal computing in the nineteen-seventies, and concern over global warming.
- Douglas EngelbartDouglas EngelbartDouglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs...
invents the computer mouse, and a prototype is constructed by Bill English. Engelbart was awarded a patent in 1970 for an improved version of the mouse.
1964
- The first authoring system for developing lessons and courses on a computer system is produced. The “PLATO compiler” allowed the development of various forms of “teaching logic” for fields varying from mathematics to the behavioral sciences.
- The Computer Assisted Instruction Laboratory is established at Pennsylvania State University, College of Education.
- The Altoona Area School District in Pennsylvania began to use computers to instruct students.
1965
- A five year study of the impact of the PLATO system is published. Here are some highlights: “The results of exploratory queuing studies show that the system could teach as many as a thousand students simultaneously, while still allowing each student to proceed through the material independently.” The PLATO system had two different ways to teach – “tutorial logic” where the system presented facts and examples, and then asked questions on the materials presented, and “inquiry logic” where the student could request and organize appropriate information from the computer. The presentation of materials (“slide selector”) was called an electronic book. The store of information in the system was called an electronic blackboard. PLATO had a sophisticated help system, whereby different types of wrong answers resulted in the student being sent different help sequences. A rudimentary spell checker was included in the system. A comment page allowed the student to comment on the lessons at any time. An instructor page allowed the instructor to communicate with the student. A “perfect workbook” recorded student responses to questions, as well as kept a record of each button the student pushed and the time at which he or she pushed it. These records were stored on magnetic tape for later statistical analysis.
- IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, via its subsidiary Science Research Associates, Inc.Science Research AssociatesFounded in 1938, SRA or Science Research Associates Inc. is a Chicago-based publisher of educational materials and schoolroom reading comprehension products. Early on, it had a trade and occupational focus...
, introduces COURSEWRITER for the IBM 1500IBM 1500The IBM 1500 instructional system was introduced by IBM on March 31, 1966 and its primary purpose was to implement Computer Assisted Instruction . Based around either an IBM 1130 or an IBM 1800 computer, it supported up to 32 student work stations each with a variety of audiovisual...
, an online interactive CAIE-learningE-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked learning or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process...
system in the 1960s. The system included course management features and roles for the users such as instructor, manager, and student, and allowed intercommunication among them. Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
participated in the research and development that predated the IBM 1500s release. - Ted NelsonTed NelsonTheodor Holm Nelson is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1963 and published it in 1965...
uses the terms "hypertextHypertextHypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
" and "hypermediaHypermediaHypermedia is a computer-based information retrieval system that enables a user to gain or provide access to texts, audio and video recordings, photographs and computer graphics related to a particular subject.Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson....
" in his paper Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate. - Research in the field of computer assisted instruction began in France at the universities in Paris, Grenoble and Toulouse.
- The Department of Industrial and Vocational Education at the University of Alberta purchased a "Fabritek transistorized training computer" to teach students in electronics courses.
1967
- The Division of Educational Research Services was formed at the University of Alberta, and this unit immediately acquired an electronic optical examination scoring machine, and an IBM magnetic tape typewriter. It shared an IBM 360/67 computer with the rest of the university, and used it mostly for statistical analysis.
- The CAN (Completely Arbitrary Name) authoring language is developed by staff at the Ontario Institute for Studies in EducationOntario Institute for Studies in EducationThe Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto is a teachers' college in Toronto, Ontario.-History:OISE/UT traces its origins to the founding of the Provincial Normal School in 1847...
(OISE). "The initial design goal was to provide a lesson authoring language which could be used by classroom instructors with limited knowledge of computing." - The first CAI application is written in APL for the Faculty of Education at the University of AlbertaUniversity of AlbertaThe University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
. It consisted of an arithmetic drill program that "automatically adjusted its level of difficulty as a function of the student's rate of success".
1968
- An IBM 1500IBM 1500The IBM 1500 instructional system was introduced by IBM on March 31, 1966 and its primary purpose was to implement Computer Assisted Instruction . Based around either an IBM 1130 or an IBM 1800 computer, it supported up to 32 student work stations each with a variety of audiovisual...
system was installed at the University of Alberta, where on-line courses included cardiology training for the University's medical school. This system was finally taken out of service on April 10, 1980, after twelve years of operation. Over 20,000 people had used the system in that interval, and programming was available for 17 university courses. The instructional operating system of the IBM 1500 had a registration system, bookmarking, authoring, and progress reports all built-in. - Alan KayAlan KayAlan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...
, a graduate student at the University of UTAH, proposes the FLEX language. The FLEX Machine, a computer running the FLEX language is the first attempt to develop an object-oriented programmingObject-oriented programmingObject-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,...
-based personal computer. - Douglas Engelbart and 17 of his colleagues demonstrate the new oNLine System (NLS) at the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco.
- The MITRE Corporations begins development of their Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled, Information Television (TICCITTICCITTICCIT is an acronym for Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled Information Television, first developed by the MITRE Corporation in 1968 as an interactive cable television system....
) system. It is described as a computer based system of instruction that is "low-cost, high quality education that is completely individualized."
1969
- The US Department of Defense commissions ARPANETARPANETThe Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
(and thus the Internet as we know it). - Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
broadcasts 12 Stanford engineering courses on two channels via the Stanford Instructional Television Network (SITN). - The first Associate Committee on Instructional Technology is formed at the National Research Council of Canada.
- Karl L. Zinn published a report entitled "Comparative study of languages for programming interactive use of computers in instruction" - EDUCOM Research Memorandum RM-1469.
- R. Allan Avner and Paul Tenczar publish a manual for TUTOR, the authoring languageAuthoring languageAn authoring language is a programming language used to create tutorials, computer-based training courseware, websites, CD-ROMs and other interactive computer programs...
of the PLATO system. - The Language Information Network and Clearinghouse System (LINCS) Project of the Center for Linguistics at the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC was developed as a computerized information management system to facilitate the transfer of scientific information within the language science community.
- Beginning of a seven year project called Project Solo or Soloworks in Pittsburgh, USA. The group put out 33 newsletters over the course of the project. This is an early example of student controlled, individualized use of computers in education. The idea of going "solo" was that the student was in charge of his or her own learning. However, the limitations of the approach were also recognized, and the group ended up proposing a "Community of Learning" model in 1976.
- The Merit Computer NetworkMerit NetworkMerit Network, Inc., is a nonprofit member-governed organization providing high-performance computer networking and related services to educational, government, health care, and nonprofit organizations, primarily in Michigan...
interconnects the mainframe computers at three large universities - University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University. The Merit Network facilitated instructional uses of computing facilities among the three institutions.
1970
- The Havering Computer Managed Learning System was developed in London, England. By 1980 it had been used by over 10,000 students and 100 teachers in applications that included science technology, remedial mathematics, career guidance, and industrial training.
- Flanagan reports on Project Plan, where computers were used for learning management, though a student-centric model that integrated information on students past achievement, interests, etc. to develop an individualized plan of study which served to guide the learner through a series of Teacher Learning Units. This was implemented though a medium-sized computer and terminals in the schools.
- Bernard Luskin received his PhD. in 1970. The title of his doctoral dissertation was An Identification and Examination of Obstacles to the Development of Computer Assisted Instruction, U.C.L.A. Luskin was an important pioneer and advocate for computers in higher education in California in the 1970s and 1980s.
- California funded a two year project to determine the potential needs of distance education in the future. Under the direction of Dr. Bernard Luskin, this consortium of all community and state colleges in California developed a broad plan of action, one that predicted many of the technological innovations we use today.
- Computers first used in elementary schools in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. - National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
(NSF) funded three initial projects for the study of "Natural Language Processing." These projects included the University of California, Irvine Physics Computer Development Project, headed by Alfred Bork and Research Assistant, Richard L. Ballard. The Mitre Ticcit Project conducted at the University of Texas, later moved to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and its sister project called the PLATO Project, was conducted at the University of Illinois, Champaign. Over 140 natural language dialog programs were created between 1970 and 1978. UCI's Physics Computer Development Project conducted approximately 55 educational programs and spearheaded development throughout the UC system. Initial projects were conducted on Teletype model 33, paper tape punch machine that operated at a 110 baud rate.
1971
- The MITRE Corporation begins a year-long demonstration of the TICCITTICCITTICCIT is an acronym for Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled Information Television, first developed by the MITRE Corporation in 1968 as an interactive cable television system....
system among Reston, Virginia cable television subscribers. Interactive television services included informational and educational demonstrations using a touch-tone telephone. The National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
refunds the PLATO project and funds MITRE's proposal to modify its TICCIT technology as a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system to support English and algebra at community colleges. MITRE subcontracts instructional design and courseware authoring tasks to the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
and Brigham Young UniversityBrigham Young UniversityBrigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
. - Project EXTEND was set up in Michigan as a "small college consulting service for instructional computing." It offered programming support and faculty development to those university instructors who wanted to get involved with computer-based instruction.
- University of DelawareUniversity of DelawareThe university is organized into seven colleges:* College of Agriculture and Natural Resources* College of Arts and Sciences* Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics* College of Earth, Ocean and Environment* College of Education and Human Development...
forms Project DELTAProject DELTAProject DELTA was one of three Greek letter special forces reconnaissance projects formed by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, MACV during the Vietnam War to collect operational intelligence in remote areas of South Vietnam....
(Delaware Total Approach to Education). The project provides Computer Aided Instruction to high school students throughout Delaware utilizing instructional material served from a central DEC PDP-11/70. - Ivan IllichIvan IllichIvan Illich was an Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and "maverick social critic" of the institutions of contemporary western culture and their effects on the provenance and practice of education, medicine, work, energy use, transportation, and economic development.- Personal life...
describes computer-based "learning webs" in his book Deschooling Society. Among the features of his proposed system are- Reference Services to Educational Objects — which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning.
- Skill Exchanges — which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at which they can be reached.
- Peer-Matching — a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.
- Reference Services to Educators-at-Large — who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self-descriptions of professionals, paraprofessionals, and free-lancers, along with conditions of access to their services.
1972
- Patrick SuppesPatrick SuppesPatrick Colonel Suppes is an American philosopher who has made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology, and educational technology...
, professor at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, developed computer-based courses in LogicLogicIn philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
and Set TheorySet theorySet theory is the branch of mathematics that studies sets, which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics...
that were offered to Stanford undergraduates from 1972 to 1992. - The Learning Research Group is formed at Xerox PARCXerox PARCPARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....
in Palo Alto, California. It is led by Alan KayAlan KayAlan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...
, who advanced the idea of a graphical user interface (GUI) by inventing icons for folders, menus, and overlapping windows. Kay and his group envisioned a computer for teaching and learning that they called the "KiddiKomputer", to be programmed using the SmalltalkSmalltalkSmalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist...
language they had developed. While Kay could see many educational uses for this computer, he had four initial projects in mind: 1) Teaching thinking skills, 2) Teaching modeling through the simulation of systems, 3) Teaching interface skills, and 4) Tracking what children would do with the computer outside school hours, when left to their own devices. Second level projects for teaching children with a computer included 1) Computer evaluation, 2) Iconic programming, especially for children under 8. Kay and his colleagues started teaching programming to children and adults in 1973. - First Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Calgary, Alberta.
- The Project Outreach Report is issued by the California Higher Education Commission. This report leads the way to legislation where public funds may be used for non-classroom based instruction and provides funds to produce the model telecourse, Contemporary California Issues, that is the course that serves as the model for modern distance learning programs. Project Outreach director was Bernard Luskin, Vice Chancellor, Coast Community Colleges.
1973
- The National Development Program in Computer Assisted Learning was set up in the UK in January, 1973.
- A report written for the University of Michigan described the educational uses of computers at the university. These included "drill, skills practice, programmed and dialog tutorials, testing and diagnosis, simulation, gaming, information processing, computation, problem solving, model construction, graphic display, the management of instructional resources, and the presentation and display of materials."
- An integrated student information system at Trinity University in Texas maintained data on about 1,500 variables. These included all student academic and personal data, all faculty data that dealt with courses and teaching, all course data in regards to student, faculty and class meeting times and days, enrollments, buildings, and the college calendar and catalog. There was also "an interaction course management system".
- As a post-doc at Carnegie-Mellon University, Jay Warner needed to teach undergraduate metallurgy students how to use new software that would calculate phase diagrams (graphical representations of metal states/phases as a function of composition and temperature) based on thermodynamic properties. He wrote a CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction) module that, however crudely, used some of the principles discussed in this article. A frame, or paragraph of information, was presented, and the machine branched to different follow-up frames and questions depending on the response to the embedded questions. The whole thing was written in FORTRAN IV. It proved useful; students could then use the software without close attendance by the instructor. This work was in no way as dramatic as the other accomplishments of the day, however it does show that by this time CAL was not restricted to studies of learning methods.
1974
- Murray TuroffMurray TuroffMurray Turoff is a retired Distinguished Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology who was a key founding father of computer-mediated communication.-Career:...
founded the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center at NJIT and over the next 15 years conducts an immense amount of research on Computer-mediated communicationComputer-mediated communicationComputer-mediated communication is defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through the use of two or more networked computers...
(CMC) with Starr Roxanne HiltzStarr Roxanne HiltzStarr Roxanne Hiltz is a retired Distinguished Professor of Information Science/Information Systems at New Jersey Institute of Technology...
. Much of this is on its applicability to the "Virtual Classroom", including field trials in the 1980s. The specifications for EIES 2 are particularly seminal - note in particular the material on roles, resources and hypertext. - Launched in June 1974, Creative Computing was the first computer magazine for general readers and hobbyists. The Jan-Feb 1976 issue had an article on "Learning with Computer Games".
- An "international school" was held in a remote Italian resort to explore the state of the art of computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Direct connections with computers in Italy and the United States made it possible to demonstrate a variety of existing CAI systems. Papers describing the use of CAI in five sets of educational institutions were presented.
1975
- The NSFNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
-funded TICCITTICCITTICCIT is an acronym for Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled Information Television, first developed by the MITRE Corporation in 1968 as an interactive cable television system....
Project begins testing English and algebra courseware at Northern Virginia Community CollegeNorthern Virginia Community CollegeNorthern Virginia Community College, often abbreviated NVCC and colloquially as NOVA, comprises several locations in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and is both the second largest multi-campus community college in the United States and the largest educational institution in the...
in Alexandria, VirginiaAlexandria, VirginiaAlexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
, and at Phoenix CollegePhoenix CollegePhoenix College is a community college located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Founded in 1920, it is one of the oldest community colleges in the country....
, part of the Maricopa County Community College DistrictMaricopa County Community College DistrictThe Maricopa County Community College District, in Maricopa County, Arizona, is the largest community college district in the United States. The district serves Maricopa County, the county that includes and surrounds Phoenix and is the most populous of the state's counties...
system in Phoenix, ArizonaPhoenix, ArizonaPhoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
. The modified TICCIT system supports 128 student terminals made of modified television sets providing text and graphics in seven colors, digital audio, and a video switching device to embed video into the computer generated instruction. A specialized keyboard allows students to control their own progress through the courseware, which includes both tutorials, drills, and testing. What is interesting about TICCIT is that it was based on a learner controlled command language that allowed the user to manipulate his or her own sequencing and development of learning strategies. - COMIT was a sophisticated system of computer-assisted instruction developed jointly by IBM and the University of Waterloo in Canada. It emphasized unique audiovisual capabilities of the television set and light penLight penA light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's CRT TV set or monitor. It allows the user to point to displayed objects, or draw on the screen, in a similar way to a touch screen but with greater positional accuracy...
s. The project ran until 1978. - The Michigan Terminal SystemMichigan Terminal SystemThe Michigan Terminal System is one of the first time-sharing computer operating systems. Initially developed in 1967 at the University of Michigan for use on IBM S/360-67, S/370 and compatible mainframe computers, it was developed and used by a consortium of eight universities in the United...
(MTSMichigan Terminal SystemThe Michigan Terminal System is one of the first time-sharing computer operating systems. Initially developed in 1967 at the University of Michigan for use on IBM S/360-67, S/370 and compatible mainframe computers, it was developed and used by a consortium of eight universities in the United...
), a computer time-sharingTime-sharingTime-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
operating system developed at the University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, included a program called CONFERCONFER (software)CONFER is one of the first and one of the most sophisticated computer conferencing systems. It was developed in 1975 at the University of Michigan by then graduate student Robert Parnes. The CONFER system continued to be a widely used communication tool until 1999...
developed by Robert Parnes that gave it the capabilities of computer conferencing.
1976
- Edutech Project of Encinitas California (now Digital ChoreoGraphics of Newport Beach, CA) develops DOTTIE, a TV Set-Top deviceSet-top boxA set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
linking the home TVTelevisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
to online services such as CompuServCompuServeCompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...
and The Source via a common household telephone. - Development of the language Pop11 (derived from the Edinburgh AIArtificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
language Pop2POP-2POP-2, often referred to as POP2 was a programming language developed around 1970 from the earlier language POP-1 by Robin Popplestone and Rod Burstall at the University of Edinburgh. It drew roots from many sources: the languages LISP and ALGOL 60, and theoretical ideas from Landin...
) and its teaching tools starts at the University of SussexUniversity of SussexThe University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
. This later evolved into PoplogPoplogPoplog is a powerful multi-language, multiparadigm, reflective, incrementally compiled software development environment, originally created in the UK for teaching and research in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sussex.-History:...
. - Development of the KOM computer conferencing system begins at Stockholm UniversityStockholm UniversityStockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 28,000 students at four faculties, making it one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...
. See Jacob Palme's history of KOM - First experimental developments at the Open UniversityOpen UniversityThe Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
of what became the Cyclops system - then called a telewriting or audio-graphic system but nowadays would be called a whiteboardWhiteboardA whiteboard is a name for any glossy, usually white surface for nonpermanent markings. Whiteboards are analogous to chalkboards, allowing rapid marking and erasing of markings on their surface...
system - under two separate teams in the Faculties of Mathematics (Read and Bacsich) and Technology (Pinches and Liddell) - the first team focusing on storage on cassette tape of digital data to drive VDUs, the second focusing on transmissionTransmission (telecommunications)Transmission, in telecommunications, is the process of sending, propagating and receiving an analogue or digital information signal over a physical point-to-point or point-to-multipoint transmission medium, either wired, optical fiber or wireless...
of handwriting over telephone lines. There were similar developments under way in the US and FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. - Coastline Community College, having no physical campus, became the first Virtual College in the United States. Distance learning pioneer Bernard Luskin is founding president.
- Second Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Quebec City, Quebec.
- Open University in the UK sets up the CICERO project with three courses taught online.
- A report by Karl L. Zinn at the University of Michigan describes computer-based conferencing, computer-based seminars, computer-assisted curriculum development, computer-based committees, and computer-based proposal preparation.
- Coastline Community College is launched as a college beyond walls. This is the first community college to be launched with no campus, centering on telecourses and community facilities. Founding president Bernard Luskin coins the slogan, "The community is the campus, the citizens are the students.
1977
- With the Canadian federal Department of Communications, TVOntario (TVO) pioneered the use of satellites for educational teleconferencing and direct-to-home transmission through the Hermes project. The experiment allowed students in California and Toronto to interact via electronic classrooms.
- The Communications Research Center of the Canadian federal government's Department of Communications developed Telidon, a second generation videotext system that was used in field trials in several educational settings.
- Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) provides Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) tutorials for its BASIC programming language on DEC PDP computers.
- At the UK Open University, the software and hardware teams developing telewriting systems merged to form the Cyclops project and gained funding, initially internally, later from UK government sources. There is little trace of Cyclops now on the Open University web site except for a slide in a historical presentation of the background to the LyceumLyceumThe lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies between countries; usually it is a type of secondary school.-History:...
system.
1978
- Pathlore (as part of Legent Corp.Learning management systemA learning management system is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content...
) started developing CBT solutions. In 1995 it became divested from Legent. Its PHOENIX software delivered "virtual classrooms" to many corporate networks. Pathlore was acquired by SumTotal SystemsSumtotal SystemsSumTotal Systems, Inc. is a software company based in Gainesville, Florida that provides strategic human capital management software solutions to global enterprises, small to medium businesses, and government agencies. SumTotal provides full employee lifecycle management, including a core system...
in 2005. - The National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
releases its evaluation of the MITRE TICCITTICCITTICCIT is an acronym for Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled Information Television, first developed by the MITRE Corporation in 1968 as an interactive cable television system....
project demonstration, giving a mixed review of the success of using the computer-television system as the primary source of instruction for English and algebra. - The Defense Research Institute in Sweden released the KOM computer conferencing system which (at its peak) had a thousand users
1979
- PrestelPrestelPrestel , the brand name for the UK Post Office's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979...
, claimed by BT as "the world's first public viewdata service", was opened in London in September, running on a cluster of minicomputers. It had been conceived in the early 1970s by Samuel FedidaSamuel FedidaSamuel Fedida is a British telecommunication engineer responsible at Prestel for the development of Viewdata.Fedida had the idea for Viewdata in 1968 after reading a publication with the title The Computer as Communications Device. The first prototype became operational in 1974. In 1977 the system...
of the Post Office Research Laboratories at Dollis Hill, London. Similar developments were under way in France (Teletel) and Canada (Telidon). Only those active at the time will remember the sense of euphoria and opening of possibilities in what would now be called the e-business and e-learning worlds. (Sadly, the concept was premature, although in France it had most success.) A number of mainframe, minicomputer and even micro-computer based systems and services were later developed in educational circles of which perhaps the best known were OPTEL, Communitel, ECCTIS and NERIS. - In Canada, groups including TVOntarioTVOntarioTVOntario, often referred to only as TVO , is a publicly funded, educational English-language television station and media organization in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is operated by the Ontario Educational Communications Authority, a Crown corporation owned by the Government of Ontario...
, Athabasca UniversityAthabasca UniversityAthabasca University is a Canadian university in Athabasca, Alberta. It is an accredited research institution which also offers distance education courses and programs. Courses are offered primarily in English with some French offerings. Each year, 32,000 students attend the university. It offers...
, the University of VictoriaUniversity of VictoriaThe University of Victoria, often referred to as UVic, is the second oldest public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It is a research intensive university located in Saanich and Oak Bay, about northeast of downtown Victoria. The University's annual enrollment is about 20,000 students...
, and the University of WaterlooUniversity of WaterlooThe University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
participated in Telidon experiments during the late 70s and early 80s. TelidonTelidonTelidon was a videotex/teletext service developed by the Canadian Communications Research Centre during the late 1970s and early 1980s...
, an alphageometric videotex information system used set-top boxes with TV sets, or subsequently software decoders running on PCs (Apple II, MAC, and PC decoders were available) to display text and graphics. The intent was to demonstrate and develop educational applications for videotex and teletext systems. This work continued until 1983, when the Telidon coding structure became a North American standard - ANSI T500 - NAPLPS (North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax). - The Athabasca University educational Telidon project used a Unix path structure which allowed the storage of information pages in the file system tree. This is now the universal storage method for pages on the internet. As described, the system had the ability to create separate user groups with different access privileges, and to implement "action scripts" to access system functions, including email and dynamic content generation. The AU system was described in Abell, R.A. "Implementation of a Telidon System Using UNIX File Structures" in Godfrey, D. and Chang, E. (eds) The Telidon Book, Reston Publishing Company, Reston, VA, 1981)
- An article by Karl L. Zinn in Educational Technology describes the uses of microcomputers at the University of Michigan. Uses included "word processing, extending laboratory experience, simulation, games, tutorial uses, and building skills in computing."
1980
- Successmaker is a K-12 learning management system with an emphasis on reading, spelling and numeracy. According to the Pearson Digital Learning website, the South Colonie Central School District in Albany, New York "has been using SuccessMaker since 1980, and in 1997 the district upgraded the software to SuccessMaker version 5.5."
- The Open University begins a pilot trial of a viewdata (videotex) system OPTEL, on a DEC-20DECSYSTEM-20The DECSYSTEM-20 was a 36-bit Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computer running the TOPS-20 operating system.PDP-10 computers running the TOPS-10 operating system were labeled DECsystem-10 as a way of differentiating them from the PDP-11...
mainframe. This had been conceived by Peter Zorkoczy even before the launch of the national Prestel system in 1979 and was locally specified and coded (in COBOLCOBOLCOBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments....
) by Peter Frogbrook (RIP) and Gyan Mathur (RIP). One of the main motivations was its applicability to online learning. It was available via dial-up from home, and later in the 1980s via telnet(!) on the X.25X.25X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
and internet networks. There were individual user codes and passwords, giving different access rights; the one generic access code was regularly attacked by hackersHacker (computer security)In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
even in these far-off days, as URLs still on the web attest. The system is overviewed in "Viewdata-Style Delivery Mechanisms for CAL", CAL Research Group Technical Report No. 11. - Seymour PapertSeymour PapertSeymour Papert is an MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language....
at MIT publishes "Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas". (New York: Basic Books). This book inspired a number of books and dissertations on "microworlds" and their impact on learning. - The idea of managing teaching resources using a computer is described in a paper by J.M. Leclerc and S. Normand from the University of Montreal. Their system was programmed in BASICBASICBASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
, and used a computer to track documents, human resources, structured activities, and places for training and observation. Evaluation activities were also available in the system. - The University of Montreal offered CAFÉ, a computer system that taught written French. Graduated groups of questions were generated according to individual indicators. Students went through the system at their own pace.
- TLM (The Learning Manager) was released in 1980 and included distinct roles for students, instructors, educational assistants, and administrators. The system could be accessed remotely by dial-up as a student or an instructor using a terminal emulator. The system had a sophisticated test bank capability and generated tests and practice activities based on a learning objective data structure. Instructors and students could communicate through the terminal. Instructors could lock out students or post messages. Originally called LMS (Learning Management System), TLM was used extensively at SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) and Bow Valley College, both located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
1981
- School of Management and Strategic Studies at the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La Jolla, California starts an online program.
- University of Sussex, UK, implements Poplog, an interactive learning environment for AI and computing students. It includes hyperlinked teaching materials, an extensible text editor, multiple programming languages and interactive demonstrations of AI programs.
- Field trials begin of the Cyclops whiteboard system in the East Midlands Region of the Open University and run for two years. The evaluation was funded by a grant from British Telecom and allowed the evaluation Director Tony Bates to employ Mike Sharples and David McConnell as research fellows. Audio-visual material for Cyclops was produced on the Cyclops Studio , a multimedia editing system coded in UCSD Pascal by a software team led by Paul Bacsich and including Mark Woodman. Cyclops was later awarded a BCS prize for innovation and systems installed in Indonesia. There are only passing references now to Cyclops on the open Web (see under names cited) - the best source of specifications and chronology is the article "Cyclops:shared-screen teleconferencing" in The Role of Technology in Distance Education, edited Tony Bates, Croom Helm, 1984.
- Over this period the Open University was also developing its own viewdata (videotex) system, called OPTEL, for use in education. This had in fact started about the same time as Cyclops in yet another team at the OU. The project ran until about 1985 when it faded away, as did videotex generally across the world (except the Minitel in France). In addition to OPTEL, several other systems were implemented including VOS (Videotex Operating System) which allowed the display and manipulation of text files via videotex. VOS was further developed into a telesoftware, transactional (gateway) and email system and then used in a commercial development for IMS, the media research company (using a very early precursor of Web/CGI development). These were coded in Pascal and COBOL on the DEC-20DECSYSTEM-20The DECSYSTEM-20 was a 36-bit Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computer running the TOPS-20 operating system.PDP-10 computers running the TOPS-10 operating system were labeled DECsystem-10 as a way of differentiating them from the PDP-11...
mainframe. Some of the ideas of OPTEL were taken over into the ECCTIS project delivering course data via viewdata from a Unisys mainframe - indeed one of the former OPTEL staff joined ECCTIS as Director. Systems were also specified to deliver Computer Assisted Learning - see in particular the article "Viewdata systems" in The Role of Technology in Distance Education. There are only fragmentary references now to OPTEL on the open Web. - Allen Communication in Salt Lake City, Utah, introduced the first commercial interactive videodisc.
- BITNETBITNETBITNET was a cooperative USA university network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York and Greydon Freeman at Yale University...
, founded by a consortium of US and Canadian universities, allowed universities to connect with each other for educational communications and e-mail. At its peak in 1991, it had over 500 organizations as members and over 3000 nodes. Its use declined as the World Wide WebWorld Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
grew. - Alfred Bork wrote an article entitled Information Retrieval in Education, in which he identified the ways "computer-based techniques can be used for course management, direct learning, and research."
1982
- The Computer Assisted Learning Center (CALC) founded as a small, offline computer-based, adult learning center. Origins of CALCampus
- Edutech Project of Encinitas California (now Digital ChoreoGraphics of Newport Beach, CA) implements PIES, an interactive online educational development and delivery system for the PILOTPILOTProgrammed Instruction, Learning, Or Teaching is a simle historic programming language developed in the 1960s.Like its younger sibling LOGO programming language, it was an early foray into the technology of computer assisted instruction ....
author language, using a client-server paradigm for online delivery of personalized courseware to students via popular video-game consoles and micro-computers. The system was used by Pepperdine University, Georgia Tech, San Diego County Department of Education, and Alaska Department of Education for distance learning. - CET (later NCET and now Becta) publishes Videotex in Education: A new technology briefing, a 54-page booklet written by Vincent Thompson, Mike Brown and Chris Knowles. This is out of print and few copies are now available. (ISBN 0-86184-072-0)
- Hermann MaurerHermann MaurerHermann Maurer is an Austrian computer scientist, serving as Professor of Computer Science at the Graz University of Technology. He has supervised over 40 dissertations, written more than 20 books and over 600 scientific articles, and started or been involved with a number of...
invents MUPID, an innovative videotex device later used widely in Austria. This starts a strand of development leading on to Hyper-G and a range of other developments. http://www3.iicm.edu/iicm/about/chronik See also the history of Hyper-G. - Carnegie Mellon University and IBM create the Information Technology Center which begins the Andrew ProjectAndrew ProjectThe Andrew Project was a distributed computing environment developed at Carnegie Mellon University beginning in 1982. It was an ambitious project for its time and resulted in an unprecedentedly vast and accessible university computing infrastructure....
at Carnegie Mellon. One of the primary goals of the project is to provide a platform for "computer-aided instruction" using a distributed workstation computing environment, authenticated access to both personal and public file spaces in a distributed file system (AFSAndrew file systemThe Andrew File System is a distributed networked file system which uses a set of trusted servers to present a homogeneous, location-transparent file name space to all the client workstations. It was developed by Carnegie Mellon University as part of the Andrew Project. It is named after Andrew...
), authoring tools for computer-based lessons, and collaboration tools including bulletin boards and electronic messaging. - Peter Smith of the UK Open University completes his PhD thesis (157 pp) on "Radiotext: an application of computer and communication systems in distance teaching". (Only one reference online.) It is believed that the work started in the late 1970s under the supervision of Peter Zorkcoczy, who also conceived the OPTEL viewdata system. Radiotext denoted the transmission of data over radio signals, just as it can be sent over telephone lines. It may seem normal now, as in the Radio Data SystemRadio Data SystemRadio Data System, or RDS, is a communications protocol standard for embedding small amounts of digital information in conventional FM radio broadcasts. RDS standardises several types of information transmitted, including time, station identification and programme information.Radio Broadcast Data...
(RDS) in these days of digital radio, but in the 1970s the concept was novel and complex for their colleagues to grasp.
1983
- McConnell, D. and Sharples, M. (1983). Distance teaching by Cyclops: an educational evaluation of the Open University’s telewriting system. British Journal of Educational Technology, 14(2), pp. 109–126. Paper describes the CYCLOPS system, developed at the Open University UK in the early 1980s, which provides multi-site tutoring through a shared whiteboard system providing voice conferencing combined with synchronous handwriting and real-time annotation of downloaded graphics. A more comprehensive set of six short papers describing Cyclops was published in Media in Education and Development vol. 16 no. 2, June 1983, pp. 58–74.
- Aregon International rewrote the Cyclops content authoring system as the Excom 100 Studio and created and produced the Excom 100 terminal, a commercial version of the Cyclops terminal incorporating lightpen, graphics tablet, and keyboard as input devices. Excom 100 was awarded the BCS IT award in the "Application" category for 1983. http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.1926 03:20, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
- MIT announces a 5 year, Institute wide experiment to explore innovative uses of computers for teaching. This initiative is known as Project Athena.
- Fourth Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Winnipeg in October 1983.
1984
- Asymetrix founded by Paul AllenPaul AllenPaul Gardner Allen is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates...
(a colleague of Bill Gates). Asymetrix created ToolBook. Later it became Click2Learn and then merged with Docent to become SumTotal SystemsSumtotal SystemsSumTotal Systems, Inc. is a software company based in Gainesville, Florida that provides strategic human capital management software solutions to global enterprises, small to medium businesses, and government agencies. SumTotal provides full employee lifecycle management, including a core system...
which offers a complete Learning Management solution. - The Annenberg/CPB project (funded by the Annenberg FoundationAnnenberg FoundationThe Annenberg Foundation is a private foundation that provides funding and support to non-profit organizations in the United States and around the world...
) publishes Electronic text and higher education: a summary of research findings and field experiences, Report number 1 in their "Electronic Text Report Series". This reviews videotexVideotexVideotex was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television.In a strict definition, videotex refers to systems that provide...
and teletextTeletextTeletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
experiences relevant to education in the US, UK and Canada. This document may help to counteract received wisdom that prior to the Web, US agencies did not undertake studies of the relevance of online systems to education. - In the Faculty Authoring Development Program and Courseware Authoring Tools ProjectFaculty Authoring Development Program and Courseware Authoring Tools ProjectThe Faculty Authoring Development Program and Courseware Authoring Tools Project were courseware development initiatives at Stanford University during the years 1984-1990s...
at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
(1984-1990s) several dozen teaching applications were created, including tutorials in economics, drama simulations, thermodynamics lessons, and historical and anthropological role-playing games. - Article on "Computing at Carnegie-Mellon University" describes the benefits to students and faculty of a new project using networked personal computers set up by IBM and the university.
- Students and faculty at the University of Waterloo use IBM PCs networked together to do their work and to develop applications (a "JANET"). One PC acts as a server for files in the network.
- The OECD organized a conference in Paris, France on "Education and the New Information Technology."
- Antic (magazine)ANTIC (magazine)Antic was the name of a home computer magazine devoted to the Atari 8-bit computer line . Its ISSN is 0113-1141. It took its name from the ANTIC chip, which produced the Atari line's graphics. The first issue was published in April 1982. While it began as a bimonthly magazine, within a year it had...
publishes a review of a cartridge for AtariAtariAtari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
home computers allowing Atari users to access courseware on the CDC PLATO system via modem. - Computer Teaching Corporation (CTC) launched TenCORE http://www.tencore.com/ which was the leading authoring language in the late 1980s. It was MS-DOS based. CTC also produced a network-based Computer Managed Instruction System which allowed users to take on the roles of author, student and administrator and to create and participate in a plurality of courses.
- The Intercultural Learning Network http://www.springerlink.com/content/t2k60l42u0774j51/ created at UC, San Diego linked schools in Japan, Israel, Mexico, and California and Alaska in the U.S. in the first online Learning Circle. This effort was funded by an Apple "wheels for the MInd" grant.
- ComSubLantComSubLantCommander, Submarine Force Atlantic is the type commander for U.S. submarines in the Atlantic Fleet. Established on 7 December 1941, Rear Admiral Richard S. Edwards was assigned as the first Force Commander. U.S. submarine operations in the Atlantic, however, go back to before the First World War...
adopts an elearning program for use on all U.S. submarines to train crewmen at sea. It was developed by FTG1 Doner Caldwell at Submarine Group Six and ran on the Tektronix 4052A computer. The program utilized a lesson / test bank covering all submarine sonar publications on large format tape cartridge.
1985
- In 1985, the Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences, at Nova Southeastern UniversityNova Southeastern UniversityNova Southeastern University, commonly referred to as NSU or Nova, is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian, research university located in Broward County, Florida, with its main campus in the town of Davie...
, pioneers accredited graduate degrees through online courses, awarding their first doctorate. - In 1985, Patrick SuppesPatrick SuppesPatrick Colonel Suppes is an American philosopher who has made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology, and educational technology...
, professor at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, received a grant from the National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
to develop a first-year calculus course on computer. After several years of development and testing in summer camps, computer-based courses in Beginning Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, and Precalculus were created and tested during the 1991-92 academic year. In Fall 1992, after porting the software to the Windows operating system, the Education Program for Gifted YouthEducation Program for Gifted YouthThe Education Program for Gifted Youth, at Stanford University, is a gifted education program which offers distance and residential summer courses for students of all ages. It is a distance learning program, meaning that courses are taught remotely via the Internet, rather than in the traditional...
(EPGY) was formally launched at Stanford University, making these courses available to qualified students. - Project Athena at MIT, on the potential uses of advanced computer technology in the university curriculum, has been underway for two years by this time, and about 60 educational development projects are in progress.
- Daniel V. Klein develops UOLT, a Unix-based On Line aid to Training. This system features presentation of on-line courses and individualized testing and grading. Later renamed and published as “UBOAT – A Unix Based On-Line Aid to Tutorials”, in the Proceedings of the European Unix User’s Group, Dublin IRELAND, September 1987.
- The SuperBook Project started at Bell Communications Research, Morristown, USA. The purpose of the project was to find new ways of navigating online books. Jacob Nielsen commented online that "In 1990, Bell Communications Research's SuperBook project proved the benefits of integrating search results with navigation menus and other information space overviews."
- The decision is taken (at the CALITE 85 conference) to found ASCILITE, the Australian Society of Computers In Learning In Tertiary Education. (It took two more years for all details to be finalised.) See the history of ASCILITE. ASCILITE is the co-publisher of the Australasian Journal of Educational TechnologyAustralasian Journal of Educational TechnologyThe Australasian Journal of Educational Technology is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering researchin educational technology, instructional design, online and e-learning, educational design, multimedia, computer assisted learning, and related areas...
(AJET).
1986
- Tony Bates publishes "Computer Assisted Learning or Communications: Which Way for Information Technology in Distance Education?", Journal of Distance Education/ Revue de l'enseignement a distance, reflecting (in 1986!) on ways forward for e-learning, based on 15 years of operational use of computer networks at the Open University and nine years of systematic R&D on CAL, viewdata/videotex, audio-graphic teleconferencing and computer conferencing. Many of the systems specification issues discussed later are rehearsed here.
- Edward Barrett comes to MIT in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. He becomes co-director of a group working on a distance learning project called the "Networked Educational Online System" (NEOS), a suite of programs for teaching writing and other subjects in specially designed electronic seminar rooms.
- First version of LISTSERVLISTSERVLISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people...
is written by Eric Thomas, an engineering student in Paris, France. It was first used in the BITNETBITNETBITNET was a cooperative USA university network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York and Greydon Freeman at Yale University...
network for electronic mailing lists among universities. - Fifth Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held May 5–7 in Ottawa.
- First version of CSILE installed on a small network of Cemcorp ICON computers at an elementary school in Toronto, Canada. CSILE included text and graphical notes authored by several kinds of users (students, teachers, others) with attributes such as comments and thinking types which reflect the role of the note in the author's thinking. Thinking types included "my theory", "new information", and "I need to understand". CSILE later evolved into Knowledge ForumKnowledge ForumKnowledge Forum is an educational software designed to help and support knowledge building communities. Previously, the product was called Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments...
- Intersystem Concepts, Inc., founded by Steven Okonski and Gary Dickelman, introduces the Summit Authoring System which includes student tracking and bookmarks plus instructor course management features. It is the first to bring streaming mediaStreaming mediaStreaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
to a virtual learning environment.
1987
- In 1987, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its first online distance education courses. The courses were provided through EKKO, NKI's self-developed Learning Management SystemLearning management systemA learning management system is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content...
(LMS). The experiences are described in the article NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability in Morten Flate Paulsen's book Online Education and Learning Management Systems which is available online at Online Education and Learning Management Systems - From this year until 1991 several UK groups of researchers associated in one way or another with the Open University, the UK Department for Industry (especially the Alvey programme, the transputer team and the Information Technology Consultancy Unit) and the emerging European Commission DELTA programme, carry out a mass of specification and prototyping work on "educational environments". Projects include the Thought Box; the Learning Systems Reference Model; Portable Educational Tools Environment (joint OU, Harlequin and Chorus Systèmes); and Transputer-Based Communications-oriented Learning System. Among the non-OU co-workers were Chris Webb, Bill Olivier and Oleg Liber, all still active in e-learning. (No useful material left on the current public Web.)
- Authorware Inc. is formed in Minneapolis/St. Paul. From initial prototypes developed on both mainframe and very early personal computers, a Macintosh-based authoring system called "Course of Action" is introduced; later a PC version is developed. Shortly after its introduction, the title of the authoring system is changed to match the name of the company. Authorware went on to become the first and most widely used industry-standard development tool.
- The Athena Writing Project at MIT publishes "Electronic Classroom: Specification for a user interface"
- 1987, Glenn Jones of Jones Intercable in Denver, Colorado believed he saw a potential goldmine when he created a new system, called Mind Extension University in 1987. Jones created a system where telecourses could be provided across a network to various colleges and at the same time, students could interact with the instructors and each other, by using email, sent over the internet. Jones then began to beam the courses by satellite, so anyone with a satellite dish could watch the classes and if they had a computer and a phone line they could interact with the class.
- A group of companies in Alberta, working with Alberta Government Telephones, create a pre-internet "whiteboard-like" audiographic teleconferencing system. Using PCs, specialized NAPLPS-based software, and audioconferencing bridges, the system shares graphics, text, and voice, for synchonous multipoint instructor/student student/student communication. The system was used by the Commonwealth of Learning in several locations around the globe, and was also used by Arctic College in Alaska for distance education. In some implementations, the students uploaded assignments to instructors for marking.
1988
- Probably the first large-scale use of computer conferencing in distance teaching when the Open University UK launched DT200 Introduction to Information Technology with 1000 students per year. The ur-evaluation by Robin Mason is a good description - see Chapter 9 of Mindweave - Internet Archive Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul
- Edward Barrett and James Paradis publish a chapter entitled "The Online Environment and In-House Training" in Edward Barrett (Ed.) Text, ConText, and HyperText (1988-MIT Press), that describes Project Athena as an Educational On-Line System (EOS).
- Question Mark (see QuestionMarkQuestionMarkThe Questionmark Corporation is a supplier of online assessment software to educational institutions, public sector employers and commercial companies worldwide. The company was started in 1988 by current chairman John Kleeman. Primary markets are Europe and North America...
) introduces a DOS-based Assessment Management System. A Windows based version was introduced in 1993, and an internet version was introduced in 1995. See Questionmark's website. - Utilizing colleague Stephen Wolfram's MathematicaMathematicaMathematica is a computational software program used in scientific, engineering, and mathematical fields and other areas of technical computing...
computer algebra system, mathematics professors at the University of Illinois, Jerry Uhl and Horacio Porta along with Professor Bill Davis of The Ohio State University, develop Calculus&Mathematica and offer calculus courses at UIUC and OSU in computer labs. - Peter Copen launches the New York State/Moscow Schools Telecommunications Project, linking 12 schools in New York State with 12 in Moscow in the former Soviet Union to demonstrate that students can learn better through direct interaction online and will become global citizens. This was the pilot project for what later became iEARNIEARNiEARN is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 125 countries. iEARN supports teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies...
(International Education and Resource Network). - Online Learning Circles http://www.iearn.org/circles/ (developed from the Intercultural Learning Network, UCSD as one of the first networks that connected classrooms from around the world in groups of 8-10 classrooms around themes) was offered on the AT&T Learning Network http://www.springerlink.com/content/p1588841g40l1358/.
1989
- Tim Berners-LeeTim Berners-LeeSir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
, then a young British engineer working at CERN in Switzerland, circulated a proposal for an in-house online document sharing system which he described as a "web of notes with links". After the proposal was grudgingly approved by his superiors, he called the new system the World Wide Web. - Chris Moore, Chief Technology Officer at THINQ Learning Solutions for many years, pioneered the TrainingServer learning management system for Syscom, Inc. Syscom was acquired by THINQ in 2000. THINQ was acquired by Saba in 2005. Chris Moore has recently founded Zeroed-In Technologies.
- Lancaster University (UK) launches the MSc in Information Technology and Learning: now the world’s longest continually running Masters programme taught using virtual learning methods (see Goodyear, P (2005) The emergence of a networked learning community: lessons learned from research and practice, in Kearsley, G. (ed) Online learning, Englewood Cliffs NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 113-127.)
- The Calculus&Mathematica support team at the University of Illinois begin offering computerized calculus courses utilizing Mathematica over the internet to High School students in rural Illinois.
- John S. QuartermanJohn QuartermanJohn S. Quarterman is an American author and long time Internet participant. He wrote one of the classic books about networking prior to the commercialization of the Internet...
published a 700+ page book, "The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide" (Digital Press, 1989). This book provided detailed addressing protocols on how different computer networks could connect with each other for the purpose of exchanging information and holding discussions, and network maps of the developing Internet. - Networked Educational Online System (NEOS) developed and deployed at MIT. The system provided coursework exchange between different roles allowing for grading, annotating, and public discussions. Nick Williams, William Cattey, "The Educational On-Line System", Proceedings of the EUUG Spring Conference, EUUG, (April 1990)
- Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., McLean, R. S., Swallow, J., & Woodruff, E. (1989). Computer supported intentional learning environments. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 5, 51-68. Paper discusses CSILE project and related software.
- The first release of Lotus NotesLotus NotesLotus Notes is the client of a collaborative platform originally created by Lotus Development Corp. in 1989. In 1995 Lotus was acquired by IBM and became known as the Lotus Development division of IBM and is now part of the IBM Software Group...
1.0 is shipped. Release 1.0 includes functionality which is "revolutionary" for the time, including allowing system/server administrators to create a user mailbox, user records in a Name and Address database, and to notarize the user's ID file through dialog boxes. Also includes an electronic mail system with return receipt and notification features, and on-line help, "a feature not offered in many products at this time." Official history of Lotus Notes - Publication of the book Mindweave: Communication, Computers and Distance Education, edited by Robin Mason and Anthony Kaye (published by Pergamon Press, Oxford, 273p). This was a hugely influential book on computer conferencing on which many of the leading experts of the time collaborated. In addition to descriptions of applications, there were several chapters describing or specifying systems, in particular the Thought Box. The book is available second-hand (e.g. via Amazon) but the full text (no images) is on the web. Internet Archive http://www.ead.ufms.br/marcelo/mindware/mindweave.htm
- The first public article specifying the Thought Box appears as Chapter 7 of Mindweave, written by Gary Alexander and Ches Lincoln. It is entitled "The thought box: A computer-based communication system to support distance learning". Although the specification is couched in terms of a hardware device linked to a remote mail/resources server the article also describes the prototype work being done in HyperCard, and it could be argued that this software prototype had many of the features of a modern Personal Learning Environment. In fact, over the next few years, the HyperCard route was the way by which the ideas were advanced, eventually appearing in the XT001 online course in the early 1990s and in several other Open University courses. Internet Archive http://ead.ufms.br/marcelo/mindware/chap7.html
- The Athena Writing Project at MIT produces this publication: N. Hagan Heller, "Designing a User Interface for the Educational On-line System", Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, May 1989.
- Education 2010 is published. This 83-page booklet (published by Newman Software, ISBN 0-948048-04-2) arose out of an invitational conference at Bangor in July, 1989, with a brief to examine the possible role of IT in Education in the year 2010. With a few notable exceptions such as Stephen Heppell, few of the conference delegates are active now in e-learning - but it makes interesting reading.
- ECCTIS Limited was formed when it successfully completed in a closed tendering exercise for the ECCTIS online (viewdata) courses information service earlier run by the UK Open University. "ECCTIS" is one of the few names from the viewdata era of the 1980s to carry on till this day, even if somewhat changed. ECCTIS has a useful company history page.
- Dr. John Sperling and Terri Hedegaard Bishop begin the University of Phoenix Online campus, based in San Francisco, California. It was the first private university venture to deliver complete academic degree programs (Master's and Bachelor's degrees) and services to a mass audience, via asynchronous online technologies. This early success is later documented in a paper written by Hedegaard-Bishop and Howard Garten (Professor at University of DaytonUniversity of DaytonThe University of Dayton is a private Roman Catholic university operated by the Society of Mary located in Dayton, Ohio...
, Dayton, OhioDayton, OhioDayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
), “The Rise of Computer Conferencing Courses and Online Education: Challenges for Accreditation and Assessment" and published in a collection of Papers on Self-Study and Institutional Improvement by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, (1993) 137-145.
1991
- In Datacloud: Toward a New Theory of Online Work, Johndan Johnson-Eilola describes a specific computer-supported collaboriatin space: The Smart Board, which was introduced in 1991. According to Johnson-Eilola, a “Smart Board system provides a 72-inch, rear projection, touchscreen, intelligent whiteboard surface for work” (79). In Datacloud, Johnson-Eilola asserts that “[w]e are attempting to understand how users move within information spaces, how users can exist within information spaces rather than merely gaze at them, and how information spaces must be shared with others rather than being private, lived within rather than simply visited” (82). He explains how the Smart Board system offers an information space that allows his students to engage in active collaboration. He makes three distinct claims regarding the functionality of the technology: 1) The Smart Board allows users to work with large amounts of information, 2) It offers an information space that invites active collaboration, 3) The work produced is often “dynamic and contingent” (82).
- Johnson-Eilola further explains that with the Smart Board “…information work becom[es] a bodied experience” (81). Users have the opportunity to engage with—inhabit—the technology by direct manipulation. Moreover, this space allows for more than one user; essentially, it invites multiple users.
1992
- Philips Interactive Media, led by CEO Bernard Luskin, and Paramount PicturesParamount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, led by Eric Doctorow pioneer full motion video movies on CD. The first full motion video MPEG compression methods are developed and full motion video becomes available for all manner of digital programs.
1994
- TeleEducation NB, a provincial distance learning network in the Canadian province of New BrunswickNew BrunswickNew Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...
implemented a primitive DOS-based learning management system designed by Rory McGreal.
1995
- Arnold Pizer and Michael Gage at the University of Rochester Department of Mathematics develop WeBWorK (a free Perl-based system for delivering individualized homework problems over the web) for use in mathematics instruction.
- Steve Molyneux at University of Wolverhampton in the UK develops WOLF (Wolverhampton Online Learning Framework) one of the first e-Learning environments in the UK.
- In 1995 Murray Goldberg at University of British Columbia began looking at the application of web-based systems to education and developed WebCT in early 1996.
1996
- Glenn Jones, Chairman, and Bernard Luskin, founding chancellor of Jones International University launch Jones International University which becomes the first accredited fully web based university.
1997
- Neal Sample and Mark Arnold present "JavaScript for Simulation Education" at the NAU/web.97 conference (Flagstaff, Arizona, 12–15 June 1997). Their paper presents earlier work (pre-1997) on experiences presenting coursework over the Internet. At the same conference, other academics presented their work in the field of e-learning. A copy of the Sample/Arnold paper can be found here:
- CourseInfo LLCCourseInfo LLCCourseInfo LLC, one of the two companies forming Blackboard Inc. was founded in 1997 by Dan Cane and Stephen Gilfus while at Cornell University. They joined together to officially form the partnership known as CourseInfo and developed the company into a small course management software provider....
founded by Dan Cane and Stephen Gilfus at Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
. http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/97/10.16.97/Web_company.html
Develops the "Interactive Learning Network" ILN 1.5, and installs it at several academic institutions including Cornell University, Yale Medical School and University of Pittsburgh. The ILN was the first e-learning system of its kind to leverage an install on top of a relational database MySqL. http://www.cquest.utoronto.ca/env/aera/aera-lists/aera-c/97-11/0123.html
- Blackboard Inc founded by Michael Chasen and Matt Pitinsky in Washington, DC.
1998
- Ian D. Thompson at the University of StrathclydeUniversity of StrathclydeThe University of Strathclyde , Glasgow, Scotland, is Glasgow's second university by age, founded in 1796, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university...
creates version one of the SPIDER VLESpider (portal)Strathclyde Personal Interactive Development and Educational Resource is a virtual learning environment used by the University of Strathclyde to provide an online platform for class material, support and more.-History:...
system for the School of Pharmacy.http://spider.science.strath.ac.uk/help/index.php/Timeline - Coursepackets.com, founded by entrepreneur, and then UT student, Alan Blake, launches in the fall semester at the University of Texas at Austin. The company was the first to provide scanned, online versions of course-packets for students. Coursepackets.com changed its name to CourseNotes.com when it began offering expanded services in early 2000.
1999
- John Baker (entrepreneur)John Baker (entrepreneur)John Baker founded the eLearning or Learning Management Systems company Desire2Learn in 1999 after identifying his own unfulfilled need for learning online while studying Systems design engineering at the University of Waterloo....
a student at the University of WaterlooUniversity of WaterlooThe University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
creates version one of Desire2LearnDesire2LearnDesire2Learn Incorporated is a provider of enterprise eLearning solutions and develops online Learning Management Systems used at more than 450 institutions around the world...
learning system for faculty in engineering.http://www.Desire2Learn.com
2000
- January, 2000: CourseNotes.com, founded by entrepreneur, and then UT student, Alan Blake, launches in early 2000, with dozens of classes at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
. The service was marketed since the summer of 1999, and provides comprehensive professor web sites, including virtually all features offered by Blackboard (i.e., course documents, calendaring, grades, quizzes & surveys, announcements, etc.). The company was later renamed ClassMap and operational until early 2001. - January 2000: Lamp and Goodwin of Deakin UniversityDeakin UniversityDeakin University is an Australian public university with nearly 40,000 higher education students in 2010. It receives more than A$600 million in operating revenue annually, and controls more than A$1.3 billion in assets. It received more than A$35 million in research income in 2009 and had 835...
publish "Using Computer Mediated Communications to Enhance the Teaching of Team Based Project Management" (conference presentation copyright 1999), an evaluation of a trial of FirstClass to teach project management at Deakin in 1998-99. It contains the memorable observation "There were some comments about features which students believed that FirstClass didn't have (eg email, chat sessions on demand) when, in fact, they were available facilities..." Internet Archive Deakin University Note also that there are several specifications of pre-2000 versions of FirstClass available (usually as PDF files at university sites) on the web. - January 2000: ILIAS, which has been developed at University of Cologne since 1997, has become open source software under the GPL (first release: ILIAS 1.6). Together with developers from other universities in Northrhine-Westfalia the ILIAS team founded the CampusSource initiative to promote the development of open source LMS and other software for teaching at universities.
- May, 2000: ArsDigita, a Boston Massachusetts based start-up who developed the Arsdigita Community System since their inception in 1997 deploys Caltech Portals at my.caltech.edu http://web.archive.org/web/20000530235506/http://my.caltech.edu
Later that year in October 2000, deploy the ArsDigita Community Education System (ACES) at MIT Sloan School. The system is called Sloanspace. The ArsDigita Community System as well as ACES in the next few years grow to OpenACS and .LRN
- May 1, 2000: Randy Graebner's master's thesis from MIT is published, Online Education Through Shared Resources.
- Internet Archive http://snow.utoronto.ca/initiatives/access_study/inclusion.html Courseware Accessibility Study] User based study looks at the accessibility of six VLEs
- Mid June, Reda Athanasios, President of Convene InternationalConveneConvene is an early distance learning company and currently the largest company in that market. The software company was founded in the late 1980s by Larry Allen when he created collaborative seminary training programs. Although Convene still has collaborative software for use by some 15,000...
leaves the company to form Learning Technology Partners (which later buys Convene). Now that the Virtual classroom idea is well established, what is needed next is to build all the other supporting technologies to turn the Virtual Classroom to a Virtual Campus with SMS and e-commerce support, he claims. Learning Technology Partners seeks to build technologies to support the Virtual Classroom. - June 30, 2000: Blackboard Inc. file a patent application relating to "Internet-based education support systems and methods". An international patent applicationPatent Cooperation TreatyThe Patent Cooperation Treaty is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states...
is filed on the same date. The applications claim priorityPriority rightIn patent, industrial design rights and trademark laws, a priority right or right of priority is a time-limited right, triggered by the first filing of an application for a patent, an industrial design or a trademark respectively...
from a provisional patent application filed June 30, 1999. A US patent is granted in 2006 (See below) and patent applications in Europe, Canada, Mexico and Australia are also pursued from the WO application. - Blackboard Inc. acquires MadDuck Technologies LLC, developers of "Web Course in a Box".
- ETUDES 2.5 is demonstrated in March at TechEd 2000 in Palm Springs, CaliforniaPalm Springs, CaliforniaPalm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
. At or prior to this release, ETUDES included a number of features of VLEs, including course and role based access via login, electronic assignment submission, online assessment, and synchronous and asynchronous communications. The system is in use by a number of community colleges in California, including Foothill, Miracosta, and Las Positas. - * "The Political Economy of Online Education" (Onrain Kyouiku no Seijikeizaigaku) by Kimura Tadamasa was published in May, with the rubric "this book examines the role of secondary education in the new information society, from a variety of perspectivies - socialogy, psychology, and human resource management - using concrete examples of online education in educational environments." ISBN 4-7571-4017-7. NTT publishing. Tokyo. (Japanese).
- The MIT Sloan School of Management launches the first production version of ACES 3.4 with a pilot of 8 Fall 2000 classes.
- Northern Virginia Community College's Extended Learning Institute begins using Blackboard after having previously used a variety of other products for Internet-based course delivery, including Lotus NotesLotus NotesLotus Notes is the client of a collaborative platform originally created by Lotus Development Corp. in 1989. In 1995 Lotus was acquired by IBM and became known as the Lotus Development division of IBM and is now part of the IBM Software Group...
(1995), FirstClassFirstClassFirstClass is a client/server groupware, email, online conferencing, voice/fax services, and bulletin-board system for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux...
(1996–1999), Serf (1997–1999), and Allaire Forums (1999ff.) for its engineering degree program and other courses http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln/v4n2/pdf/v4n2_sener.pdf; NVCC also used WebBoard (1999ff) and Web Course in a Box (1998ff), prior to beginning its use of Blackboard. (Sener, J. Bringing ALN into the Mainstream: NVCC Case Studies. In: Bourne, J. and Moore, J. (Eds.), Online Education: Learning Effectiveness, Faculty Satisfaction, and Cost Effectiveness, Volume 2. Needham, MA: Sloan Center for OnLine Education, 7-30, 2001.) - In fall 2000 the open source LMS OLATOLATOLAT is an acronym for Online Learning And Training. It is a web application – a so called Learning Management System that supports any kind of online learning, teaching, and tutoring with few educational restrictions. OLAT is free software and is open source. Its development started in 1999 at the...
developed at University of ZurichUniversity of ZurichThe University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....
won the MeDiDa-Prix http://www.medidaprix.org/ for its paedagogical concept. It was optimized to support a blended learningBlended learningBlended learning refers to a mixing of different learning environments. It combines traditional face-to-face classroom methods with more modern computer-mediated activities. According to its proponents, the strategy creates a more integrated approach for both instructors and learners. Formerly,...
concept. - In May 2000, HEFCE, the Higher Education Funding Council for (universities in) England, commissions a comparative analysis of the main VLEs, as part of a series of studies for the imminent UK e-University. Over 40 specially-created vendor submissions mostly delivered by 17 June 2000 are analysed by a team led by Paul Bacsich. A companion study analsyed what were then called Learning Administration Systems, in a team comprising Christopher Dean, Oleg Liber, Sandy Britain and Bill Olivier. Final reports were delivered in September 2000.
- Webster & Associates / Infosentials Ltd launches learningfast.com in first half of year. Complete course based assessment, with separate user and administrator logins. Users, on login, are provided with a list of courses that matches their subscription level. Subsequently sold to Monash University.
- In July, 2000, CyberLearning Labs, Inc. is founded. Its primary product, the ANGEL Learning Management System (LMS) evolved from research at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). The company will later change its name to ANGEL Learning, Inc.ANGEL LearningANGEL Learning, Inc. was a privately held educational software company specializing in eLearning. Its main products are the ANGEL Learning Management Suite , ANGEL ePortfolio, and services offerings. In May 2009 it was acquired by Blackboard Inc.....
- A Manual for Students in Web-Based Courses: What do you do now that they have gone to the Web? was published online by Kent NormanKent NormanKent L. Norman is an American cognitive psychologist and an expert on Computer Rage. He graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1969 and earned a Ph.D...
at the University of Maryland, College ParkUniversity of Maryland, College ParkThe University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
, Laboratory for Automation PsychologyLaboratory for Automation PsychologyThe Laboratory for Automation Psychology was founded in 1983 by Kent Norman and Nancy Anderson as an affiliate of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies .It is housed in the University of Maryland, College Park's...
. - The ClarolineClarolineClaroline is a collaborative eLearning and eWorking platform released under the GPL Open Source license. It allows hundreds of organizations worldwide ranging from universities to schools and from companies to associations to create and administer courses and collaboration spaces over the web...
project was initiated in 2000 at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) by Thomas De Praetere and was financially supported by the Louvain Foundation. Developed from teachers to teachers, Claroline is built over sound paedagogical principles allowing a large variety of paedagogical setup including widening of traditional classroom and online collaborative learning.
2001
- Technological Fluency Institute releases CAT1 (Computer Assessment and Tutorial) which assesses a persons technical abilities and offers help tutorials for participants.
- CourseWork.Version ICourseWork Course Management SystemCourseWork, a course management system , was developed at Stanford University. Started in 1998 , CourseWork was expanded in 2001. It has been used by thousands of courses at Stanford...
(CW), a full-featured course management system, was developed at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
's Academic Computing. CW supported multiple courses allowing multiple roles for users. CW's consisted of a set of tools for authoring and distributing course websites that incluced: a course homepage, announcements, syllabus, schedule, course materials, assignments (based on a 1998 version of CW), gradebook and assync discussion. This version was initially developed as part of the Open Knowledge InitiativeOpen Knowledge InitiativeThe Open Knowledge Initiative is an organization responsible for the specification of software interfaces comprising a Service Oriented Architecture based on high level service definitions.-Description:...
, partially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon FoundationAndrew W. Mellon FoundationThe Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City and Princeton, New Jersey in the United States, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, endowed with wealth accumulated by the late Andrew W. Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969...
. - MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
releases Microsoft Encarta Class Server (See Press Release) - The Bodington system released as open source by the University of Leeds, UK
- MoodleMoodleMoodle is a free source e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment...
is published via CVS to early testers The announcement is here. - LON-CAPALON-CAPALON-CAPA is an e-learning platform, also known as a Course Management System or Learning Management System . It possesses the standard features of many learning platforms , but it differs from traditional e-learning platforms in that its many web servers...
is first used in courses at Michigan State University. - version 2.0 of COSE is launched after further funding from the JISC
- Murray GoldbergMurray GoldbergMurray Goldberg is a noted Canadian educational technologist and a faculty member in the department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada. Goldberg is best known for being the founder of the elearning companies WebCT, Brainify, Silicon Chalk, AssociCom, and...
(founder of WebCTWebCTWebCT or Blackboard Learning System, now owned by Blackboard, is an online proprietary virtual learning environment system that is sold to colleges and other institutions and used in many campuses for e-learning...
) and others start a company called Silicon Chalk. Silicon Chalk builds software for the classroom to be used in laptop learning environments. Examples of features include presentation and audio beaming to student laptops, student note taking, student polling, student questions, control of student applications, recording of entire lecture experience for archiving, searching and later replay, etc. Silicon Chalk gains a dedicated usership of approximately 70 institutions but never achieves profitability. It is sold to Horizon Wimba in 2005. - The MIT Sloan School of Management adopts ACES 3.4 (internally named SloanSpace) as their course management system.
- Brandon Hall publishes an article in ASTD's "Learning Circuits", entitled LMS 2001. It lists 59 learning management systems available that year.
- Thinking Cap, the first XML LMS / LCMS launched. Separation of content from presentation allows for single source creation of training content.
- ILIAS 2.0 released in August.
- PTT launches the first commercial version of its Trainee Records Management System (TRMS).
- August 2001: the Pedagogy Group of the UK e-University (UKeUUKeUThe UKeU was a company and website that promoted online degrees from UK universities. As such, UKeU was not a university in its own right and ultimately was a dot-com failure...
) started work on development of what eventually became (in 2003) the UKeU learning environment. An "e-University Functional Model" was created in October 2001 but specification work continued well into 2002. See the UKeU Overview, especially Section 3, for a description of the early days of UKeU. - December 2001: The open-source course management system spotter is released.
2002
- MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
release Class Server 3.0 on June 6 Press release - ATutorATutorATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System .ATutor is used in various contexts, including online course management, continuing professional development for teachers, career development, and academic research...
first public Open Source release in December id=21294 ATutor Release News - MoodleMoodleMoodle is a free source e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment...
version 1.0 released in August - Fle3Fle3Fle3 is a Web-based learning environment or virtual learning environment. More precisely Fle3 is server software for computer supported collaborative learning ....
version 1.0 released in February - the first Open Source version of FLE software - The MIT Sloan School of Management migrates ACES to OpenACS 4.0, thereby creating the first instance of .LRN (1.0).
- The Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies at the University of Cambridge deploys CamCommunities, an open-source community system (OpenACS) based on .LRN, for use on campus.
- July, Reda Athanasios of Learning Technology Partners buys his old company ConveneConveneConvene is an early distance learning company and currently the largest company in that market. The software company was founded in the late 1980s by Larry Allen when he created collaborative seminary training programs. Although Convene still has collaborative software for use by some 15,000...
and instantly gains two data centers and IZIO the Learning Platform developed in Stanford and purchased later by Convene. - Start of the OLATOLATOLAT is an acronym for Online Learning And Training. It is a web application – a so called Learning Management System that supports any kind of online learning, teaching, and tutoring with few educational restrictions. OLAT is free software and is open source. Its development started in 1999 at the...
rebuilt project. The goal of this project was to rebuilt the LAMPLAMP (software bundle)LAMP is an acronym for a solution stack of free, open source software, referring to the first letters of Linux , Apache HTTP Server, MySQL and PHP , principal components to build a viable general purpose web server.The GNU project is advocating people to use the term "GLAMP" since what is known as...
based LMS on a scalable, save and fast Java EE based architecture that supports campus wide e-learning. - The first PhD program in Media Psychology is launched at Fielding Graduate University by Bernard Luskin. This major step brings attention and expertise to the growing realization that a greater understanding of human behavior is necessary for improved learning systems in the future.
- ILIAS open source team started to redesign the system and to develop ILIAS 3.
- November 2002: OpenText announce the acquisition of Centrinity, the then owners of FirstClass - see the press release of 1 November.
- December 2002: ACODE, the Australasian Council on Open, Distance and E-Learning, continues under a new name the work of a series of earlier organisations originating with NCODE in 1993. See the history of ACODE.
- First Ph. D program in Media Psychology is launched at Fielding Graduate University. Distance Education is central to the psychology as applied to media. Bernard Luskin is founding director.
2003
- LON-CAPALON-CAPALON-CAPA is an e-learning platform, also known as a Course Management System or Learning Management System . It possesses the standard features of many learning platforms , but it differs from traditional e-learning platforms in that its many web servers...
version 1.0 released in August (in use at 12 universities, 2 community colleges and 8 high schools) - December 2003: Serco GroupSerco GroupSerco Group plc is a government services company based in Hook, North Hampshire in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.-History:...
acquires Teknical, the VLE company spun out of the University of LincolnUniversity of LincolnThe University of Lincoln is an English university founded in 1992, with origins tracing back to the foundation and association with the Hull School of Art 1861....
. - Early in the year WebCTWebCTWebCT or Blackboard Learning System, now owned by Blackboard, is an online proprietary virtual learning environment system that is sold to colleges and other institutions and used in many campuses for e-learning...
announces over 6 million students users and 40,000 instructor users teaching 150,000 courses per year at 1,350 institutions in 55 countries - LogiCampus released its first open source edition in November 2003 on sourceforge.net. LogiCampus news release archive
2004
- The Sakai ProjectSakai ProjectThis page is about the software project, for other meanings, see Sakai.Sakai is a community of academic institutions, commercial organizations and individuals who work together to develop a common Collaboration and Learning Environment...
founded, promising to develop an open source Collaboration and Learning Environment for the needs of higher education. - Public release of DokeosDokeosDokeos is a company dedicated to open source Learning Management Systems. Its main product is a SCORM-compliant open source learning suite used by multinational companies, federal administrations and universities....
open-source VLE, which is a fork of ClarolineClarolineClaroline is a collaborative eLearning and eWorking platform released under the GPL Open Source license. It allows hundreds of organizations worldwide ranging from universities to schools and from companies to associations to create and administer courses and collaboration spaces over the web...
. - OLATOLATOLAT is an acronym for Online Learning And Training. It is a web application – a so called Learning Management System that supports any kind of online learning, teaching, and tutoring with few educational restrictions. OLAT is free software and is open source. Its development started in 1999 at the...
3.0 released. This is the first OLATOLATOLAT is an acronym for Online Learning And Training. It is a web application – a so called Learning Management System that supports any kind of online learning, teaching, and tutoring with few educational restrictions. OLAT is free software and is open source. Its development started in 1999 at the...
release that is entirely written in JavaJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
as a result of the OLATOLATOLAT is an acronym for Online Learning And Training. It is a web application – a so called Learning Management System that supports any kind of online learning, teaching, and tutoring with few educational restrictions. OLAT is free software and is open source. Its development started in 1999 at the...
rebuild project initiated in 2002. - First stable ILIAS 3 release published in June..
- In July ILIAS is certified officially by ADL CO-Lab as SCORM 1.2 compliant. ILIAS is the first free software LMS that reaches the maximum conformance level LMS-RTE3.
- University of South AfricaUniversity of South AfricaThe University of South Africa is a distance education university, with headquarters in Pretoria, South Africa. With approximately 300 000 enrolled students, it qualifies as one of the world's mega universities.-History:...
(Unisa) and Technikon South Africa (TSA) merged on 1 January 2004. The functionality of their two in-house developed CMSs (Unisa SOL and TSA COOL) was combined into a new system called "myUnisa" . myUnisa is built within the SakaiSakai ProjectThis page is about the software project, for other meanings, see Sakai.Sakai is a community of academic institutions, commercial organizations and individuals who work together to develop a common Collaboration and Learning Environment...
framework. The new myUnisa infrastructure was launched on 9 January 2006. By August 2006 myUnisa was one of the largest installs of SakaiSakai ProjectThis page is about the software project, for other meanings, see Sakai.Sakai is a community of academic institutions, commercial organizations and individuals who work together to develop a common Collaboration and Learning Environment...
with more than 110 000 students. - October: Murray GoldbergMurray GoldbergMurray Goldberg is a noted Canadian educational technologist and a faculty member in the department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada. Goldberg is best known for being the founder of the elearning companies WebCT, Brainify, Silicon Chalk, AssociCom, and...
, the inventor of WebCTWebCTWebCT or Blackboard Learning System, now owned by Blackboard, is an online proprietary virtual learning environment system that is sold to colleges and other institutions and used in many campuses for e-learning...
, and still an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, wins this year's EnCana Principal Award from the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation. The award, with a cash prize of $100,000, is given each year to a Canadian innovator. The press release perhaps comes closest to being a brief official history of WebCT from the University point of view.* Roger Boshier releases an irreverent history of e-learning in British Columbia, covering WebCT and many lesser-known developments. The file date is 2004 but the chronology stops just before 2000. See A Chronology of Technological Triumph, Zealotry and Utopianism in B.C. Education. An earlier (1999) version of this with the title addition of Leaping Fords and Conquering Mountains is also available. - The American National Standards Institute, International Committee for Information Technology Standards (ANSI/INCITS) adopts the Sandhu, Ferraiolo, Kuhn RBAC (Role-Based Access ControlRole-Based Access ControlIn computer systems security, role-based access control is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users. It is used by the majority of enterprises with more than 500 employees, and can be implemented via mandatory access control or discretionary access control...
) NIST "unified model" proposal as an industry consensus standard (INCITS 359:2004). A page is prepared (date uncertain) detailing the history of Role-Based Access Control from the Ferrailo and Kuhn paper in 1992 up to the date of the standard. - eLMLELMLThe eLesson Markup Language is an open source XML framework for creating electronic lessons. It is a "spin-off" from the GITTA project , a Swiss GIS eLearning project, and was launched in spring 2004. The eLML project is hosted at Sourceforge and offers all the regular tools that you might...
started as a spin-off from the Gitta project.
2005
- Microsoft release Microsoft Class Server 4.0 on 27 January (See Press release).
- OLATOLATOLAT is an acronym for Online Learning And Training. It is a web application – a so called Learning Management System that supports any kind of online learning, teaching, and tutoring with few educational restrictions. OLAT is free software and is open source. Its development started in 1999 at the...
4.0 was introduced with many new features like the integration of XMPPExtensible Messaging and Presence ProtocolExtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML . The protocol was originally named Jabber, and was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near-real-time, extensible instant messaging , presence...
, RSSRSS-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
, SCORMSCORMSharable Content Object Reference Model is a collection of standards and specifications for web-based e-learning. It defines communications between client side content and a host system called the run-time environment, which is commonly supported by a learning management system...
and an extension framework that allows adding code by configuration and without the need to patch the original code set. - January 2005: EADTU - the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities - launches the "E-xcellence” project, with the support of the eLearning Programme of the European Commission (DG Education and Culture), to set a standard for quality in e-learning. The project is a cooperation between 13 "significant partners" in the European scene of higher education e-learning together with quality assessment and accreditation. See EADTU - European Association of Distance Teaching Universities.
- March 2005: The New Zealand Ministry of Education authorises release of a report describing (in anonymised terms) the benchmarking of e-learning, covering most university-level institutions in the country. The Report on the E-Learning Maturity Model Evaluation of the New Zealand Tertiary Sector weighs in at a hefty 12 MB.
- April 28, 2005: Blackboard are granted based on their international patent application filed in 2000. The granted claims are similar to the claims later granted in the US (See below).
- June 2005: Janice Smith (Jan Smith) publishes "From flowers to palms: 40 years of policy for online learning" [in the UK], ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, vol. 13 no. 2 pp. 93–108 - with a particularly useful chronology on page 95. As the ALT-J editor Jane Seale notes, "the purpose of the review is to make sense of the current position in which the field finds itself, and to highlight lessons that can be learned from the implementation of previous policies".
- July 2005: The European Foundation for Quality in eLearningEFQUELThe European Foundation for Quality in eLearning is a not-for-profit organisation which was legally established on June 30, 2005 and is based in Brussels, Belgium. It is a worldwide membership network with over 80 member organisations including universities, corporations and national agencies...
is launched, initially funded by the EU Triangle project. - September 2005: The Higher Education AcademyHigher Education AcademyThe Higher Education Academy is an independent organisation in the United Kingdom that supports higher education institutions with strategies for the development of research and evaluation to improve the learning experience for students.-History:...
announced the UK Higher Education e-Learning Benchmarking Exercise and Pathfinder Programme during a joint Academy/JISC session at ALT-C 2005. The initial announcement was followed by a call to the sector for Expressions of Interest to participate in the e-learning benchmarking exercise (e-benchmarking). A consultative Town Meeting was also held at the Academy, York in November 2005. (The pilot phase of the e-Learning Benchmarking Exercise commenced in January 2006.) See Higher Education Academy - Benchmarking. - October 13, 2005: Blackboard files patent #7,493,396, requiring that a single user be allowed to have multiple roles, and that the list of course links provided after login vary depending on the user's role for each course.
- O'Reilly MediaO'Reilly MediaO'Reilly Media is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books and Web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics...
purchases Useractive, inc. and starts O'Reilly Learning (which eventually become The O'Reilly School of Technology), which creates online learning courses in programming and system administration skills. This enterprise is the first full scale effort to expand the use of the useractive contructivist model of learning on the internet. - NACON Consulting, LLC. pioneers its distance education system, "VirtualOnDemand", designed to train users on real software using virtual machines, with the only user component needed being a web browser. The ArmyUnited States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
initiates a pilot program (IATraining) and uses this system to train IT support personnel in various network security software. NACON also releases a stand-alone virtual training appliance. - Boston University launches the first online doctoral program in music education, which within two years admits nearly 350 students.
- KEWL.nextgen started up in PHP.
2006
- The Virtual Learning Environment SCOLASTANCE is now available in its English version VLE Scolastance
- 17 January 2006: BlackboardBlackboard Inc.Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise software company with its corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C. and is primarily known as a developer of education software, in particular learning management systems. Blackboard was founded by CEO Michael Chasen and chairman Matthew Pittinsky in 1997 and...
is granted relating to "Internet-based education support systems" claiming priority from its provisional patent application of 30 June 1999 (among others). The claims require that a series of educational courses stored on a server be accessible by different users from different computers. Users can access multiple courses and can have different access privileges for files relating to each course based on course-specific roles of student, instructor, and/or administrator.http://mfeldstein.com/images/uploads/Blackboard_Patent_Claims.pdf - 14 February 2006: Indiana UniversityIndiana UniversityIndiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
awarded the service mark Oncourse from the United States Patent and Trademark OfficeUnited States Patent and Trademark OfficeThe United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
(Reg. No. 3,058,558). FOR: EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, NAMELY, PROVIDING AN ONLINE COURSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS, IN CLASS 41 (U.S. CLS. 100, 101, AND 107). FIRST USE: 1-3-1998; IN COMMERCE 1-3-1998. - 28 February 2006: Merger of WebCTWebCTWebCT or Blackboard Learning System, now owned by Blackboard, is an online proprietary virtual learning environment system that is sold to colleges and other institutions and used in many campuses for e-learning...
into the BlackboardBlackboard Inc.Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise software company with its corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C. and is primarily known as a developer of education software, in particular learning management systems. Blackboard was founded by CEO Michael Chasen and chairman Matthew Pittinsky in 1997 and...
company. Both WebCT and Blackboard VLEs continue to exist as separate software. (See press release) - 26 July 2006: Blackboard files a complaint for patent infringement against Desire2LearnDesire2LearnDesire2Learn Incorporated is a provider of enterprise eLearning solutions and develops online Learning Management Systems used at more than 450 institutions around the world...
under its US patent.http://lwn.net/images/pdf/blackboard.pdf Blackboard tells the Chronicle of Higher Ed. that it will not go after Moodle and Sakai.http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/08/2006080201t.htm - August: WBTSystems, which has been an independent VLE developer in Ireland since 1994, is acquired by Horizon Technology Group.
- October: OLAT 5.0 has been released which brings a comprehensive full text search service to the systems core. The addition of a calendar and wiki component stresses the emphasis of a collaborative environment. AJAX and web 2.0 technologies are controllable by users.
- On August 9, 2006, a complaint was filed against BlackboardBlackboard Inc.Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise software company with its corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C. and is primarily known as a developer of education software, in particular learning management systems. Blackboard was founded by CEO Michael Chasen and chairman Matthew Pittinsky in 1997 and...
by Portaschool of Atlanta, GA in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Georgia for deceptive business practices, and knowingly and willingly misrepresenting themselves in a patent application.
2007
- On January 7, Microsoft released the Sharepoint Learning Kit. The software is SCORM 2004 certified and is used in conjunction with Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server to provide LMS functionality.
- On January 25, it was announced that the Software Freedom Law CenterSoftware Freedom Law CenterThe Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...
was successful in its request that the United States Patent and Trademark OfficeUnited States Patent and Trademark OfficeThe United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
re-examineReexaminationIn United States patent law, a reexamination is a process whereby a third party or inventor can have a patent reexamined by a patent examiner to verify that the subject matter it claims is patentable...
the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc. The request was filed in November 2006 on the behalf of SakaiSakai ProjectThis page is about the software project, for other meanings, see Sakai.Sakai is a community of academic institutions, commercial organizations and individuals who work together to develop a common Collaboration and Learning Environment...
, MoodleMoodleMoodle is a free source e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment...
, and ATutorATutorATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System .ATutor is used in various contexts, including online course management, continuing professional development for teachers, career development, and academic research...
. The Patent Office found that prior art cited in SFLC's request raises "a substantial new question of patentability" regarding all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent. GroklawGroklawGroklaw is an award-winning website covering legal news of interest to the free and open source software community. Started as a law blog on May 16, 2003 by paralegal Pamela Jones at Radio UserLand, it has covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits, the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft, and...
, a website that tracks legal issues generally related to Open SourceOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
software, has the press release: Groklaw.org - February 1, Blackboard announced via press release "The Blackboard Patent Pledge". In this pledge to the open source and do-it-yourself course management community, the company vows to forever refrain from asserting its patent rights against open-source developers, except where it is deemed necessary.
- February: Technological Fluency Institute releases a Windows XP version of its online prescriptive diagnostic performance based CAT1 program.
- March 7: The OLAT team releases OLAT 5.1 which has an emphasis on consolidation of features and bugfixing. Besides this a new glossary function has been added and accessibility has been improved.
- July: Michigan Virtual UniversityMichigan Virtual University- Description :According to its website, Michigan Virtual University® was established in 1998 by the State of Michigan. MVU is a private, nonprofit 501 corporation and is governed by an independent Board of Directors composed of individuals representing business, industry, higher education, K-12...
launches a learning management system from Meridian Knowledge SolutionsMeridian Knowledge SolutionsFounded in 1997, Meridian Knowledge Solutions is a software company based in Herndon, Va., that provides a learning management system, also known as a LMS, for delivering and tracking training via the Internet...
to deliver training to 150,000 Michigan public-school teachers and administrators and foster collaboration among these learners via online collaboration spaces. - August: The MIT Sloan School of Management replaces ACES (internally named SloanSpace) with Stellar as its course management system and Microsoft SharePoint to manage administrative content. At the 2007 MIT Sloan Talent Show, an MBA student protests SloanSpace with a song titled "I Can't Find It In SloanSpace" to the tune of Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places".
- September: xTrain LLP. launches first of its kind, (ODT) On Demand Training on the Internet. Users have access to high quality video training with social network communities, leading experts and portfolio reviews and certifications.
- September: Epignosis releases its web2.0 virtual learning environment (eFront) as Open-Source software.
- October 18: Controlearning s.a. and ocitel s.a. designed and developed Campus VirtualOnline, Campusvirtualonline.com (CVO), a platform where mixed e-learning content, e-books, e-money, e-docs, e-talents is found in a single place.
2010
- January 18, 2010: Public release of ChamiloChamiloChamilo is an open-source e-learning and content management system, aimed at improving access to education and knowledge globally...
open-source VLE, which is a fork of DokeosDokeosDokeos is a company dedicated to open source Learning Management Systems. Its main product is a SCORM-compliant open source learning suite used by multinational companies, federal administrations and universities....
. - September 28, 2010: Public major release of OLATOLATOLAT is an acronym for Online Learning And Training. It is a web application – a so called Learning Management System that supports any kind of online learning, teaching, and tutoring with few educational restrictions. OLAT is free software and is open source. Its development started in 1999 at the...
7. New features are the implementation of important standards like RESTRestRest may refer to:* Leisure* Human relaxation* SleepRest may also refer to:* Rest , a pause in a piece of music* Rest , the relation between two observers* Rest , a 2008 album by Gregor Samsa...
API, IMS GlobalIMS GlobalIMS Global Learning Consortium is a global, nonprofit, member organization that strives to enable the growth and impact of learning technology in the education and corporate learning sectors worldwide...
Basic LTI, IMS QTIQTIThe IMS Question and Test Interoperability specification defines a standard format for the representation of assessment content and results, supporting the exchange of this material between authoring and delivery systems, repositories and other learning management systems. It allows assessment...
2.1 - Large LMS providers start to dive into the talent management systems market, possibly starting a global tendency to do more with the informatio about LMS users
- September 2010: SumTotal acquires Softscape
- September 2010: Taleo acquires Learn.com
Terminology
The terminology for systems which integrate and manage computer-based learning has changed over the years. Terms which are useful in searching for earlier materials include:- "Computer Assisted Instruction" (CAI)
- "Computer Based Training" (CBT)
- "Computer Managed Instruction" (CMI)
- "Course Management System" (CMS)
- "Integrated Learning Systems" (ILS)
- "Interactive Multimedia Instruction" (IMI)
- "Learning Management System" (LMS)
- "Technology Based Learning" (TBL)
- "Technology Enhanced Learning" (TEL)
- "Web Based Training" (WBT)
- " On Demand Training" (ODT)
See also
- E-LearningE-learningE-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked learning or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process...
- History of automated adaptive instruction in computer applicationsHistory of automated adaptive instruction in computer applicationsWithin the field of human-computer interaction there has long been interest in developing adaptive automated instruction software to facilitate learning of application programs. This software would monitor a computer user's behavior while he or she uses the application program, and then provide...
- History of personal learning environmentsHistory of personal learning environmentsPersonal Learning Environments are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to* set their own learning goals* manage their learning; managing both content and process...
Further reading
- Online Learning History from moodle.org
- Course Management System comparison from EduTools.info
- Visual history of company consolidation in the LMS space
- Jensen, Bob, History and Future of Course Authoring Technologies, Trinity University
- trinity.edu U.S. and International training and education alternatives
- trinity.edu Bob Jensen's Other History and Learning Technology Documents and Links
- A Personal History of CMC (Computer Conferencing) from 1972 to 1998 by Jacob Palme
