Assessments
You can create assessments with the help of Microsoft Word or the e-Learning Portal Test Designer and give users assignments to complete for assessments. e-Learning Portal offers an assessment subsystem capable of supporting more than 5,000 users simultaneously. The following question types are supported:

• Multiple-choice questions (choose one answer)
• Multiple-choice questions (choose several answers)
• Put items in order
• An input field
• Several input fields
• Free-form answer

Creation and editing of electronic learning materials
e-Learning Portal supports the widely accepted SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 standards for electronic learning material storage. It also supports all materials created by Microsoft Office and courses designed with standard HTML.

You can create sets of HTML pages, compress them into an ZIP archive and load it into the course catalog on e-Learning Portal. When assignments for such courses are added, the system automatically unpacks them and displays them to users in their web browser. Supported content formats include:

• any kind of document (Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, Adobe PDF, audio, video, etc.)
• template-based courses (an archive with the main course page at the root)
• assessments in IMS QTI format
• SCORM 1.2 and 2004

A framework for learning

You can create assignments for learning materials located in the learning materials catalog on e-Learning Portal.

An assignment is a task to be completed in order to complete a course or assessment, and has a variety of settings attached to it, such as beginning date, end date, passing score, scoring rules, security settings, learners, tutors and others.

Assignments are displayed to all participants of the process when they are created. Using them, learners can take assessments and study electronic learning materials, and tutors can monitor learning progress, as well as manage and control the learning process.

You can appoint either individual users or groups as learners and tutors.
You can attach a pre-existing workspace to each assignment or create a new one from the workspace templates.



Creation of new workspaces for assignments

A learning manager can specify a pre-existing workspace for each assignment or create a new one.

Workspaces are a portal (separate website) in SharePoint, where tutors, learners and learning managers can work together, communicate, and exchange files and learning materials.

Workspaces can be created from any portal template deployed on a SharePoint farm.

Curriculums

A learning manager can combine several learning materials (courses or assessments) into a curriculum, setting the order for completing the electronic content in the curriculum.

Thus, when creating a curriculum and putting together an assignment template for it, a learning manager has flexible management of learner studies in different subject areas, as well as being able to include or delete learning materials from a subject, which truly makes the educational planning process more flexible, scalable and convenient.



Organizational structure management

The system supports forming an organizational structure for your enterprise or institution of higher education.

For example, for your organization you can specify branches, divisions, sections, departments, majors and so forth, and appoint one or more learning managers for them who can manage the learning process only for learners located in their respective organizational unit.

So when there are many learners in a complex organizational structure at your enterprise or institution of higher education, system managers can flexibly grant access to learning processes and make the educational organization process much more quick and convenient.

e-Learning Portal supports the import of organizational structures from such outside sources as Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft SQL Server and others.



Support for virtual learning groups

e-Learning Portal supports combining learners into learning groups.

A learning manager can create assignments for one or more virtual learning groups, and if a new user is added to a learning group, then that user receives all of the existing assignments for that virtual group.

That means that if your company gains a new employee, you can add him or her to the corresponding learning group, and that employee will have the opportunity to study all of the materials necessary for a new employee.

Uses for virtual learning groups:

• an easy and convenient way for managing learning for a large number of learners.
• automatic assignment creation for student learning groups.
• organize learning for new employees at your company.

Integration with Microsoft Unified Communications

Integration with Microsoft Unified Communications allows for chat, audio and video conferences between learning process participants (tutors, learners and learning managers), all using the e-Learning Portal web interface.

A tutor, for example, from his or her own personal page needs only to make a few mouse clicks to get in touch with learners, start a document collaboration session through Microsoft Live Meeting or hold a video lecture.



Convenient catalog for storing courses and assessments

e-Learning Portal uses SharePoint document libraries for storing and managing electronic learning materials.

Document libraries, which can be created and placed on a SharePoint portal, are an effective way for users to work together on documents.

Document libraries allow you to:

• store documents in hierarchical folders and provide access to portal users;
• "take out" documents for editing and "return" them to the library, avoiding the simultaneous editing of a single document by multiple users;
• store documents and information about which user created a version and when, as well as version notes.
• provide for an approval and agreement process for electronic learning materials.

More about document libraries



Reporting

e-Learning Portal supports standard reports for learning results:

• By learner;
• By tutor;
• By virtual learning group;
• By learning manager;
• By organizational unit;
• By curriculum;
• By individual electronic learning material (course or assessment);

Reports can be exported into Microsoft Excel for further analysis. e-Learning Portal also supports the viewing of expanded reports on learner assessment results and assessment attempts.

Additionally, e-Learning Portal comes with a reporting database based on Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 Analysis Services.

The database is OLAP-based and allows viewing learning results for any variable or period, generate visuals, view correlations and more.



Broad integration support

e-Learning Portal offers an open SOAP-based API. In practice, this means the presence of the standard XML Web Services, which are used by other platforms and programs (such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, HRM systems, etc.)

Integration with SharePoint personal sites

Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal 2007 allows the creation of a personal portal for every system user.

A personal portal can include a calendar, document libraries, wiki pages, a blog and any other functionality offered by Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server.
More about personal sites

e-Learning Portal adds the additional tabs "Learner," "Tutor," and "Learning Manager" to the personal portal, displaying all of the necessary information on the learning processes which the user is active in, including:

• My Assignments;
• My Learning Colleagues;
• My Workspaces;

Flexible e-mail alert system for learning process participants

Depending on the user's system role, different types of alerts are possible.
Learners can receive alerts when:

• an assignment is created;
• assignment parameters are changed;
• an assignment is deleted;
• a tutor or learning manager completes an assignment;
• an assignment is returned by a tutor or learning manager;

Tutors can receive alerts when:

• an assignment is created;
• assignment parameters are changed;
• an assignment is deleted;
• a new learner is added to an assignment;
• a learner is removed from an assignment;
• a learner completes an assignment (assessment or electronic course);
• a learner begins an assessment or course;

Learning managers can receive alerts when:

• an assignment is created;
• assignment parameters are changed;
• an assignment is deleted;
• a tutor is added to an assignment;
• a tutor is removed from an assignment;
• a learner is added to an assignment;
• a learner is removed from an assignment;
• a learner completes an assignment;
• a learner begins to complete an assignment;
• a learner submits an assignment

Users can choose to receive alerts for one, several or all of these event types.

The time and regularity with which alerts are sent can be set to periodic (hourly, daily, weekly) or as soon as an event takes place.

Alerts can be set by default for all system users, a learning manager can set alerts for individual users, and users themselves can personalize their alert settings.



Flexible, configurable system interface that can be personalized

The e-Learning Portal interface can be personalized and changed individually for each system user. e-Learning Portal offers SharePoint Web Parts, which display information on assignments, learning results, colleagues and more. These Web Parts can be placed on any SharePoint page, which offers you flexible configuration of page appearance as required by individual users and organizations. The external appearance, colors and logos can also be branded to match the colors of your institution of higher education or company.