In a recent post, Tony Karrer, says:
“I’ve been having fabulous conversations about using SharePoint. SharePoint is so flexible and the documentation for it is so big and diverse, that a big part of my goals have been to understand the different ways that training organizations are using SharePoint.”
My former employer, Operitel Corporation, has been integrating SharePoint with its LearnFlex LMS for about 5 years, now, with several major installations under its belt. The advantage of doing this was to add the many Web 2.0 features of Share Point to the LMS immediately, without the long development cycle of building their own feature set.
In 2006 I wrote a paper with Carlos Oliveira called Mashups, SOAP, and Services: welcome to web hybrid e-learning applications in which we outlined how an LMS could be upgraded quickly with SharePoint, and we listed the many features of SharePoint that could support online learning. (The article is available to members of the eLearning Guild, or from the Operitel website here.)
For the benefit of the current discussion, here is the table of educational features of SharePoint 2.0 from our 2006 article:
Learning Supports” from SharePoint 2.0
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Learning
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SharePoint 2.0 |
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Connected
Workspaces
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Four levels of connected workspaces – individual, team, division, and enterprise – hub and aggregator for all four levels.
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Collaboration
Applications
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Facilities for meeting workspaces; blogs, with comments; wikis; calendars; surveys; discussions; email integration; and offline collaboration using Outlook and Groove.
|
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Content
Management
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Integrated facilities for documents, records, and content management; support for spell check, tables, and style sheets; recycle bin for deleted items; library/list content types will control metadata, views, workflows, and events; information rights management; version control for major and minor revisions with enforced checkout; extensible file format support; content templates; content can be associated with workflows and/or events; imaging service to create and maintain a picture library.
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Content
Syndication
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Content can be syndicated via RSS on a per-site or per-list basis.
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File Format
Conversion
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Easy file format conversion; rendering of spreadsheets as HTML; Access will treat SharePoint site data as data sources; easy, no-coding creation of dashboards from Excel spreadsheets; PowerPoint “Slide Library;”
Outlook integration. |
|
Workflow
Development
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FrontPage wizard for workflow development; workflow templates; digital signature Integration.
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Web site
Development
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Facilities to make it easier to build and/or manage sophisticated internet and/or intranet sites.
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Integration
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Much easier to integrate enterprise applications, custom databases, and Web services.
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Forms Creation
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Ability to create forms with ASP.NET controls.
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Lists and Data
Management
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List creation tool; multiple list views; version history for all lists and libraries showing what changes were made; project task list; Gantt chart view of any list; email to a list for posting; cross-list Web views.
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Formatting
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Ability to send SharePoint lists to mobile devices.
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Feature Selection
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Selected deployment of major features
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Search
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Search features include “Best Bets” and alternate suggestions
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Personalization
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Enhanced MySites with aggregation, personalization, and social networking
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Authoring
Tools Used
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Extensive use of Front Page for site design; publish InfoPath forms as SharePoint sites; Front Page-based Template Designer for content management
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User Interface
Management
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Easy global change of UI via master pages
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Languages
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Out-of-the-box support for multi-lingual deployments
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Security
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Item-level permissions in all libraries and list
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Connectivity
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Uses Web services and SOAP protocols; Web parts
|
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Messaging
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Email alerts, with filters; submit postings to WSS discussion boards via email; email archiving
|
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Application
Launching
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Connectable Web parts; Web services; connections to APIs of external applications
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Communications
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Site level: Instant messaging, discussion forums, messaging and alerts. Connects to Live Communications Server for chat
|
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Polls and
surveys
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Surveys built-in
|
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Administrative
Controls
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Tools to create and manage SharePoint lists
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(SharePoint information adapted from Miller, 2006)
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
We have a tool integrated with Outlook that allows document and email management. There is more information on this at http://www.nsynergy.com/Products/myDocs/Pages/About_myDocs.aspx or please email to Mark.Davis@nsynergy.com if you want more information.
I would look at OpenSource. Sharepoint is too expensive and hooks you in too much to Microsoft. If you offer WSS outside of your organization you have to pay for additional fees for connections. And of course the SQL server license fees too.
In our organisation we have SharePoint 2007 + full blown SharePoint Learning Management system, the features of this LMS can be found at SharePoint LMS features list
Hope this helps and will give a try to new organisations looking at using SP for learning.
My name is Mikael, I’m with a company called Saltmine based in Bellevue, Washington. We are the one’s who’ve been supplying Microsoft, Intel, and BP with professional services.
We offer a wide range of professional service such as, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, ESRI… and that’s one of this items our CEO will cover for you.
During our web conference we can demo and/or cover any of the following topics:
• A general session covering the Six Pillars of SharePoint (Collaboration, Portal, Search, Content Management, Business Processes, Business Intelligence)
• A focused session covering one or two of the pillars in dept
• A functional session using SharePoint for: (contract management, vendor management, project management, etc.)
• An Advanced session covering such topics as (Auto Provisioning, Business Data Catalog, Performance Point, Web based/Server Excel Spreadsheets)
• A future session (SharePoint 2010/Office 14)
We are very cost effective without compromising quality, and our web conferences are free!
I recommend you attend a webinar, then decide if we are too expensive.
High regards,
There are several free seminers about provide insight into the value of SharePoint 2010 through live demonstrations. It is very useful for application.
Location: Microsoft, Walter Turnbull Building, Level 2, 44 Sydney Avenue, Barton
Date: Thursday, 24th of June
Time: 09:00am – 12:30pm (15 min break and morning tea)
More seminers plans you can visit http://www.nsynergy.com