While LON-CAPA-NG’s approach to providing an educational object economy is unique, we are operating in a competitive landscape of existing components. Each of these components, operating within their respective silos, has characteristics that our system components have to measure up against.
We have a sustainable advantage by providing an end-to-end solution for an educational object economy, which is based on 20 years of experience and research in assessment and learning content management, as well as patent pending innovations. The time and cost to replicate our work are exceptional. The competition is entrenched in providing solutions that are located in specific silos of the industry, while we are providing an integrated approach that crosses the content and platform industry – the best of both worlds, by educators for educators.
Learning Content | LON-CAPA | Course Management Systems | |||||||
Textbook | eText | iTunesU® | Online Homework Systems | Digital Libraries | BlackBoard XpLor® | Corporate | Open Source | ||
WebAssign®, OWL®, Mastering®, … | NSDL, Merlot, … | BlackBoard®, Desire2Learn®, … | Moodle, Sakai, … | ||||||
Cost to Learner | high | high, no resale | variable or free | variable or bundled | free | free | low or free | free | free |
Cost to Institution | free | free | free | free | free | yet unclear | low or free | high | free, but possibly high Total Cost of Ownership |
Enterprise Level Support | n/a | no | limited | limited | no | yet unclear | yes | yes | no, but service companies exist |
Immediate Cross-Institutional Sharing of Faculty-Authored Content | no | no | yes | limited | yes | yet unclear | yes | no | no |
Content Quality | high | high | variable | high | variable | variable | data-driven quality control | n/a | n/a |
Platform Capability | n/a | variable | limited | variable | weak | yet unclear | high | high | variable |
Content Granularity | course | course | variable | course | variable | learning object | learning object | course, limited modularity with add-ons | none |
Licensing | sold | restrictive, time and location limited | variable | restrictive, time limited | open | open | platform open, content variable incl. open | proprietary | open |
Platform Technology | n/a | proprietary | proprietary | proprietary | open | proprietary | open | proprietary | open |
Homework Functionality | n/a | limited | limited | advanced | no | yes | advanced | yes | yes |
Homework CMS Integration | no | no | no | no | no | plugs into BlackBoard® controlled CMSs | yes | yes | yes |
Provides CMS Functionality | no | no | no | limited | no | plugs into BlackBoard® controlled CMSs | yes | yes | yes |
Campus Infrastructure Integration | no | no | no | no | no | plugs into BlackBoard® controlled CMSs | optional | optional, for service fee | optional |
Data-Driven Content Recommender | no | no | no | no | no | no | yes | no | no |