LMS Evaluation Report

can set the interface language for a course. This will be applied to all students in the course (i.e. students cannot change it). 30

is easy to use, with a clean and simple interface. There are some usability problems however, because the back button cannot be used reliably. Also, many elements of a course cannot be bookmarked (a cookie is used to store the current course).
There is also an important issue with course content : there is no access control for documents. Thus, anybody can access a document in a course using its url (some workarounds to this problem are documented

button cannot be used reliably, as it often produces unpredictable

is easy to navigate, with a simple interface. Breadcrumbs show the location in the course. Some negatives : no customization of the

(with links) show the current position in the course hierarchy. Course

range of tools : course description, agenda, announcements, documents/links, exercises, learning path, assignments, forums, chat,

tools include discussion forums (unthreaded) and chat (web-based). Groups of students can have a private forum, chat and document

can create new accounts for students that are not yet registered in the platform, either one by one or by uploading a list of students. They can also create groups of students and fill them manually or automatically.
Students can self-enroll in courses and groups (if this has been allowed by the teacher).
When a teacher enrolls a student already registered in the platform, a password must still be entered, and no confirmation is

statistics are available for most course elements, either individually or globally for an entire class. Statistics (e.g. test results) cannot

of a course is fairly easy and can be done without training, with some of the already mentioned limitations : no internal links to other tools

can organize their course via a web interface. Content structure is a hierarchy of folders, which is managed online. There are no navigation

documents can be uploaded via a web form (no support for ftp or webdav, or other API). Zip archives of documents can also be uploaded and decompressed by Claroline, with the folder structure re-created. There

links between documents work. Links to course tools are not recommended, as they only work within a session (Claroline relies on

doesn't offer any possibilities to go beyond its standard features (php is not allowed in course documents, no documented API for communication

side scripting is not possible with course document ('.php' are renamed

offers a 'Documentation' web site, with various manuals (teacher, student) in different languages. It is organized as a wiki, so anyone can contribute (once registered). There are also active discussion

it offers the standard features, assessment is not a strong feature of Claroline : there are only a limited number of question types (extension by a developper would be possible, since Claroline is open-source, but there is no documentation on how to do this). Also,

can import SCORM 1.2 conformant packages. They are displayed as 'learning paths', a tool used to create and display structured learning sequences (these can include conditional access based on the scores in previous units of the learning path).

style allows for some customization of the look and feel of the platform (banners, headers , footers). But not all course elements use

Claroline is based on a php/mySQL architecture, which can be tuned for improved performance.

One negative point : as of Claroline 1.5, backup/restoring of courses is no longer possible.

online manual has one chapter for administrators, but it doesn't cover all aspects of platform administration (some settings are not