Claroline is a collaborative eLearning and eWorking platform (

learning management system A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...

) released under the

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

open-source license An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compa ...

. It allows organizations to create and administer courses and collaboration spaces over the web. The platform is used for educational purposes by schools and universities as well as for data sharing by enterprises. It is available in around 100 countries and 35 different languages.

Tools

The Claroline platform is organized around the concept of spaces associated with courses or

pedagogical Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and Developmental psychology, psychological development of le ...

activities. Each course space provides a list of tools enabling the

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

to: * Write a course description * Publish documents in any format (text,

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

, video, etc...) * Administer public or private forums * Create learning paths (compatible with

SCORM Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a collection of standards and specifications for web-based electronic educational technology (also called e-learning). It defines communications between client side content and a host system (cal ...

) * Create groups of users * Compose exercises (compatible with IMS /

QTI The IMS Question and Test Interoperability specification (QTI) 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 o ...

standard 2) * Structure an agenda with tasks and deadlines * Post notifications (also by email) * Propose

home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

work to make online * View

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

of attendance and completion exercises * Use the wiki to write collaborative documents

Development

The Claroline programme was initiated by the

University of Louvain A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

Louvain-la-Neuve Louvain-la-Neuve (, French for ''New Leuven''; wa, Li Noû Lovén) is a planned town in the municipality of Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Wallonia, Belgium, situated 30 km southeast of Brussels, in the province of Walloon Brabant. The town was ...

, Belgium, at the end of the 1990s. Since 2000, Claroline development teams have been focusing on code stability and the development of features in line with users' needs. The main concern of the developers is not to build up a large number of new features, but to concentrate upon a few elaborated tools concerning the pedagogical approach and the interface offered to the users. A large worldwide community of users and developers also extensively contributes to Claroline's development and diffusion.

Annual Conference of Claroline Users (ACCU)

To promote the use of Claroline and encourage the relationship between contributors, each year, the Claroline community meets at the Annual Conference of Claroline Users (ACCU). The ACCU is a unique opportunity to meet users and developers of many countries to share experiences and accomplishment. The first ACCU was organized the May 22 and 23, 2006 in

(

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

), and was also held in other cities such as Vigo (Spain), Lyon (France) and Saidia (Morocco).

Unesco honours Claroline

The Claroline project is the winner of the 2007

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

– King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of

ICT ICT may refer to: Sciences and technology * Information and communications technology * Image Constraint Token, in video processing * Immunochromatographic test, a rapid immunoassay used to detect diseases such as anthrax * In-circuit test, in ...

in Education. The project was chosen from among 68 projects from 51 countries.

Claroline Connect

In addition to the developments related to the maintenance and evolution of the current version of the platform, development teams are working on a new version of Claroline. Remaining true to the principles of simplicity, flexibility and stability that characterize Claroline, this version, known as code name Claroline Connect, will offer many new features while maintaining some general guidelines: * User orientation * Custom profiles * Independent learning * Resources modularity and openness to the environment and to changes in the web * Genericity and variety of learning tools and collaborative work * Freedom of configuration

Partners

Developed since 2000 by UCLouvain (University of Louvain, Belgium), Claroline has been developed following teacher's pedagogical experience and needs. Claroline is now financially supported by the Walloon Region for its development through the WIST programme. Within this programme, Claroline associates three Belgian partners : * IPM, a pedagogy and multimedia research institute at UCLouvain,

*CERDECAM, the Research and Development Centre of the ECAM engineering school, based at UCLouvain Woluwe campus, Brussels * LENTIC, research centre on new technologies, innovation and change of the

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

, in

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

Consortium Claroline

The Claroline Consortium was born on May 23, 2007, during the second annual conference of Claroline users that was held at the Vigo University, Spain. This international non-profit association mainly aims at federating the Claroline community, coordinating the platform developments and promoting its use. The 5 founding members of the Consortium are: * UCLouvain, Belgium, presiding *

Haute École Léonard de Vinci ''Haute École Léonard de Vinci'' is a Catholic institution of higher education of the French Community of Belgium, based on 3 campus (two in Brussels and one in Louvain-la-Neuve). It offers short-type courses (bachelor), long type (master) and ...

, Belgium * Universidade de Vigo, Spain * Université du Québec à Rimouski, Canada *

Universidad Católica del Norte Catholic University of the North (Spanish: ''Universidad Católica del Norte'' (UCN)) is a university in Chile. It is part of the Chilean Traditional Universities. It is located in Antofagasta, Chile. The Catholic University of the North was fou ...

, Chile

References

External links

* {{Universities of Louvain Free educational software Free learning management systems Free software programmed in PHP Virtual learning environments