Joining Etudes is more than adopting a course management solution; it's about joining a rich community. Adopters gain access to teaching communities of practice, user support forums and training in the tools, instructional design, and pedagogy.

Etudes is a services provider, so that you don't have to worry about 99.999% uptime or upgrading, supporting, and maintaining hardware and software. Adopters gain access to a stellar platform that is developed by educators and is enhanced with faculty input, for the direct benefit of our community and to create opportunities for deeper and better teaching and learning experiences!

Etudes is an easy to use, feature-rich platform for supporting teaching, learning and collaboration and for delivering distance learning around the clock.

The current version of Etudes is based on Sakai 2.3.x, Melete 2.4.5, Jforum 2.4.1, Mneme 1.1.0, and Sferyx Editor 6.5, MathML add-on.

To review the system's tools, functionality, and capabilities, see the following:

• Communication Tools
• Content Authoring
• Classroom Assessment
• Classroom / User Management
• Administrative Tools
• Hardware / Software
• About the Project

JForum comes with built-in private messaging functionality that allows site members to communicate privately while discussing issues or collaborating on projects and in groups.

JForum has a familiar (popular phpBB) graphical user interface.

The following functionality is supported in the discussion tool:

• Instructors can set up unlimited forums and categories.
• Forums can become visible on a certain date.
• Forums can become locked on a certain date (can read but not post).
• Forums and categories can be sorted.
• Supports sticky and announcement topics.
• Supports reply with quote (original text), reply, or quick reply (no editor)
• Supports embedding images and attaching files (default is 3 per post)
• Bookmark functionality for favorite topics.
• Search functionality across a site's forums.
• "Watch" functionality for hot topics.
• Mark discussion as read functionality (mark all, by topic, or selectively).
• Ability to move, delete, lock, and unlock topics.
• Ability to deny access to a forum (hide it from students).
• Ability to lock a topic, giving users 'read-only' rights, but not 'reply'.
• Ability to restrict a forum to a specific group or course section.
• Support for private groups (forums visible only to certain groups)
• Ability to grant fine grained permissions on a role or group basis.
  • Forum and category access
  • Ability to post Sticky, Announcements, or Task topics
  • Read only or reply-only Forums
  • Enable Bookmarks
  • Enable Attachments
  • Allow Download of existing attachments
  • Ability to set number of allowed attachments, file upload size, and types of allowable attachment extensions.
  • Set users as facilitators, teaching assistants, or guests.
  • Ability for roles to edit, delete, move, lock and unlock topics
• Ability to export topics, forums, and categories of discussions to another site.
• Ability to import topics, forums, and categories of discussions to another site.
• Grading of discussions - by topic and by forum (coming in June 2008 release).
  • Ability to view all the posts of a student for a forum (for evaluation).
  • Ability to view all contributions of a student to a topic (for evaluation).
  • Ability to send scores to the gradebook (optionally).
  • Ability to give comments, scores, and rate topics and forums.
• Standard WISIWYG editor support for both students and faculty.
• Ability to attach files and share work (both students and faculty)
• Allows users to set up Profile with global preferences
  • Users control email notification for new topics
  • Users control email notification for private messages
  • Users can choose to show or hide email address
  • Users can upload avatar
  • Users can share personal website, IM, AOL, etc.
  • Users can set up a signature
  • Users can choose a default language

Note: A user's profile can be accessed from any post by other members of the course site; they can communicate through Private Messaging on the spot.

• Supports 12 foreign languages.
• Support for debates (agree or disagree) (June 2008 release).

• Users can send a private message to anyone in the class
• Users can send a PM to a group of students (up to 10 at a time)
• Users can include attachments in Private Messages (default limit is 3)
• Users have a WYSIWYG editor when composing messages.
• Users have the ability to quote original text in reply.
• Users have the ability to delete messages or leave them stored.

Announcements

• Announcements and can be broadcasted to students' external email, if high priority.
• Instructors can post announcements for the whole class, sections, or groups.
• Recent announcements are posted at the course home page. Instructors can choose how many announcements to show and how much (entire announcement or 1 to two lines).
• Posting of Announcements includes a WYSIWYG editor, which supports embedding images, flash, and other media.
• When posting announcements, instructors can add unlimited attachments.
• Announcements can be merged across sites.
• Announcements can be imported into future sites for reuse.
• Note: Students can specify (user preference) whether or not they want to be notified via email. They can also choose to receive a daily digest of class announcements. These settings can be overwritten by instructors for high-priority, critical announcements, as mentioned above.

Real-time Chat

• The chat tool supports a number of rooms.
• The system creates archive logs for all chat rooms.
• Instructors can create new chat rooms.
• Only one chat room may be set as the default at any given time.
• The system indicates who is in the chat (a dot by the user's name under Users Present)
• Users can also see who's in the Chat once inside (right column listing)

Users Present Feature

• Users Present is a feature, that, if enabled, displays who is logged on into a project or course site.

• This is a great way for the course site to feel like a live classroom, as users and the instructor 'see' who is there. They are not alone in a website. 
• If logged on users are in the Chat, it is distinguished by the blue dot to the left of the members' names.

Collaboration &
File Exchange

Wiki Tool:

• Enables all site participants to create, share, and manage content together in a Wiki. It uses similar markup and shared concepts with other open source Wikis (e.g. Wikipedia).

News/RSS:

• For viewing content from online sources (RSS feeds)  

Discussions:

• Private groups and forums can be established for discussion and collaboration. Instructors can assign students to groups. Each group can be given group-specific assignments or activities. Groups may be private or instructors can monitor groups.
   
• Students can submit and share work in the Discussion, including attachments and media. This allows for peer reviews of the submitted work in private groups or openly with the whole class.

Resources:

• Documents and handouts can be posted in Resources for specific groups.
   
• Students can upload and share materials in the Resources tool, if permissions for adding new resources is enabled by the instructor, allowing students to gather and share resources on a topic in a common location of the course site.

Group Awareness:

• A number of tools are group (and section) aware: Schedule, Announcements, and Resources. If a site includes rosters from multiple sections, instructors can address students from each section specifically with this functionality. Further, they can create more groups within the sections.
   

Melete Lesson Builder
(Modules) 

Summary:

Melete allows instructors to publish learning sequences that can be created by using a rich text editor, uploading learning objects, or pointing to existing URL resources.

Instructors can design content that supports instructor facilitated learning or system managed self-study. Lessons can be released automatically based on start and stop dates. Melete supports IMS Content Packaging and SCORM 2004 export. Melete stores its content in a secure, private area.

• Instructors can organize learning objects and content into sequences.
• Instructors can create linear learning sequences organized hierarchically.
• Instructors can reuse courses as templates for future lessons.
• Instructors can publish lessons in various ways:
• author in the lesson builder using one of the built-in editors or pasted
• upload documents, web pages, presentations, pdf, and other files.
• link to existing web pages and resources somewhere on the web.
• A 'lesson' or 'module' can consist of many content sections, and each can be created in different ways. Content can be a mixture of media uploads, text, documents, links, etc.
• Capacity to add significant graphics, artwork, PowerPoint, and other media files.
• Instructors control the sequencing of the sections and modules.
• Instructors can add, edit, or delete content sections, indent sections, store modules to use another term.
• Instructors can set start and stop dates for all their modules and add 'next steps' (instructions to guide learning on content progression).
• When authoring content or uploading or linking to existing content, instructors have the option to set a license for the materials (resources per section) that they publish.
• Instructors can sort modules and sections, restore inactivated modules, and import or export IMS Content Packaging files.
• Instructor can select to author with one of two WYSIWYG editors, FCK Editor or Sferyx Editor which is a commercial robust editor that supports MathML, paste from Word with embedded images, and much more (see features).
• Users can select the default view for the Table of Contents (expanded or collapsed).
• Instructors can use Import from site (under Site Info) to port content from site to site.
• Instructors can export all their lessons into one zip file (IMS CP standard format).
• Users can set 'bookmarks' to flag certain 'pages' to return and review further. (June, 2008)
• Students can print a module and all its sections in a printer-friendly html web page format (if printing option is enabled by the instructor). (June, 2008).
• Ability to move one section from one module to another (June, 2008).

Future features include release of learning sequences based on completion of prerequisites and assessment scores, linking to tasks and activities, and special access.

Syllabus

The syllabus tool allows instructors to post the course syllabus and make it conveniently available on the left menu of the course site for easy access for students to review important information (i.e. course requirements, grading policy, expectations and more).

• Instructors can author sections (i.e. grading policy, extra credit, textbooks, etc.) in the syllabus within the course using the built-in editor. They can embed images, tables, etc.
• Instructors can attach documents to any of the sections of the syllabus.
• If instructors have a syllabus in another format, such as Word or pdf, they can upload it.
• If instructors have posted their syllabus on their institution's web site, they can link to it.
• The Syllabus Tool can be imported from an old site into your new term's site.

Resources

Resources is a place to store documents, files, web links and other learning objects. Each site has its own resources area and each user has his or her own resources in MyWorkspace.

Instructors can use a site's Resources to make various types of materials available to students. Examples of the types of content instructors can include in Resources include :

• upload documents (e.g., text documents, spreadsheets, slide presentations, etc.);
• add links to other websites;
• author simple text documents that display right on the page.
• author HTML pages.

Instructors can link to these materials from anywhere in their site. They can make folders publicly-viewable to share links to materials with non-members.

Instructors can upload up to 10 files at a time. They can create folders to organize their resources.

Accessibility

• The software complies with Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act.
• The software complies with the WAI WCAG 1.0 Level A guidelines.

Question Pools 

Instructors can accomplish the following tasks:

Manage Pools

• Instructors can add/edit pool properties
• Instructors can add/edit question to pool
• Instructors can specify point value for questions in a pool
• Instructors can combine pools
• Instructors can duplicate pool
• Instructors can delete pool (s)
• Instructors can sort by pool
• Instructors can import/export pools in standard QTI formats (June, 2008)

Manage Questions

• Instructors can add/edit question, including any attachments.
  • Pool name
  • Question text
  • Difficulty level
  • Type of question (m/c, t/f, etc.)
  • Include reason for answer
  • Shuffle answers
  • Hint for learner
  • Feedback
• Instructors can duplicate questions (unique id's)
• Instructors can move questions from one pool to another
• Instructors can copy question(s) to another pool
• Instructors can delete questions

Question Types

• Multiple-choice (single or multiple)
• True-false
• Essay (inline, attachment, or both)
• Fill-in-the-blank (text or numeric)
• Matching
• Likert-scale
• Tasks

Publishing Assessments

Managing Assessments

The following assessment types are supported:

• Tests (i.e. quizzes, exams, etc.)
• Assignments
• Surveys
• Skill Checks (0 point assessments)

Questions can be random or in a specific order. Choices can be shuffled. Assessments can have multiple parts and can be a mixture of essay questions, objective questions, and surveys.

Instructors can do the following functions:

• Ability to add/edit an assessment
• Ability to preview an assessment in one page (printable).
• Ability to set open and due dates (editable from list page)
• Ability to publish or un-publish assessments (make visible / invisible to students)
• Ability to set a range of delivery options for an assessment (see next section)
• Ability to duplicate an assessment and retain its settings and composition.
• Ability to archive / restore assessments
• Ability to delete assessments that have not been published or taken.
• Ability to grant special access privileges (i.e. extend dates, set different time limit, allow more or fewer tries for one or more students for special accommodations).

Settings

Instructors may set and change any of the following, even if an assessment is open.

• Instructors can set open, due, and accept until dates.
• Instructors may require students to accept an honor pledge prior to accessing test.
• Three navigation options are supported:

• all questions in one page
• one part per page
• one question per page

• Instructors can set a time limit or publish un-timed assessments
• Instructors can allow one, multiple or unlimited tries
• Instructors may choose a strict or flexible order layout for answering test questions
• Instructors may choose continuous or restart for part numbering.
• Instructors may choose to show hints to students (optionally) if authored.
• Instructors can set review options (when and if to show feedback and what to show)
• Instructors can set grading options (i.e. send to gradebook, anonymous grading, etc.)
• Instructors can compose a final message to show to students upon submitting.

Test-Drive

Instructors can Test-Drive any assessment, even if it is not yet open or published. The Test-Drive module is identical to the student view, allowing instructors to see the student side of their assessments without having to log out and log in as a student.

Further, the Test-Drive functionality allows instructors to test drive assessments and catch errors in questions, settings, or points before their assessments are open to students.

Publishing Assessments

• Add/Edit an assessment
• Add properties
  • Title
  • History (author/date)
  • Type (test, survey, assignment)
  • Open/Due/Accept Until Dates
  • Instructions (w/attachment option)
  • Add attachments
  • Add honor pledge
• Add/Edit parts
  • Add random questions from pools
  • Part title
  • Instructions
  • Select pool(s)
  • Number of questions per pool
  • Select and add questions manually
  • Search entire question bank (across pools!)
  • Select and add questions to assessment
  • Remove questions from assessment
• Delete parts

Grading Assessments 

The grading module lists all published assessments (open or closed), and allows instructors to see at a glance if there are any submissions to be evaluated.

Instructors can grade individual student submissions OR by question (all student responses to a question).

• Instructors can choose to evaluate student responses anonymously.
• Instructors can grade test submissions by student.  
• Instructors can view assessment activity by student
  • View date of submissions
  • View status of assessment (in progress, not started)
  • View number of tries completed and see how the student did in each
• Instructors can adjust one or more grade submissions (or for the whole class).
• Instructors can see grading status (submitted, evaluated, released)
• Instructors can mark all as released to make grades and comments visible to students.
• Instructors can download / upload all to grade off-line (Coming in June, 2008)
• Instructors can append final comments to the entire class at once
• Instructors can adjust grades for an assessment for the whole class at once
• Instructors can view all submissions
• Instructors can view summary of data (statistics)
• Instructors can download summary of data (Coming in June, 2008)
• Instructors can adjust the scores of a question, even if auto-scored
• instructors can view correct/incorrect answers in submissions easily
• Instructors can add overall comments for a student's submission.
• Instructors can add comments for each question, essay or objective.
• Instructors can review reason for answer, if included.
• Instructors can review a model answer, if they had provided it.
• Instructors can open essays in full editor window for easier reading / commenting.
• Instructors can mark-up a student's submission, insert comments inline, etc.
• Instructors have a rich WYSIWYG editor in all input boxes.
  • Instructors can upload documents through the editor
  • Instructors can upload images and other media.
  • Instructors can embed hyperlinks to websites or resources.
• Instructors can return attachments to students in every question.
• Mark submissions as released (and un-release them!)
• Instructors can grade assessments by question

Assessment Delivery
(Student Side)

The list of Assessments allows users to see all published items at a glance. Further, a great deal of information is available to learners to keep them informed on how they did (if review is enabled), what's coming up, what's urgent, etc.

Description of the columns / data available to learners:

• Assessment title
  • Status
  • Ready to Take
  • In Progress
  • In Progress / Attention Required
  • Attention Required / Now Overdue!
  • Complete
  • Complete / May Try Again
  • Closed: Past Due
• Open/due date
• Time limit
  • Column shows time, if timed
  • Column shows a bar with remaining time if assessment has been started
• Tries
(attempts allowed / completed)
• Finished column (completion date and time)
• Grade (total points earned and link to review results, optionally)
  • If Review is set to 'immediate,' a link to Review is available upon completion.
  • If Review is not available until a specific time, the date of Review is listed.
  • If no Review is available, no Review link will be shown for learners.

Notes:
 

• If the assessment has been graded / released, the highest score/review is shown in the Grade column. If the test is ungraded, the Review page, if allowed, shows the latest try.
• If the test allows multiple tries, the highest score is always used for grading.

Summary of Behavior

• Upon clicking on an assessment's title, learners are taken to a "Ready to Begin?" page that includes assessment instructions (if provided by the instructor) and system notices. Learners can begin or cancel. System notices are included for flexible order, strict order, and timed assessments, providing learners with clear information about the setup of the assessment and the behavior that they should expect. 
• Learners have access to all instructions (instructor instructions, timed, flexible order, strict order, or part instructions) from every page or question.
• Learners can finish an assessment from anywhere, if they are done or partially done.
• If learners leave a question and don't answer it, the system alerts them to answer it. But, the software doesn't keep them stuck. Learners can proceed to Next, after the alert, leaving a question empty. For flexible assessments, upon clicking on Finish, learners are alerted if they've left questions unanswered.
• If learners take an assessment that has a hard due date, students see a "near due" timer. "Near due" is defined as within 2 hours of the due date, for "no late expected" hard due date assessments. When the hard due date is reached, the assessment will be auto-completed, saving the learner's answers.
• Upon finishing an assessment, the learner is taken directly to Review (if settings are set to immediate) OR to the list of assessments (if set to no review or show review at a specific date), where learners can see a time stamp for their submission, their score (if graded), if they have more tries, status, etc.
• The system supports a secondary password for additional security when giving high-stakes assessments. A secondary password may also be assigned for special access to a test to one or more students.
• The following options (set by the instructor) control what students see in Review and in the Gradebook:
  • If set to "Automatic", students see their score in Review, based on feedback settings.
  • If set to "Manual," instructors evaluate and release grades to students. Students don't see their submission or scores until that's done (and if enabled, as per feedback settings).
  • If "Send to gradebook" is checked, students see their score in the gradebook.
  • Summary of Review options include:
    • Ability to see 'Answer Key' and 'Feedback'.
    • Ability to view grader comments (overall and by question).
    • Model answer is shown, if it was provided by instructors.
    • The total grade and part scores are flagged with a 'grade' icon.

Gradebook

• When an instructor adds an assessment to the course, the software can add it to the gradebook automatically, at the instructor's choice.
• Instructors can add grades for offline assessments.
• Instructors can export the scores in the gradebook to an external spreadsheet.
• Instructors can create a course grading scale that can employ either percents, letter grades, or pass/fail metrics.

Classroom Management 

• Instructors can selectively release assessments based on specific start and stop dates.
• Instructors can control access to specific course materials based on group membership.
• Instructors can release learning sequences or materials based on start dates.
• Instructors can import all their content from one site to another in a couple of clicks. 

Bookmarks

• Bookmark functionality is available in the JForum Discussion & Private Messaging tool.
• The WebContent tool can be used to add bookmarks as tool buttons to any course site.
• The Resource tool allows bookmarks to be placed as resources.
• The Melete Lesson Builder also supports bookmarks as part of any module. (June 2008)

Online Journal / Notes

Users can create a private "Notes" folder (and sub-folders) for their classes in the Resources tool of their MyWorkspace and attach documents or create and publish notes.

My Workspace

• Every user has a Calendar in their personal MyWorkspace which gives them a global view of all events for the day, month, or year, for all of the sites in which they are members.
• Users may add personal events in their MyWorkspace calendar.
• Users have a synoptic view of Announcements in their MyWorkspace that allows them to view all the recent announcements, in chronological order, across their sites.
• Students can view all the courses in which the student is enrolled under worksite setup.
• Students can control a number of preferences
  • Email notifications from the system
  • Ability to order the course sites in their navigation bar
  • Ability to hide sites of courses that are over, yet still available.
  • Ability to set up their default language for labels, buttons, and system messages.
  • Ability to set up their time zone, if taking distance learning classes from another time zone than the location of their institution. Adjusts dues dates, etc.
  • Ability to change password and update email address.
• Ability to upload media, documents, etc. in Resources.
• Students can subscribe to RSS feeds to be notified of changes to materials.

Calendar

• Events can be posted to the calendar automatically from other tools.
• Instructors can post attachments to events added to the calendar.
• Several types of events, with corresponding legend icon, are supported.
• Calendar can be viewed by day, week, month, and year.
• Calendar is printable in any of the available views.
• Calendar data can be imported from other sources, in standard formats.
• Calendar events can be merged across sites.
• Calendar events can be imported from site to site.
• Instructor can post events for a specific group or class section only.

Search

• Discussion and Private Messages includes search capability of topics and messages.

User Backups

Instructors can have their own backups in the following areas:

• Instructors can download the content of lessons as an IMS CP standards-compliant format that can be printed, stored, or edited locally using a web publishing tool.
• Instructors can download their discussion forums and tagged topics.
• Instructors can download tests and pools in QTI format (coming in June 2008).
• Instructors can download assignments (and attachments) for off-line grading (June 2008).

Online Help & Tutorials

• Online tutorials are provided for faculty and students in various formats (IMS CP zip file for importing into the lesson builder or pdf files for easy attaching and downloading).
• Additional tutorials and a student user guide is provided to instructors for their sites.
• Articles for the commonly asked questions are included in everyone's myworkspace home in web page format for easy access and review.
• Reset Password tool available on the Gateway. Response is instant.
• Links to local student help desk support and DL websites of all members from Gateway.
• Tips on browser and system requirements as well as login instructions are provided.
• Faculty and staff have access to online support forums (Users Group) for 24/7 help.
• Teaching and learning communities of practice available to all members.
• Job Board is available to members to post openings or availability for online teaching.
• Access to professional opportunities and events forums.

Authentication & Registration

• Instructors can allow guest access to all courses.
• The system can authenticate against a set of officially enrolled student data.
• The system can activate/deactivate (add / drop) accounts based on registration data.
• The system can merge rosters of multiple classes into one site.
• Administrators can batch add students to the system using a delimited text file.
• The system supports SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption.

Course Authorization 

• The system supports restricting access based on roles
• Roles can also be customized by the service provider.
• Administrators can create custom roles with specific access privileges to sites and tools.
• The default roles supported are: Instructor, Student, Teaching Assistant, and Guest.
• Instructors or students may be assigned different roles in different courses.

Hosted & Related Services 

• Hosting and backup services, account and site management, roster importation assistance, and faculty support are provided by Etudes (part of SOW contacts).

Roster & User Information

• Rosters are batch uploaded automatically via scp onto the servers, and scheduled jobs add, activate or deactivate accounts into course sites, as appropriate. Adds / drops are updated daily, or as frequently as it is deemed necessary.
• Instructors can view their rosters and status of students (enrolled or dropped) under Site Info.
• Students (and instructors) can view a site's active participants and other personal information that they chose to make public under Member Listing in the Discussion and Private Messages tool. Users can communicate with each other there.

Site Look & Feel

• Instructors can enable and disable tools (add /remove to menu), as needed to support different courses and needs.
• Users (instructors and students) can change the order courses are listed, including hiding old term sites from their active list.
• Instructors can add a link to a custom web page, image, or information on the home page of their course sites to grab the learners' attention.
• Instructors can change the skin and color schemes for a course site. Thirty custom skins are available for faculty to choose from, as well as their institutional logo skin.

  See: http://etudes.org/skins.htm

Etudes is an Internet-based application capable of running on a minimal computer setup so long as it is running a recent version of a properly configured browser and a recent computer.

The software supports the following:

• Windows 2000 / XP Users: Internet Explorer 7.0 and Firefox 2.0.x
• Mac OX Users: Firefox 2.0.x on the Apple OS.  

System Requirements

• Screen resolution set to 1024 X 768
• PC's should be running Win 2000 or XP
  We have not yet conducted QA testing on Windows Vista. It may work successfully, but we are not recommending it at this time, as we cannot guarantee optimal performance.
• Macs should have OS X 10.3.X or above
• System should have at least 512 Ram (for faculty/authors, 1G is preferred)
• 56K minimum is required. DSL or Cable strongly advised.

Users must have regular, reliable Internet access (minimum 56K modem) for satisfactory performance, as many courses include interactive multimedia in lessons.
 

Summary of benefits include:

• Hosting and backup services.
• Site and account management.
• SIS integration for roster importation and site creation.
• Course conversion assistance provided.
• Faculty support, 24/7.
• Student help for login issues, 24/7.
• Learning communities of practice.
• Staff development in tools, instructional design, and pedagogy.
• Job Board for Etudes members.

In addition to the above centralized services, Etudes leads open source software development of learning tools that are adopted internationally by higher education.