metacoon is a Open Source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 platform that can be used for online learning, cooperative work and for the creation of learning material. The system offers the functionality of a Learning Management System

Learning management system

A learning management system is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content...

. The developer team also offers a range of authoring tools for the creation of learning material (e.g. QTI

QTI

The IMS Question and Test Interoperability specification 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 other learning management systems. It allows assessment...

questions and tests or SCORM

SCORM

Sharable Content Object Reference Model is a collection of standards and specifications for web-based e-learning. It defines communications between client side content and a host system called the run-time environment, which is commonly supported by a learning management system...

 ). The software is published under the GNU General Public License. The offline authoring tools are freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

.

History

The project started in 2001 as a project for the development of learning content at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. After being used as the internal platform of the project the system was used for online courses at the university in 2002. Due to the interest of other educational organisations it was published under the GPL in 2004.
The name of the system derives from the Greek word meta and the word Cocoon

Apache Cocoon

Apache Cocoon, usually just called Cocoon, is a web application framework built around the concepts of pipeline, separation of concerns and component-based web development. The framework focuses on XML and XSLT publishing and is built using the Java programming language...

(the Apache framework of the same name used in the project).

Personal Desktop

The platform offers each user a so called "Personal Desktop" offering the following tools:

• list of courses / rooms the user is enrolled in
• list of courses available with sign in functionality
• profile data including password, userdata, address, business card / personal homepage, language, …)
• personal bookmarks, addresses, file manager, notes
• calendar
• messenger-system
• picture gallery

Learning Management

• creation of courses
• management of SCORM-courses
• implementation and management of learning material such as images, PDF, Office documents, videos, audio, HTML courses
• assignments (private, public)

Specifications

The requirements for the current version of metacoon are:

• PHP 4.x
• MySQL 4.x
• Tomcat and Cocoon for the rendering of the cross media publishing framework (optional)

A version supporting PHP and MySQL 5.x will be released in April 2009.