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Sponsorship Information
The LearningOnline Network with
Computer Assisted Personalized Approach
(LON-CAPA)
Michigan State University College of Natural Science
Background
The roots of LON-CAPA go back more than ten years, when a team of faculty members and professionals at Michigan State University developed a sophisticated online homework and assessment system, with a strong focus on the sciences and mathematics.
Today, LON-CAPA is a distributed open-source Learning Content Management and Assessment System, which provides instructors with a common, scalable platform to assist in all aspects of teaching a course, from lecture preparation to administration of individualized homework assignments and exams. It also enables instructors to create educational materials and to share such learning resources with colleagues across institutions in an elegant and efficient manner.
Audience
LON-CAPA is serving over 13,000 students per semester at MSU alone, and well over 23,000 students per semester system-wide, ranging from middle school to graduate level courses. Disciplines include astronomy, biology, business, chemistry, civil engineering, computer science, family and child ecology, geology, human food and nutrition, human medicine, mathematics, medical technology, physics, and psychology.
LON-CAPA is usually adopted by faculty members at other institutions because of its superior capabilities in assessment for mathematics and the natural sciences. Growth is usually from the faculty level up. LON-CAPA is holding annual conferences with a growing faculty audience: at the 2002 LON-CAPA user conference, hosted by Florida State University, 56 faculty members - mostly science researchers – from 22 institutions attended. The 2003 conference at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno had 72 participants from 27 institution, the 2004 conference at George Washington University 70 participants from 29 institutions.
Success
The ultimate measure of success for our system is whether it indeed proves to be an effective tool in increasing educational outcomes for students. A number of systematic studies, conducted primarily within undergraduate physics courses, suggest that LON- CAPA can have a pronounced impact on student learning. The research questions surrounding the use of LON-CAPA have been awarded grants by the National Science Foundation.
LON-CAPA was reviewed by XPLANA, and compared with other open-source and free course management systems:
"LON-CAPA is long on functionality and support for extended character sets and computation, but it's a bit short on user friendliness. It is a robust system built for enterprise scalability and handles clustering well. This system is highly recommended as one of the most promising candidates for providing traditional course management functionality for large institutions. LON-CAPA is an active participant in the standards movement and provides strong documentation and development support."
LON-CAPA was rated No. 2 of 19 comparable systems in both “Scalabilty and Development Flexibility” and “Pedagogical Flexibility,” and achieved the highest overall score.
LON-CAPA has also been reviewed by edutools.info, and in a number of other studies.
The project was recognized by IEEE and ASEE with three best papers awards at the annual Frontiers in Education Conference (1997, 1998, 2000), the Ben Dasher Award (1998), the Wickenden Award (1999).
LON-CAPA was named Winner in the Education and Academia category of the ComputerWorld 21st Century Achievement Awards.
Sponsorship Opportunities
The LON-CAPA group is seeking continuing sponsorship for its operations, in particular programming/coding, support and training. In addition, sponsorship of the annual conferences and workshops is invited.
Recognition
Sponsorship of programming/coding and support will be recognized through a small “Sponsored by” logo on the system frontpage, which can link to the company homepage, as well as on http://www.lon-capa.org/.
Sponsorship of the annual conference will be recognized on all conference materials and handouts, as well as on http://www.lon-capa.org/.
Contact
Sponsorships are coordinated by the MSU College of Natural Science Research Services Office
Teresa Thomas
Director
College of Natural Science
Research Services Office
102 North Kedzie
East Lansing, MI 48824
517/432-7165
517/432-5653 FAX
thomaste@msu.edu
Contact Us: lon-capa@lon-capa.org
