Learning Management System

Functionality
1 - Communication Tools

1.1 Discussion Forum

1.2 Discussion Management

1.3 File Exchange

1.4 Internal Email

1.5 Online Journal/Notes

1.6 Real-Time Chat

1.7 Whiteboard
2 - Productivity Tools

2.1 Bookmarks

2.2 Calendar/Progress Review

2.3 Searching Within a Course

2.4 Work Offline/Synchronize

Course Calendar
2.5 Integration

2.6 Course Tool Integration

2.7 Orientation/Help
3 - Student Involvement Tools

3.1 Group Work

3.2 Community Networking

3.3 Student Portfolios

4 - Administration Tools

4.1 Authentication

4.2 Course Authorization

4.3 Registration Integration

4.4 Hosted Services

5 - Course Delivery Tools
5.1 Test Types
Automated Testing
5.2 Management

5.3 Automated Testing Support

5.4 Online Marking Tools

5.5 Online Gradebook

5.6 Course Management

5.7 Plagiarism Detection

5.8 Student Tracking

6 - Content Development Tools
 6.1 Accessibility Compliance

6.2 Content Sharing/Reuse

6.3 Course Templates

6.4 Customized Look and Feel

6.5 Instructional Design Tools

7 - Other

7.1 SIS Integration

 Required/O
ptional
Capability R/O

Discussion forum is a threaded online text conversation between participants. R

Discussion management includes all of the accessing and scheduling associated with
running a discussion forum. R

File exchange tools allow learners to upload files from their local computers and
share these files with instructors of other students in an online course. Note: file
attachments are part of Internal Email and Discussion Forums. R

Internal Email is electronic mail that can be read or sent from inside an online course. O

Online Journal/Notes enable students to make notes in a personal or private journal.

Students can share personal journal entries with their instructor or other students but
cannot share private journal entries. R
Real-time chat is a conversation between people over the Internet that involves
exchanging messages back and forth at virtually the same time. O

Whiteboard tools include an electronic version of a dry-erase board used by

instructors and learners in a virtual classroom (also called a smartboard or electronic
whiteboard) and other synchronous services such as application sharing and group
browsing. O

Bookmarks allow students to easily return to important pages within their course or
outside their course on the web. In some cases bookmarks are for an individual
student’s private use, and in others can be shared with an instructor or amongst a
group. O
Calendar/Progress Review tools enable students to document their plans for a course
and the associated assignments in a course. R
Searching within a course is a tool that allows users to find course material based on
key words. R

Work offline/synchronize is a set of tools that enable students to work offline in their
online course and for their work to be synchronized into the course next time they
log-in. Sometimes students can download course content to their local computers
and work offline. O

Integrated communication feed and calendar for all courses a student is enrolled in. R

Allow for integration with external applications (Google Docs, Twitter, Blogs, etc.) R

Orientation/Help tools are designed to help students learn how to use the learning
management system. Typically, these tools are self-paced tutorials, user manuals, and
email or telephone helpdesk support. R
Group work is the capacity to organize a class into groups and provide group work
space that enables the instructor to assign specific tasks or projects. R
Community networking tools allow students to create social ties, study groups, clubs,
or collaborative teams without instructor intervention. O

Student portfolios are area where students can showcase their work in a course,
display their personal photo, and list demographic information. Discuss who can
access student portfolios and what security is provided. Access for parents or future
employers? R

Authentication is a procedure that works like a lock and key by providing access to
software by a user who enters the appropriate user name (login) and password.
Authentication also refers to the procedure by which user names and passwords are
created and maintained. R

Course authorization tools are used to assign specific access privileges to course
content and tools based on specific user roles, e.g. students, instructors, teaching
assistants. For example, students can view pages and instructors can author pages. R

Registration tools are used to add students to and drop students from an online
course. Administrators and/or instructors use registration tools but students also use
them when self-registration is available. Students can also be added to or dropped
from the course. R

Hosted services mean that the product provider offers the learning management
system on a server at their location so the institution does not provide any hardware. O

Test types indicate which types of questions the software supports. R

Automated testing management includes the control of when and where tests may
be taken and under what conditions. R
Automated testing support includes system services for importing and exporting tests
and text banks as well as statistical analysis of test results. R
Online marking tools enable instructors and assistants to evaluate and mark student
work while online. R
Online gradebook includes supports for keeping track of student progress and work
online in support of assigning course grades. R
Course management tools allow instructors to control the progression of an online
class through the course material. R

The course management tools allow for integration with plagiarism detection tools. O

Student tracking is the ability to track the usage of course materials by students, and
to perform additional analysis and reporting both of aggregate and individual usage. R
Accessibility compliance means meeting the standards that allow people with
disabilities to access information online. For example, the blind use a device called a
screen reader to read the screen but Web pages need to be designed so that screen
readers can navigate it easily. R
The product provider self-reports that the software complies with the WAI WCAG
1.0AAA guidelines. R
Course templates are tools that help instructors create the initial structure for an
online course. R
Customized look and feel is the ability to change the graphics and how a course looks.
This also includes the ability to institutionally brand courses. O
Instructional design tools help instructors creating learning sequences, for example,
with lesson templates or wizards. O

The learning management system integrates with school student information

systems. R
Yes/No/ With
Configuration
Y/N/WC Comments/Answers
Student Information System
Functionality
1 - Student Data

1.1 Manage Student Data

1.2 Manage Learning Progress

1.3 Track Movement Between Schools

1.4 Monitor Enrollment Trends

1.5 Determine FTE’s

2 - Grade Reporting

2.1 Manage Student Grades

2.2 Consolidate Grades

2.3 Produce Progress Reports

2.4 Produce Report Cards

2.5 Produce Transcripts

2.6 Compute GPA

2.7 Track Earned Credits and Class Rank

 2.8 Provide Grade Book

2.9 Manage Personalized Student Learning Plan

3 - Discipline

3.1 Document Student Behavioral Incidents

3.2 Track Student Behavioral Incidents

3.3 Report on Student Behavioral Incidents

4 - SIS Reporting

4.1 Manage Data

4.2 Report Data

4.3 Analyze Data

5 - Attendance

5.1 Maintain Daily Class Attendance

5.2 Generate On Demand Attendance Reports

6 - Scheduling

6.1 Schedule Teachers

6.2 Schedule Classrooms

 6.3 Schedule Students

6.4 Track Courses by Teacher

6.5 Track Courses by Subject

7 - Testing/Assessment

7.1 Manage Curriculum Goals

7.2 Report Student Goals

7.3 Record Student Performance and Mastery

7.4 Manage Standardized Test Results

8 - School Based Routines

8.1 Manage Resources

8.2 Assign Resources

8.3 Manage Student Fees

9 - Parent-Student Portal

9.1 Account Management

9.2 Custodial Parent Access

9.3 Parent Access

 9.4 Communication

9.5 Electronic Files

9.6 Alerts
10 - Other
School Interoperability Framework (SIF)
10.1 Compliance

10.2 Standards Based Grading

 Required/Optional
Capability R/O

The ability to capture, track and maintain comprehensive student data. R

The ability to capture, track and maintain comprehensive data regarding the
learning progress of each student. R

The ability to document and track the number of times a student moves
between schools and the schools they move to and from. O

The ability to track and monitor any trends in enrollment for a site, district or as
a whole. O
The ability to use student attendance data to recommend staffing numbers for
each site. O

The ability to capture, track, maintain and process student grades. Must be
configurable for a variety of grading scales. R

The ability to take all grades entered for a specific student and consolidates
them into a single record. O

The ability to take consolidated grades, demographic, attendance, and other

data to produce a report of the students’ progress both at a pre-scheduled times
and on demand. R

The ability to us accumulated data to electronically produce report cards. R

The ability to use accumulated data to produce transcripts including classes and
grades taken at a supported site. R

The ability to compute a student’s Grade Point Average using any available data
as determined by the site. R

The ability to track earned credits for a student and use the data to determine
class rank for that student. O
The ability to capture, track and maintain grades by course, teacher and student.
The function should automatically transfer data to the report card. This should
allow for countable grades, non-countable grades, and make up grades. O

The ability to create and track personalized learning plans for specific students.
The plans may be established for certification in a specific area or as guides for
enrollment to meet graduation requirements. O

The ability to capture and maintain records relating to student behavioral

incidents. This information must be confidential O

The ability to track student behavioral incidents by student, site and district. O

The ability to report on student behavioral incidents by student, site and district. O

The ability to capture, track, maintain and archive all data for reporting and
historical purposes. O

The ability to report using canned or ad hoc reporting on all data by student,
teacher, site, district, subject or as a whole. O
The ability to apply analysis to the data using standard analysis tools including
but not limited to: Count, Average, Mean, Mode and Trends. O

The ability to capture, track update and maintain daily class attendance by
student, teacher, class, grade, site, district and as a whole. R

The ability to produce reports on daily attendance records. These reports should
include both point-in-time and average-over-a-period-of-time statistics. O

The ability to create, track, maintain and update schedules for teachers. R

The ability to create, track, maintain and updates schedules for classrooms and
other meeting areas. O
The ability to create, track, maintain and update schedules for students. R

The ability to track which courses a specific teacher is teaching and what courses
they have taught in the past. R
The ability to track which courses in a specified subject are being taught by
which teachers. R

The ability to build, maintain and report on the curriculum goals and objectives
for each site and district. O

The ability to report on student goals as specified in the personalized student

learning plans and site/district pre-specified goals. O

The ability to record student performance and mastery of specified skills. Should
be reportable at student, teacher, grade, site and district levels. R
The ability to capture, track and maintain standardized test results by student,
teacher, grade, site and district. O

The ability to capture, track and maintain other school resources such as
equipment, text books, desks and chairs. O

The ability to assign those resources to specific teachers, students, rooms and
sites. O
The ability to capture, track, maintain and update any fees by student, parent,
fee type, teacher, grade, site and district. O

The ability to support self-registration for an account and self-recovery of a

forgotten password. System administrators should also be able to create
accounts and reset passwords. O

Custodial parents should be able to see the records of all their children using a
single account. Access by a non-custodial parent should be controllable by a
system administrator and should default to disallow access. O

Parents should be able to see a single consolidated calendar of assignment due

dates and major events for all their children as well as separate calendars for
each child. O
The ability to facilitate secure communication between parents, students,
teachers and administrators. O

The ability to facilitate secure transfer of electronic files between parents,

students, teachers and administrators. O
Parents should be able to subscribe to alerts sent via email, voice messaging or
SMS. O

The selected system must meet all SIF compliance requirements. Which versions
of SIF is the solution compliant with? R

The system allows for standards based grading rubrics and easily printable
report cards for courses using this grading method. O
Yes/No/ With
Configuration
Y/N/WC Comments/Answers