LON-CAPA

Infobox_Software
name =

developer = Michigan State University
operating_system = Cross-platform
genre = Course Management System
license = GPL
website = [http://lon-capa.org lon-capa.org]

LON-CAPA is an e-learning platform, also known as a Course Management System (CMS) or Learning Management System (LMS). It possesses the standard features of many learning platforms (user roles, calendar, e-mail, chat rooms, blogs, resource construction, test grading, etc.), but it differs from traditional e-learning platforms in that its many web servers (in various parts of the world) can communicate with each other.cite web |url=http://www.campussource.de/org/software/loncapa/ |title=LON-CAPA |accessdate=2007-11-30 |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |date= |format= |work= |publisher=CampusSource |pages= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ] Consequently, the term LON-CAPA can also refer to the LON-CAPA network, i.e. the entire set of LON-CAPA web servers and the specific implementation of an internet protocol that connects these web servers.cite web |url=http://www.lon-capa.org/networkfeatures.html |title=Network Features |accessdate=2007-11-30 |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |date= |format= |work= |publisher=LON-CAPA |pages= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ] LON-CAPA can also refer to the LON-CAPA project, i.e. the core team of scientists and programmers that develop and maintain the LON-CAPA software.

There are, as of 2007, more than 130 LON-CAPA domains, where a domain is a unified set of LON-CAPA web servers. LON-CAPA domains are operated, generally speaking, by individual universities and high schools in the United States and Canada, but include private organizations and a significant number of universities in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. The LON-CAPA network allows participating universities and schools to create learning resources (test problems, web pages, etc.) and to share them across the network. This collaborative aspect is LON-CAPA's most distinctive feature.

Another special feature of LON-CAPA is the ability to design test resources (called problems) that make use of random numbers (stored in Perl variables). This allows a single "problem resource" to generate a variety of similar (but different) test exercises, thus significantly reducing the risk of cheating amongst students.cite web |url=http://www.linux.com/articles/54225 |title=Open source package passes personal learning test |accessdate=2007-11-30 |last=Gasperson |first=Tina |authorlink= |coauthors= |date=2006-05-17 |format= |work= |publisher=Linux.com |pages= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ]

Currently, the great majority of LON-CAPA's learning resources are written in English and focus on the mathematical and natural sciences, mostly significantly physics and chemistry. The learning platform works extensively with LaTeX, a language used to represent formulas and mathematical expressions. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).cite web |url=http://sloan-c.org/effective/details4.asp?FS_ID=45 |title=Practice: Computer-Assisted Personalized Assignments, Quizzes, and Examinations |accessdate=2007-11-30 |last=Moore |first=Janet |authorlink= |coauthors= |date=2003-11-19 |format= |work= |publisher=The Sloan Consortium |pages= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ]

LON-CAPA is open source and free of licensing fees. Significant technologies include Linux, Apache, mod perl, MySQL, LaTeX and CPAN. The core LON-CAPA development team is based at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. There are also major LON-CAPA network nodes at Simon Fraser University and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The name LON-CAPA is an acronym, derived from Learning Online Network with Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach. In 1999, two distinct e-learning projects, CAPA and LectureOnline, joined efforts in the creation of LON-CAPA, which provides a superset of the CAPA and LectureOnline functionalities.

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