Outreach: Manager
Outreach: Manager is a full feature multi-language learning management system, integrating the entire Outreach product range. It is a task-centric system, supporting three key roles; administrator, instructor and student, for effective management.
Outreach: Manager uses a low cost Linux-based implementation. The key implementation consideration is to ensure the LOWEST TOTAL COST of ownership. The all-in cost of ownership is the cost of the bare hardware server (no OS needed) plus that of Outreach: Manager, which includes the operating system, database and the application software. There is no other hidden cost.
Outreach: Manager is a user-friendly system. The key design consideration is delivering effective solution to the problems associated with modern teaching, at the LOWEST SUPPORT COST. After all, the application is targeted at serving millions of new students each year; and each confusing element of the system has the potential to translate into a million problems for the support teams.
Screen capture of Master Administrator's interface
Features
An extremely user friendly management system, incorporating the following main functions.
Recruitment Functions
Manage recruitment agents, via time-stamped introduction, payment verification, etc.
Pre-admission online test and evaluations, and admission advice.
Student Administration Functions
Systematic organization of students.
Module enrollment planning and registration, with automatic tracking.
Comprehensive performance tracking of students throughout study period.
Comprehensive module performance tracking
Detailed system access records and reporting.
Up-to-the-minute administrative report and summary generation.
Module Administration Functions
Multimedia (text, image and voice) communication via announcements, forum, and emails/SMS.
Storage base for online distribution of teaching materials and collection of work assignments.
Supports collaborative project works among students.
Support multiple format online tests, with lecturer programmable test environment.
Support student feedback through multiple format online surveys.
Allows simple maintaining and tracking of module performance results.
Allows simple creation of online lecture schedules and retrieving of archived lectures.
E-learning Functions
SCORM and HTML compliant e-learning engine.
Simple upload and control of courses.
Simple interface for tracking access.
Outreach: The Solution Provider
Outreach: Manager, the solution to the information dissemination problem
A teacher wishes to inform the class of some changes in the course.
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He makes an announcement in class, BUT some students are not paying attention, some students are not present in class.
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He writes the changes on the blackboard, but he soon has to erase it for other information.
With Outreach: Manager, when he logs onto the system, all the courses he is teaching is immediately shown. He clicks on the particular course he is teaching and all the things he can do is shown right in front at one place. He clicks on ¡°Announcements¡± and type in the announcement. The announcement stays on the system until he decides to take it off. No one else can erase it. If it is urgent, he ticks on the ¡°email alert¡± box, and the announcement is emailed to every student in the class. If it is very urgent, he ticks on the ¡°SMS alert¡± box, and the announcement is sent by SMS to every student.
With Outreach: Manager, the teacher can email, to one student, a group of students or all students easily anytime. The students can also email to the teacher easily too.
Outreach: Manager, the solution to 24-hour, 7-day a week class interaction
A student has some doubts on the subject matter. He intends to ask the teacher the following day in class, but the teacher is off to another topic. There are many other students wanting to ask questions. He does not have an opportunity. He gives up, and the doubt remains unanswered.
With Outreach: Manager, he can post the question on the forum page. Another student or the teacher saw the question and immediately answer it. The teacher thinks the question would be relevant to other students as well. He extracts it and put it under ¡°frequently-asked-questions¡±, so that other students can benefit from it. Outreach: Manager allows students to learn not just from the teacher, but other students as well.
Outreach: Manager, the solution to creating professional online teaching material
The teacher wants to create professional looking teaching materials. He wants to know if his students have all gone through his materials
With Outreach: Manager, he can use the accompanying SCORM editor to create SCORM teaching package and upload to Outreach: Manager. Outreach: Manager will track students¡¯ access to his teaching material. The school can also procure other professionally prepared SCORM compliant supplementary material. The teacher/school could also share (or sell) more professionally prepared courseware to other schools.
Outreach: Manager, the solution to managing teaching notes and supplementary materials
The teacher has many supplementary reading materials, notes, web-links that he wants to share with students. Some of these are large. There is no easy ways to distribute them and also it is hard for the students to keep track of them.
With Outreach: Manager, he can upload them all to the system, and it stays there. All the materials are automatically kept at one place for the students to download and view at their leisure.
Outreach: Manager, the solution to tracking the progress of each student
The teacher wants to know how the class is progressing. He asked the students and they said fine. But do they really know?
With Outreach: Manager, he can easily set online quizzes. He can use the easy user interface to create a pool of questions in seven different ways. He can then create test papers from the question pools, and setting test policy such as maximum time limit for test, randomization of questions, etc. The system will report on the results of the test for each student and also statistically.
Outreach: Manager, the solution to managing assignments
Collecting assignments is a headache. Students submit them at different times. Documents get misplaced.
With Outreach: Manager, students upload their files to designated bins created by the lecturer. Students can replace the files if they need to update them until the lecturer locks the bin. Documents never get misplaced.
Outreach: Manager, the solution to managing group projects
Group projects are becoming an important part of education. Students have a hard time sharing documents, collating them so that a single document can be submitted to the teacher.
With Outreach: Manager, bins can be created for each project group. Students in each group can upload and share documents in the bin. Documents get refined until it is finalized before submitting to the teacher.
Outreach: Manager, the solution to obtaining class feedback
Obtaining class feedback is a tedious process. Survey forms have to be printed.
With Outreach: Manager, this process is simplified. Teacher can easily create survey questions and students can fill them up online. Results are automatically computed.
Detailed Feature List
A single click brings an user to each of the below feature.
Announcement
Allows creation of module announcements by instructor with optional email/SMS alerts to students. Instructor can edit, delete and view announcements
Students can only read announcements.
Module Information
Allows instructor to display module information using what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor. Category guidelines ensure portrays of consistency and professionalism.
Attractive and clear display of module information for students.
Lecture Schedule
Creates online lecture or live chat schedule by instructor with optional email/SMS alerts to students.
Students can only see schedules created by instructor
Resources
Allows easy uploading of teaching resources for students to download.
Submission Workbin
Manages students¡¯ assignment/project submissions. Allows workbin for all students, or for groups of students. Allows students within the same group to share files.
Forum
Allows multimedia chat among class participants. Chat logs during real-time lecture of the module or playback of archived lectures are also automatically uploaded to the forum for subsequent follow-up by instructors (if needed).
Learning Packages
SCORM and HTML compliant host. Allows standard compliant e-learning resources to be hosted for students¡¯ access. Provide full tracking facilities.
Tests-Open-ended
Allows setting of open-ended questions with free form answers.
Instructor can mark and gives comments
Tests-MCQ
Allows creation of various test/evaluation sessions by instructor for students.
Impose various test conditions, like timings etc.
Automatic grading and compilation of test results statistics.
Create Test Questions
Allows the creation of question pools by instructors for subsequent creation of test sessions. (Only for Instructor) Supports the following.
Multiple choice questions (single response)
Multiple choice questions (multiple response)
Closz questions
Matching questions
Ordering questions
Image map questions
Survey
Allows creation of survey sessions, with automatic compilation of survey results.
Create Survey Questions
Allows creation of survey question pools. (Only for Instructor) Support
Nominal questions
Ordinal questions .
Metric questions
Text questions
Archived Lectures
Allows the listing of all archived lectures and launching of the lectures.
Student List
Shows list of participants in the module.
Allows the instructor to create student groups.
Email Instructor/Students
Allows the instructor to email one, a few or all students in his class.
Allows students to email to any of the instructor of the course.
Performance
Allows up to the minute tracking of performance of students .
