Here’s a list of things that the new WebLearn does that the old WebLearn does not.
- • Calendars for course events
• Electronic sign-up for tutorials, seminars or other types of meeting
• Electronic assignment submission with automatic plagiarism detection using JISC Turnitin service. (Offering and supporting a University-wide plagiarism detection service could also be mentioned – it is within the domain of the WebLearn team.)
• Announcements can be made to student groups based on course membership
• On-line (electronic) course experience (feedback) questionnaire will be available to all course tutors by Easter 2010
• Reading lists with live-link to University library systems making it easy for students to find the physical location of a specified text
• Each course can have its own podcast feed
• Collaborative authoring environment (wiki) with LaTeX mathematical notation support
• Vastly improved discussion forum and assessment tools (compared to old service)
• Real-time chat for every course
• Sophisticated tracking of students by tutors with visual summary of activity
• Custom Smartphone interface with associated long-term login will be available to every student by academic year 2010-11
• Opinion poll for all courses (students will be able to vote via a Smartphone by 2010-11)
New WebLearn also has a better UI and is more accessible than the old system.
Sounds like an exciting release!