Abstract:

Over the last years, we have followed an educational method to force the students to study "up-to-the-day". In order to accomplish such goal, many educational material has been developed. These new teaching methodologies sometimes require students to do their work on computers or at home and are generally more demanding than the traditional form of instruction in the classroom. Many tools are needed: electronic submission of assignments, blogging, fast feedback, online tests, project works, etc. To simplify these new practices in teaching, a Learning Management Systems (also known as Course Management System) is mandatory.

In this paper we describe three different Learning Management Systems. The first one is based on the open-source e-learning management system known as .LRN. This platform is used in many other university, such as University of Bergen, UCLA Health Sciences, Galileo University, Harvard JFK School of Government, University of Heidelberg, University of Mannheim, MIT Sloan School of Management or Spanish National University for Distance Education.

The second, used at Universitat Politècnica de Valéncia, Valencia (Spain) is based on Sakai. This e-learning platform is also used in Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Cambridge University, Yale University, University of Michigan, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Indiana University and Georgia Institute of Technology.

The last one, used at Universitat Jaume I, Castelló (Spain), is based on Moodle open-source software.

Teachers of the three institutions discuss and compare the usability of the three platforms in the context of their teaching subjects.

Keywords:

Learning Management System, Course Management System, Virtual Learning Environment.