History of virtual learning environments

A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) (or "Learning Management System") is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers in the management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, especially involving distance learning.

The terminology for systems which integrate and manage computer-based learning has changed over the years. Terms which are useful in searching for earlier materials include: "Integrated Learning Systems" (ILS), "Computer Assisted Instruction" (CAI), "Computer Based Training" (CBT),"Computer Managed Instruction" (CMI), "Interactive Multimedia Instruction" (IMI), "Technology Enhanced Learning" (TEL), "Technology Based Learning" (TBL), and "Web Based Training" (WBT).

Pre-1940s

Pressey Testing Machine (exterior)

Pressey Testing Machine (interior)

• 1728 : March 20, Boston Gazette contains an advertisement from Caleb Phillipps, "Teacher of the New Method of Short Hand," advising that any "Persons in the Country desirous to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston."
• 1840: Isaac Pitman begins teaching shorthand, using Great Britain's Penny Post.
• 1874: Institutionally sponsored distance education began in the United States in 1874 at Illinois Wesleyan University.
• 1883: The Correspondence University of Ithaca, New York (a correspondence school) was founded in 1883.
• 1892: The term “distance education” was first used in a University of Wisconsin catalog for the 1892 school year.
• 1906-7: The University of Wisconsin-Extension was founded; the first true distance learning institution.
• 1909: The Machine Stops a short story by E.M.Forster, which describes an audio/video communication network being used to deliver a lecture on Australian music to a remote audience [2].
• 1920s: Sidney Pressey, an educational psychology professor at Ohio State University, develops the first "teaching machine." This device offered drill and practice exercises, and multiple choice questions.
• 1929: M.E. LaZerte, Director of the School of Education, University of Alberta, developed a set of instructional devices for teaching and learning. For example, he "developed several devices and methods to minimize instructor/testor involvement, so as to increase the likelihood of gathering data in a consistent manner." One mechanical device that he developed was the "problem cylinder" which could present a problem to a student and check whether the steps to a solution given by the student were correct.

1940s

1945

• Vannevar Bush describes a hypertext-like device called the "memex" in his article in The Atlantic Monthly.

1948

• Norbert Wiener writes about human-machine communications in his landmark book "Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine" (MIT Press, 1948).

1950s

1953

• The University of Houston offers the first televised college credit classes via KUHT, the first public television station in the US. The live telecasts ran from 13 to 15 hours each week, making up about 38 percent of the program schedule. Most courses aired at night so that students who worked during the day could watch them. By the mid-1960s, with about one-third of the station's programming devoted to education, more than 100,000 semester hours had been taught on KUHT.[3]

1953-1956

• B.F. Skinner develops "programmed instruction" and an updated "teaching machine".

1956

• Gordon Pask and Robin McKinnon-Wood develop SAKI, the first adaptive teaching system to go into commercial production. SAKI taught keyboard skills and it optimized the rate by which a trainee keyboard operator learned by making the difficulty level of the tasks contingent on the learner's performance. As the learner's performance improved the rate of teaching increased and instructional support was delayed .

1957

• Frank Rosenblatt invented the "perceptron" in 1957 at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in an attempt to understand human memory, learning, and cognitive processes .This was the beginning of computers learning and retaining what they have learned.

1958

• Charles Bourne and Douglas Engelbart publish an article in DATAMATION magazine that outlines the requirements of and a proposal for a National Technical Information Service for the USA.

1959

• Rath, Anderson, and Brainerd reported a project using an IBM 650 to teach binary arithmetic to students.

• The University of Chicago first produces Sunrise Semester, a series of courses delivered via broadcast television.

1960s

1960

File:PLATO Davis 1.jpg

Fundamentals of PLATO Programming, by Celia R. Davis

• PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) system developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The rights to PLATO are now owned by PLATO Learning, which delivers managed course content over the Internet. The PLATO system featured multiple roles, including students who could study assigned lessons and communicate with teachers through on-line notes, instructors, who could examine student progress data, as well as communicate and take lessons themselves, and authors, who could do all of the above, plus create new lessons. There was also a fourth type of user, called a multiple, which was used for demonstrations of the PLATO system.

• Project Xanadu, the first known attempt at implementing a hypertext system, founded by Ted Nelson.

1962

• Douglas Engelbart publishes his seminal work, "Augmenting Human Intellect: a conceptual framework". In this paper, he proposes using computers to augment training. With his colleagues at the Stanford Research Institute, Engelbart started to develop a computer system to augment human abilities, including learning. The system was simply called the oNLine System (NLS), and it debuted in 1968.

• The initial concept of a global information network should be given to J.C.R. Licklider in his series of memos entitled "On-Line Man Computer Communication”, written in August of 1962. However, the actual development of the internet must be given to Lawrence G. Roberts of MIT.

1963

• Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, the first graphical user interface for a computer, and publishes a description of it in his PhD. dissertation at MIT.
• A chapter in the Daily Express Science Annual, entitled Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning, describes interactive teaching machines and shows photos of a number of systems including The Grundy Tutor, The Auto Tutor and the Empirical Tutor . These electronic devices present frames of information followed by questions, and branch to other frames depending on the button pressed by the learner. The article states that the Auto Tutor was designed by Norman Crowder, an American psychologist. It describes a British machine, the Empirical Tutor thus: "In addition to the printed programme it can use film sequences, slide projectors, tape recorders or even real apparatus, which the student may use to help him to decide how to answer the question in the frame". The article also refers to a language teaching system developed by Professor Rand Morton of Michigan University. A science fiction story in the same Annual, by Brian Aldiss, predicts mobile learning, wearable computing, brain-computer interfaces, the development of personal computing in the nineteen-seventies, and concern over global warming .

• Douglas Engelbart invents the computer mouse, and a prototype is constructed by Bill English. Englebart was awarded a patent in 1970 for an improved version of the mouse.

1964

• The first authoring system for developing lessons and courses on a computer system is produced. The “PLATO compiler” allowed the development of various forms of “teaching logic” for fields varying from mathematics to the behavioral sciences. .
• The Computer Assisted Instruction Laboratory is established at Pennsylvania State University, College of Education.
• The Altoona Area School District in Pennsylvania began to use computers to instruct students.

1965

• A five year study of the impact of PLATO is published . Here are some highlights: “The results of exploratory queuing studies show that the system could teach as many as a thousand students simultaneously, while still allowing each student to proceed through the material independently.” The PLATO system had two different ways to teach – “tutorial logic” where the system presented facts and examples, and then asked questions on the materials presented, and “inquiry logic” where the student could request and organize appropriate information from the computer. The presentation of materials (“slide selector”) was called an electronic book. The store of information in the system was called an electronic blackboard. PLATO had a sophisticated help system, whereby different types of wrong answers resulted in the student being sent different help sequences. A rudimentary spell checker was included in the system. A comment page allowed the student to comment on the lessons at any time. An instructor page allowed the instructor to communicate with the student. A “perfect workbook” recorded student responses to questions, as well as kept a record of each button the student pushed and the time at which he or she pushed it. These records were stored on magnetic tape for later statistical analysis.
• IBM, via its subsidiary Service Bureau Corporation, introduces COURSEWRITER for the IBM 1500, an online interactive CAI system in the 1960's. The system included course management features and roles for the users such as instructor, manager, and student, and allowed intercommunication among them. Stanford University participated in the research and development that predated the IBM 1500's release.
• Ted Nelson uses the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in his paper Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate.
• Research in the field of computer assisted instruction began in France at the universities in Paris, Grenoble and Toulouse.
• The Department of Industrial and Vocational Education at the University of Alberta purchased a "Fabritek transistorized training computer" to teach students in electronics courses.

1967

• The Division of Educational Research Services was formed at the University of Alberta, and this unit immediately acquired an electronic optical examination scoring machine, and an IBM magnetic tape typewriter. It shared an IBM 360/67 computer with the rest of the university, and used it mostly for statistical analysis.
• The CAN (Completely Arbitrary Name) authoring language is developed by staff at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). "The initial design goal was to provide a lesson authoring language which could be used by classroom instructors with limited knowledge of computing."
• The first CAI application is written in APL for the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. It consisted of an arithmetic drill program that "automatically adjusted its level of difficulty as a function of the student's rate of success".

1968

• An IBM/1500 system was installed at the University of Alberta, where on-line courses included Cardiology training for the University's medical school. This system was finally taken out of service on April 10th, 1980, after twelve years of operation. Over 20,000 people had used the system in that interval, and programming was available for 17 university courses. The instructional operating system of the IBM 1500 had a registration system, bookmarking, authoring, and progress reports all built-in.
• Alan Kay, a graduate student at the University of UTAH, proposes the FLEX language. The FLEX Machine, a computer running the FLEX language is the first attempt to develop an Object Oriented Programming based personal computer.
• Douglas Engelbart and 17 of his colleagues demonstrate the new oNLine System (NLS) at the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco.
• The MITRE Corporations begins development of their Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled, Information Television (TICCIT) system. It is described as a computer based system of instruction that is "low-cost, high quality education that is completely individualized."

1969

• The US Department of Defense commissions ARPANET (and thus the Internet as we know it).

• Stanford University broadcasts 12 Stanford engineering courses on two channels via the Stanford Instructional Television Network (SITN).
• The first Associate Committee on Instructional Technology is formed at the National Research Council of Canada.
• K.L Zinn published a report entitled "Comparative study of languages for programming interactive use of computers in instruction" - EDUCOM Research Memorandum RM-1469.
• The Language Information Network and Clearinghouse System (LINCS) Project of the Center for Linguistics at the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC was developed as a computerized information management system to facilitate the transfer of scientific information within the language science community.
• Beginning of a seven year project called Project Solo or Soloworks in Pittsburgh, USA. The group put out 33 newsletters over the course of the project. This is an early example of student controlled, individualized use of computers in education. The idea of going "solo" was that the student was in charge of his or her own learning. However, the limitations of the approach were also recognized, and the group ended up proposing a "Community of Learning" model in 1976.
• The MERIT Computer Network interconnects three large universities - University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University. The MERIT network facilitated instructional uses of computing facilities among the three institutions.

1970s

1970

• The Havering Computer Managed Learning System was developed in London, England. By 1980 it had been used by over 10,000 students and 100 teachers in applications that included science technology, remedial mathematics, career guidance, and industrial training.
• Flanagan reports on Project Plan, where computers were used for learning management, though a student-centric model that integrated information on students past achievement, interests, etc. to develop an individualized plan of study which served to guide the learner through a series of Teacher Learning Units. This was implemented though a medium-sized computer and terminals in the schools.

• Bernard Luskin received his PhD. in 1970. The title of his doctoral dissertation was An Identification and Examination of Obstacles to the Development of Computer Assisted Instruction, U.C.L.A. Luskin was an important pioneer and advocate for computers in higher education in California in the 1970s and 1980s.
• California funded a two year project to determine the potential needs of distance education in the future. Under the direction of Dr. Bernard Luskin, this consortium of all community and state colleges in California developed a broad plan of action, one that predicted many of the technological innovations we use today.

• Computers first used in elementary schools (Grades 7 and 8) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

1971

• The MITRE Corporation begins a year-long demonstration of the TICCIT system among Reston, Virginia cable television subscribers. Interactive television services included informational and educational demonstrations using a touch-tone telephone. The National Science Foundation refunds the PLATO project and funds MITRE's proposal to modify its TICCIT technology as a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system to support English and algebra at community colleges. MITRE subcontracts instructional design and courseware authoring tasks to the University of Texas at Austin and Brigham Young University.
• Project EXTEND was set up in Michigan as a "small college consulting service for instructional computing." It offered programming support and faculty development to those university instructors who wanted to get involved with computer-based instruction.
• Ivan Illich describes computer-based "learning webs" in his book Deschooling Society . Among the features of his proposed system are
  • Reference Services to Educational Objects — which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning.
  • Skill Exchanges — which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at which they can be reached.
  • Peer-Matching — a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.
  • Reference Services to Educators-at-Large — who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self-descriptions of professionals, paraprofessionals, and free-lancers, along with conditions of access to their services.

1972

• The Learning Research Group is formed at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, California. It is led by Alan Kay, who advanced the idea of a graphical user interface (GUI) by inventing icons for folders, menus, and overlapping windows. Kay and his group envisioned a computer for teaching and learning that they called the "KiddiKomputer", to be programmed using the Smalltalk language they had developed. While Kay could see many educational uses for this computer, he had four initial projects in mind: 1) Teaching thinking skills, 2) Teaching modeling through the simulation of systems, 3) Teaching interface skills, and 4) Track what children would do with the computer outside school hours, when left to their own devices. Second level projects for teaching children with a computer included 1) Computer evaluation, 2) Iconic programming, especially for children under 8. Kay and his colleagues started teaching programming to children and adults in 1973.
• First Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Calgary, Alberta.

1973

• The National Development Program in Computer Assisted Learning was set up in the UK in January, 1973.
• A report written for the University of Michigan described the educational uses of computers at the university. These included "drill, skills practice, programed and dialog tutorials, testing and diagnosis, simulation, gaming, information processing, computation, problem solving, model construction, graphic display, the management of instructional resources, and the presentation and display of materials."
• An integrated student information system at Trinity University in Texas maintained data on about about 1,500 variables. These included all student academic and personal data, all faculty data that dealt with courses and teaching, all course data in regards to student, faculty and class meeting times and days, enrollments, buildings, and the college calendar and catalog. There was also "an interaction course management system".

1974

• Murray Turoff founds the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center at NJIT and over the next 15 years conducts an immense amount of research on Computer-mediated communication (CMC) with Starr Roxanne Hiltz. Much of this is on its applicability to the "Virtual Classroom", including field trials in the 1980s. The specifications for EIES 2 are particularly seminal - note in particular the material on roles, resources and hypertext.
• Launched in June 1974, Creative Computing was the first computer magazine for general readers and hobbyists. The Jan-Feb. 1976 issue had an article on "Learning with Computer Games".
• An "international school" was held in a remote Italian resort to explore the state of the art of computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Direct connections with computers in Italy and the United States made it possible to demonstrate a variety of existing CAI systems. Papers describing the use of CAI in five sets of educational institutions were presented.

1975

• The NSF-funded TICCIT Project begins testing English and algebra courseware at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, VA, and at Phoenix College, part of the Maricopa County Community College system in Phoenix, AZ. The modified TICCIT system supports 128 student terminals made of modified television sets providing text and graphics in seven colors, digital audio, and a video switching device to embed video into the computer generated instruction. A specialized keyboard allows students to control their own progress through the courseware, which includes both tutorials, drills, and testing. What is interesting about TICCIT is that it was based on a learner controlled command language that allowed the user to manipulate his or her own sequencing and development of learning strategies.
• COMIT was a sophisticated system of computer-assisted instruction developed jointly by IBM and the University of Waterloo in Canada. It emphasized unique audiovisual capabilities of the television set and light pens. The project ran until 1978.

1976

• Edutech Project of Encinitas California (now Digital ChoreoGraphics of Newport Beach, CA) develops DOTTIE, a TV Set-Top device linking the home TV to online services such as CompuServ and The Source via a common household telephone.
• Development of the language Pop11 (derived from the Edinburgh AI language Pop2) and its teaching tools starts at Sussex University. This later evolved into Poplog.
• Development of the KOM computer conferencing system begins at the University of Stockholm. See Jacob Palme's history of KOM
• First experimental developments at the Open University of what became the Cyclops system - then called a telewriting or audio-graphic system but nowadays would be called a whiteboard system - under two separate teams in the Faculties of Mathematics (Read and Bacsich) and Technology (Pinches and Liddell) - the first team focusing on storage on cassette tape of digital data to drive VDUs, the second focusing on transmission of handwriting over telephone lines. There were similar developments under way in the US and France.

• Coastline Community College, having no physical campus, became the first Virtual College in the United States.
• Second Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Quebec City, Quebec.
• Open University in the UK sets up the CICERO project with three courses taught online.
• A report by Karl Zinn at the University of Michigan describes computer-based conferencing, computer-based seminars, computer-assisted curriculum development, computer-based committees, and computer-based proposal preparation.

1977

• With the Canadian federal Department of Communications, TVOntario (TVO) pioneered the use of satellites for educational teleconferencing and direct-to-home transmission through the Hermes project. The experiment allowed students in California and Toronto to interact via electronic classrooms.
• The Communications Research Center of the Canadian federal government's Department of Communications developed Telidon, a second generation videotext system that was used in field trials in several educational settings.
• Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) provides Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) tutorials for its BASIC programming language on DEC PDP computers.
• At the UK Open University, the software and hardware teams developing telewriting systems merged to form the Cyclops project and gained funding, initially internally, later from UK government sources. There is little trace of Cyclops now on the Open University web site except for a slide in a historical presentation of the background to the Lyceum system - see http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/sbs/talks/Lyceum-CMC-18iv00/Lyceum-CMCtalk.ppt.

1978

• Pathlore (as part of Legent Corp.) started developing CBT solutions. In 1995 it became divested from Legent. Its PHOENIX software delivered "virtual classrooms" to many corporate networks. Pathlore was acquired by SumTotal in 2005.
• The National Science Foundation releases its evaluation of the MITRE TICCIT project demonstration, giving a mixed review of the success of using the computer-television system as the primary source of instruction for English and algebra.

1979

• Prestel, claimed by BT as "the world's first public viewdata service", was opened in London in September, running on a cluster of minicomputers. It had been conceived in the early 1970s by Sam Fedida of the Post Office Research Laboratories at Dollis Hill, London. Similar developments were under way in France (Teletel) and Canada (Telidon). Only those active at the time will remember the sense of euphoria and opening of possibilities in what would now be called the e-business and e-learning worlds. (Sadly, the concept was premature, although in France it had most success.) A number of mainframe, minicomputer and even micro-computer based systems and services were later developed in educational circles of which perhaps the best known were OPTEL, Communitel, ECCTIS and NERIS.. See related Wikipedia entries on Videotex, Viewdata and Prestel for more background.

• In Canada, groups including TVOntario, Athabasca University, the University of Victoria, and the University of Waterloo participated in Telidon experiments during the late 70s and early 80s. Telidon, an alphageometric videotex information system used set-top boxes with TV sets, or subsequently software decoders running on PCs (Apple II, MAC, and PC decoders were available) to display text and graphics. The intent was to demonstrate and develop educational applications for videotex and teletext systems. This work continued until 1983, when the Telidon coding structure became a North American standard - ANSI T500 - NAPLPS (North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax).

• The Athabasca University educational Telidon project used a Unix path structure which allowed the storage of information pages in the file system tree. This is now the universal storage method for pages on the internet. As described, the system had the ability to create separate user groups with different access privileges, and to implement "action scripts" to access system functions, including email and dynamic content generation. The AU system was described in Abell, R.A. "Implementation of a Telidon System Using UNIX File Structures" in Godfrey, D. and Chang, E. (eds) The Telidon Book, Reston Publishing Company, Reston, VA, 1981)
• An article by Karl Zinn in Educational Technology describes the uses of microcomputers at the University of Michigan. Uses included "word processing, extending laboratory experience, simulation, games, tutorial uses, and building skills in computing."

1980s

1980

• Successmaker is a K-12 learning management system with an emphasis on reading, spelling and numeracy. According to the Pearson Digital Learning website, the South Colonie Central School District in Albany, New York "has been using SuccessMaker since 1980, and in 1997 the district upgraded the software to SuccessMaker version 5.5."
• The Open University begins a pilot trial of a viewdata (videotex) system OPTEL, on a Dec-20 mainframe. This had been conceived by Peter Zorkoczy even before the launch of the national Prestel system in 1979 and was locally specified and coded (in COBOL) by Peter Frogbrook (RIP) and Gyan Mathur. One of the main motivations was its applicability to online learning. It was available via dial-up from home, and later in the 1980s via telnet(!) on the X.25 and internet networks. There were individual user codes and passwords, giving different access rights; the one generic access code was regularly attacked by hackers even in these far-off days, as URLs still on the web attest. The system is overviewed in "Viewdata-Style Delivery Mechanisms for CAL", CAL Research Group Technical Report No. 11.
• Seymour Papert at MIT publishes "Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas". (New York: Basic Books). This book inspired a number of books and dissertations on "microworlds" and their impact on learning.
• The idea of managing teaching resources using a computer is described in a paper by J.M. Leclerc and S. Normand from the University of Montreal. Their system was programmed in BASIC, and used a computer to track documents, human resources, structured activities, and places for training and observation. Evaluation activities were also available in the system.
• The University of Montreal offered CAFÉ, a computer system that taught written French. Graduated groups of questions were generated according to individual indicators. Students went through the system at their own pace.

1981

• School of Management and Strategic Studies at the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La Jolla, California starts an online program.
• University of Sussex, UK, implements Poplog, an interactive learning environment for AI and computing students. It includes hyperlinked teaching materials, an extensible text editor, multiple programming languages and interactive demonstrations of AI programs.
• Field trials begin of the Cyclops whiteboard system in the East Midlands Region of the Open University and run for two years. The evaluation was funded by a grant from British Telecom and allowed the evaluation Director Tony Bates to employ Mike Sharples and David McConnell as research fellows. Audio-visual material for Cyclops was produced on the Cyclops Studio , a multimedia editing system coded in UCSD Pascal by a software team led by Paul Bacsich and including Mark Woodman. Cyclops was later awarded a BCS prize for innovation and systems installed in Indonesia. There are only passing references now to Cyclops on the open Web (see under names cited) - the best source of specifications and chronology is the article "Cyclops:shared-screen teleconferencing" in The Role of Technology in Distance Education, edited Tony Bates, Croom Helm, 1984.
• Over this period the Open University was also developing its own viewdata (videotex) system, called OPTEL, for use in education. This had in fact started about the same time as Cyclops in yet another team at the OU. The project ran until about 1985 when it faded away, as did videotex generally across the world (except the Minitel in France). In addition to OPTEL, several other systems were implemented including VOS (Videotex Operating System) which allowed the display and manipulation of text files via videotex. VOS was further developed into a telesoftware, transactional (gateway) and email system and then used in a commercial development for IMS, the media research company (using a very early precursor of Web/CGI development). These were coded in Pascal and COBOL on the wonderful Dec-20 mainframe. Some of the ideas of OPTEL were taken over into the ECCTIS project delivering course data via viewdata from a Unisys mainframe - indeed one of the former OPTEL staff joined ECCTIS as Director. Systems were also specified to deliver Computer Assisted Learning - see in particular the article "Viewdata systems" in The Role of Technology in Distance Education. There are only fragmentary references now to OPTEL on the open Web.
• Allen Communication in Salt Lake City, Utah, introduced the first commercial interactive videodisc.
• BITNET, founded by a consortium of US and Canadian universities, allowed universities to connect with each other for educational communications and e-mail. At its peak in 1991, it had over 500 organizations as members and over 3000 nodes. Its use declined as the World Wide Web grew.
• The Michigan Terminal System (MTS), an electronic bulletin board, included a program called CONFER that gave it the capabilities of computer conferencing.
• Alfred Bork wrote an article entitled Information Retrieval in Education, in which he identified the ways "computer-based techniques can be used for course management, direct learning, and research."

1982

• The Computer Assisted Learning Center (CALC) founded as a small, offline computer-based, adult learning center. Origins of CALCampus
• Edutech Project of Encinitas California (now Digital ChoreoGraphics of Newport Beach, CA) implements PIES, an interactive online educational development and delivery system for the PILOT author language, using a client-server paradigm for online delivery of personalized courseware to students via popular video-game consoles and micro-computers. The system was used by Pepperdine University, Georgia Tech, San Diego County Department of Education, and Alaska Department of Education for distance learning.
• CET (later NCET and now Becta) publishes Videotex in Education: A new technology briefing, a 54-page booklet written by Vincent Thompson, Mike Brown and Chris Knowles. This is out of print and few copies are now available. (ISBN 0-86184-072-0)
• Herman Maurer invents MUPID, an innovative videotex device later used widely in Austria. This starts a strand of development leading on to Hyper-G and a range of other developments. (http://www3.iicm.edu/iicm/about/chronik) See also the history of Hyper-G.
• Carnegie Mellon University and IBM create the Information Technology Center which begins the Andrew Project at Carnegie Mellon. One of the primary goals of the project is to provide a platform for "computer-aided instruction" using a distributed workstation computing environment, authenticated access to both personal and public file spaces in a distributed file system (AFS) , authoring tools for computer-based lessons, and collaboration tools including bulletin boards and electronic messaging.
• Peter Smith of the UK Open University completes his PhD thesis (157 pp) on "Radiotext: an application of computer and communication systems in distance teaching". (Only one reference online.) It is believed that the work started in the late 1970s under the supervision of Peter Zorkcoczy, who also conceived the OPTEL viewdata system. Radiotext denoted the transmission of data over radio signals, just as it can be sent over telephone lines. It may seem normal now, as in the Radio Data System (RDS) in these days of digital radio, but in the 1970s the concept was novel and complex for their colleagues to grasp.

1983

• McConnell, D. and Sharples, M. (1983). Distance teaching by Cyclops: an educational evaluation of the Open University’s telewriting system. British Journal of Educational Technology, 14(2), pp. 109-126. Paper describes the CYCLOPS system, developed at the Open University UK in the early 1980s, which provides multi-site tutoring through a shared whiteboard system providing voice conferencing combined with synchronous handwriting and real-time annotation of downloaded graphics. A more comprehensive set of six short papers describing Cyclops was published in Media in Education and Development vol. 16 no. 2, June 1983, pp. 58-74. Cyclops was commercialised by the UK government company Aregon International as the Excom 100 and in this year won a BCS IT award in the "Application" category. (http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.1926)
• MIT announces a 5 year, Institute wide experiment to explore innovative uses of computers for teaching. This initiative is known as Project Athena.
• Fourth Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held in Winnipeg in October 1983.

1984

• Asymetrix founded by Paul Allen (a colleague of Bill Gates). Asymetrix created ToolBook. Later it became Click2Learn and then merged with Docent to become SumTotal Systems which offers a complete Learning Management solution. (http://www.sumtotalsystems.com)
• The Annenberg/CPB project (funded by the Annenberg Foundation) publishes Electronic text and higher education: a summary of research findings and field experiences, Report number 1 in their "Electronic Text Report Series". This reviews videotex and teletext experiences relevant to education in the US, UK and Canada. This document may help to counteract received wisdom that prior to the Web, US agencies did not undertake studies of the relevance of online systems to education. (http://www.eric.ed.gov/sitemap/html_0900000b80113699.html)
• In theFaculty Authoring Development Program and Courseware Authoring Tools Project at Stanford University (1984-1990s) several dozen teaching applications were created, including tutorials in economics, drama simulations, thermodynamics lessons, and historical and anthropological role-playing games.
• Article on "Computing at Carnegie-Mellon University" describes the benefits to students and faculty of a new project using networked personal computers set up by IBM and the university.
• Students and faculty at the University of Waterloo use IBM PCs networked together to do their work and to develop applications (a "JANET"). One PC acts as a server for files in the network.
• The OECD organized a conference in Paris, France on "Education and the New Information Technology."
• ANTIC (magazine) publishes a review of a PLATO cartridge for the Atari home computers. The cartridge allows Atari users to access courseware on the PLATO network via modem.
• Computer Teaching Corporation (CTC) launched TenCORE [4] which was the leading authoring language in the late 1980s. It was MS-DOS based. CTC also produced a network-based Computer Managed Instruction System which allowed users to take on the roles of author, student and administrator and to create and participate in a plurality of courses.

1985

• Project Athena at MIT, on the potential uses of advanced computer technology in the university curriculum, has been underway for two years by this time, and about 60 educational development projects are in progress.
• Daniel V. Klein develops UOLT, a Unix-based On Line aid to Training. This system features presentation of on-line courses and individualized testing and grading. Later renamed and published as “UBOAT – A Unix Based On-Line Aid to Tutorials”, in the Proceedings of the European Unix User’s Group, Dublin IRELAND, September 1987.
• The SuperBook Project started at Bell Communications Research, Morristown, USA. The purpose of the project was to find new ways of navigating online books. Jacob Nielsen commented online that "In 1990, Bell Communications Research's SuperBook project proved the benefits of integrating search results with navigation menus and other information space overviews."
• The decision is taken (at the CALITE 85 conference) to found ASCILITE, the Australian Society of Computers In Learning In Tertiary Education. (It took two more years for all details to be finalised.)See the history of ASCILITE. ASCILITE is the co-publisher of the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET).

1986

• Tony Bates publishes "Computer Assisted Learning or Communications: Which Way for Information Technology in Distance Education?", Journal of Distance Education/ Revue de l'enseignement a distance, reflecting (in 1986!) on ways forward for e-learning, based on 15 years of operational use of computer networks at the Open University and nine years of systematic R&D on CAL, viewdata/videotex, audio-graphic teleconferencing and computer conferencing. Many of the systems specification issues discussed later are rehearsed here. (http://cade.athabascau.ca/vol1.1/bates.html)
• Edward Barrett comes to MIT in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. He becomes co-director of a group working on a distance learning project called the "Networked Educational Online System" (NEOS), a suite of programs for teaching writing and other subjects in specially designed electronic seminar rooms.
• First version of LISTSERV is written by Eric Thomas, an engineering student in Paris, France. It was first used in the BITNET network for electronic mailing lists among universities.
• Fifth Canadian Symposium on Instructional Technology held May 5-7 in Ottawa.

1987

• In 1987, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its first online distance education courses. The courses were provided through EKKO, NKI's self-developed Learning Management System (LMS). The experiences are described in the article NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability in Morten Flate Paulsen's book Online Education and Learning Management Systems which is available online at http://www.studymentor.com
• From this year until 1991 several UK groups of researchers associated in one way or another with the Open University, the UK Department for Industry (especially the Alvey programme, the transputer team and the Information Technology Consultancy Unit) and the emerging European Commission DELTA programme, carry out a mass of specification and prototyping work on "educational environments". Projects include the Thought Box; the Learning Systems Reference Model; Portable Educational Tools Environment (joint OU, Harlequin and Chorus Systèmes); and Transputer-Based Communications-oriented Learning System. Among the non-OU co-workers were Chris Webb, Bill Olivier and Oleg Liber, all still active in e-learning. (No useful material left on the current public Web.)

• Authorware Inc. is formed in Minneapolis/St. Paul. From initial prototypes developed on both mainframe and very early personal computers, a Macintosh-based authoring system called "Course of Action" is introduced; later a PC version is developed. Shortly after its introduction, the title of the authoring system is changed to match the name of the company. Authorware went on to become the first and most widely used industry-standard development tool.

• The Athena Writing Project at MIT produces this relevant publication: E. Barrett, F. Bequaert, J. Paradis, "Electronic Classroom: Specification for a user interface", Athena Writing Project, Boston, MA, (4 June 1987)

• 1987, Glenn Jones of Jones Cablevision in Denver, Colorado believed he saw a potential goldmine when he created a new system, called Mind Extension University in 1987. Jones created a system where telecourses could be provided across a network to various colleges and at the same time, students could interact with the instructors and each other, by using email, sent over the internet. Jones then began to beam the courses by satellite, so anyone with a satellite dish could watch the classes and if they had a computer and a phone line they could interact with the class.

• A group of companies in Alberta, working with Alberta Government Telephones, create a pre-internet "whiteboard-like" audiographic teleconferencing system. Using PCs, specialized NAPLPS-based software, and audioconferencing bridges, the system shares graphics, text, and voice, for synchonous multipoint instructor/student student/student communication. The system was used by the Commonwealth of Learning in several locations around the globe, and was also used by Artic College in Alaska for distance education. In some implementations, the students uploaded assignments to instructors for marking.

1988

• Probably the first large-scale use of computer conferencing in distance teaching when the Open University UK launched DT200 Introduction to Information Technology with 1000 students per year. The ur-evaluation by Robin Mason is a good description - see Chapter 9 of Mindweave - http://www.ead.ufms.br/marcelo/mindware/chap9.html
• Edward Barrett and James Paradis publish a chapter entitled "The Online Environment and In-House Training" in Edward Barrett (Ed.) Text, ConText, and HyperText(1988-MIT Press), that describes Project Athena as an Educational On-Line System (EOS).

1989

• Tim Berners-Lee, then a young British engineer working at CERN in Switzerland, circulated a proposal for an in-house online document sharing system which he described as a "web of notes with links". After the proposal was grudgingly approved by his superiors, he called the new system the World Wide Web.
• Chris Moore, Chief Technology Officer at THINQ Learning Solutions for many years, pioneered the TrainingServer learning management system for Syscom, Inc. Syscom was acquired by THINQ in 2000. THINQ was acquired by Saba in 2005. Chris Moore has recently founded Zeroed-In Technologies.
• John S. Quarterman published a 700+ page book, "The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide" (Digital Press, 1989). This book provided detailed addressing protocols on how different computer networks could connect with each other for the purpose of exchanging information and holding discussions, and network maps of the developing Internet.
• Networked Educational Online System (NEOS) developed and deployed at MIT. The system provided coursework exchange between different roles allowing for grading, annotating, and public discussions. Nick Williams, William Cattey, "The Educational On-Line System", Proceedings of the EUUG Spring Conference, EUUG, (April 1990)
• Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., McLean, R. S., Swallow, J., & Woodruff, E. (1989). Computer supported intentional learning environments. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 5, 51-68. Paper discusses CSILE project and related software.
• The first release of Lotus Notes 1.0 is shipped. Release 1.0 includes functionality which is "revolutionary" for the time, including allowing system/server administrators to create a user mailbox, user records in a Name and Address database, and to notarize the user's ID file through dialog boxes. Also includes an electronic mail system with return receipt and notification features, and on-line help, "a feature not offered in many products at this time." Official history of Lotus Notes
• Publication of the book Mindweave: Communication, Computers and Distance Education, edited by Robin Mason and Anthony Kaye (published by Pergamon Press, Oxford, 273p). This was a hugely influential book on computer conferencing on which many of the leading experts of the time collaborated. In addition to descriptions of applications, there were several chapters describing or specifying systems, in particular the Thought Box. The book is available second-hand (e.g. via Amazon) but the full text (no images) is on the web.(http://www.ead.ufms.br/marcelo/mindware/mindweave.htm)
• The first public article specifying the Thought Box appears as Chapter 7 of Mindweave, written by Gary Alexander and Ches Lincoln. It is entitled "The thought box:A computer-based communication system to support distance learning". Although the specification is couched in terms of a hardware device linked to a remote mail/resources server the article also describes the prototype work being done in HyperCard, and it could be argued that this software prototype had many of the features of a modern Personal Learning Environment. In fact, over the next few years, the HyperCard route was the way by which the ideas were advanced, eventually appearing in the XT001 online course in the early 1990s and in several other Open University courses. (http://www.ead.ufms.br/marcelo/mindware/chap7.html)
• The Athena Writing Project at MIT produces this publication: N. Hagan Heller, "Designing a User Interface for the Educational On-line System", Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, May 1989.
• Education 2010 is published. This 83-page booklet (published ny Newman Software, ISBN 0 948048 04 2) arose out of an invitational conference at Bangor in July, 1989, with a brief to examine the possible role of IT in Education in the year 2010. With a few notable exceptions such as Stephen Heppell, few of the conference delegates are active now in e-learning - but it makes interesting reading.
• ECCTIS Limited was formed when it successfully completed in a closed tendering exercise for the ECCTIS online (viewdata) courses information service earlier run by the UK Open University. "ECCTIS" is one of the few names from the viewdata era of the 1980s to carry on till this day, even if somewhat changed. ECCTIS has a useful company history page.
• Dr. John Sperling and Terri Hedegaard Bishop begin the University of Phoenix Online campus, based in San Francisco, California. It was the first private university venture to deliver complete academic degree programs (Master's and Bachelor's degrees)and services to a mass audience, via asynchronous online technologies. This early success is later documented in a paper written by Hedegaard-Bishop and Howard Garten (Professor at University of Dayton, Dayton, OH), “The Rise of Computer Conferencing Courses and Online Education: Challenges for Accreditation and Assessment" and published in a collection of Papers on Self-Study and Institutional Improvement by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, (1993) 137-145.

1990s

1990

• Formal Systems Inc. of Princeton, NJ, USA introduces a DOS-based Assessment Management System. An internet version was introduced in 1997. (In 2000, Formal Systems changed its name to Pedagogue Solutions).
• The Athena Project at MIT, which started in 1983, has evolved into a system of "shared services" that look remarkably like many current VLEs or learning management systems. The network hosted software from multiple vendors, and made it all work together. Here is a list of the features of the system as of 1990: printing, electronic mail, electronic messaging (Zephyr), bulletin board conferencing (Discuss), on-line consulting (OLC), on-line teaching assistant (OLTA), on-line help (OLI-I), assignment exchange (Turn in/pick up), access to system libraries, authentication for system security (Kerberos), naming-for linking system components together (Hcsiod), and a service management system (Moira).
• Pavel Curtis created LambdaMOO, an early Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), at Xerox PARC.
• HyperCourseware created by Kent Norman at the University of Maryland was originally written for use in the At&T Teaching Theater, a prototype electronic classroom. The original version was written in WinPlus, a Hypercard like program, and ran on a local area network with one server and numerous client workstations. It included an online syllabus, online lecture notes and readings, synchronous chat rooms, asynchronous discussion boards, online student profiles with pictures, online assignments and exams, online grading, and a dynamic seating chart. A Web-based version was introduced in January, 1996, which has continued to function up to the present at cognitron.umd.edu.
• The US Navy's Naval Technical Training System was designed as a curriculum development system. It included course management tools for the storage, retrieval and dissemination of information.
• An article in Electronic Learning by Therese Mageau describes Integrated Learning Systems (ILS) as "networked computers running broad-based curriculum software with a management system that tracks student progress."
• A report by George Mann and Joe Kitchens reviews the Curriculum Management System (CMS), a system that generated individualized learning plans every two weeks for each student.
• FirstClass is launched by SoftArc, initially for the Macintosh platform. See the history of FirstClass for the chronology of its development over the next 12 years.

1991

• The history page of the TEDS company states that they developed the first Learning Management System.
• Jakob Ziv-El of Interactive Communication Systems, Inc. files for a patent for an Interactive Group Communication System (# 5,263,869) (similar to the prior art of the IBM 1500 system). A 1990 foreign patent and a 1972 patent by Jakob Zawels (# 3,641,685) are referenced. The patent is granted in 1993. The patent is referenced in a 2000 patent filing (# 6,988,138) by representatives of BlackBoard, Inc.
• Sydney, Australia, based Webster & Associates release first of several graphical course based systems with Learning Management System included. Courses include logins, course structure, recording of results, reporting, etc. Included ability to store and retrieve results remotely. This system could and was run as a client-server application.
• Murray Turoff, the guru of EIES, publishes "Computer-Mediated Communication Requirements for Group Support", Journal of Organizational Computing, 1, 85-113 (1991) - see http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/Papers/CMCGS.pdf. This distills lessons from a research programme run by him over the preceding 16 years, from 1974 (see http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/Administrative/ccc.htm)
• A collaboration of faith based groups http://www.ecunet.org start using a product called BizLink (which later became Convene) in teaching their missionaries and staff around the world using the internet.

1992

• CAPA (Computer Assisted Personalized Approach) system was developed at Michigan State University. It was first used in a small (92 student) physics class in the Fall of 1992. Students accessed randomized (personalized) homework problems through telnet. [5]
• Convene International is founded by Jeffery Stein and Reda Athanasios to provide collaboration tools via the Internet.
• Convene International acquire Bizlink of North Carolina's Larry Allen to facilitate a rapid entry in building Internet communities.
• UNI-C [6], the Danish State Centre for Computing in Education (which became a Blackboard user in the 2000s) supports a wide range of online distance courses using PortaCOM, a conferencing platform, for example in the TUDIC project, funded under the EU's COMET Programme. Extensive theoretical work undertaken by, amongst others, Elsebeth Korsgaard Sorensen [7], whose web site has a detailed bibliography.
• Collaborative Learning Through Computer Conferencing, also known as the Najaden Papers, edited by Anthony Kaye in the NATO ASI Serise, and published by Springer-Verlag (ISBN 3-540-55755-5). Provides several case studies of online learning in action, and an overview by Jacob Palme providing a comrehensive inventory of the functionalities available in computer conferencing systems, including SuperKOM. This last paper describes in detail the underlying functions of what would now be called a virtual learning environment, including, for example, roles, voting, expiration times, exams, moderation, deferred operations.
• Open University (UK) installs FirstClass on a Mac server (reputed to be server license number 3) after an extensive evaluation of tools suitable to deliver online learning across Europe for the just-started JANUS project funded by the European Commission under the DELTA programme. (FirstClass was then a product of SoftArc in Ontario, Canada.)
• New York University's School of Continuing Education (SCE) introduces its Virtual College and develops a digital network to deliver courses to students. SCE uses Lotus Notes at least through 1997 for computer conferencing and to provide online computer laboratory access to student home PCs. [8] [9]
• Geometrix Data Systems founded. They produce the learning management system called Training Partner. http://www.trainingpartner.com
• LearnFrame of Draper, Utah founded. They initially produced online courseware and an authoring tool, and in 1995 developed Pinnacle Learning Manager, that accepted and managed courses from a wide variety of vendors.
• Following several years of preparatory studies, the European Commission DELTA programme starts. (DELTA stands for Telematics for Flexible and Distance Learning.) Over 30 projects are funded, each lasting for around three years, many relevant to VLEs, perhaps the most relevant ones being MTS, JANUS and EAST. The DELTA programme built on preparatory studies going on since 1985 into portable educational tools environments (proto-VLEs), networked multimedia and hypermedia, satellite networks, and a Learning Systems Reference Model (in some ways a precursor of IMS). (http://www.pjb.co.uk/delta.pdf) There seems to be almost no Web information now on the preparatory studies, except for an interview with Luis Rosello in DEOSNews.
• Authorware Inc. merges with MacroMind/ParaComp to create Macromedia. MacroMind specialized in animation software (Director) and ParaComp specialized in 3D imagery (Swivel 3D). Macromedia goes public only months after the merger and remains the leading purveyor of multimedia tools.
• Terry Hedegaard of UOP online picks Convene International's Internet collaboration tools to run a pilot for teaching UOP students online exclusively
• The MUD Institute (TMI/TMI-2) provides the TMI Mudlib and online environment for learning MUD programming, including e-mail, bulletin boards, shared file spaces, real time chat, and instant messaging.
• Terry Anderson coordinates net based “virtual conference” in conjunction with the 16th World Congress of the International Council for Distance Education. This project used email lists and Usenet groups distributed on the early Internet, Usenet, BitNet, and NetNorth. Reference: Anderson, T. & Mason, R. (1993). The Bangkok Project: New tool for Professional Development. American Journal of Distance Education, 7(2), 5-18.
• Humber College's Digital Electronics program used a learning management system to support a set of online courses. The program featured individualized instruction and continuous intake.
• University of Wales, Aberystwyth awarded internal funding to further develop its ‘integrated project support environment for teaching software engineering’. Ratcliffe, M. B., Stotter-Brooks, T. J., Bott M. F. & Whittle, B. R. ‘The TIPSE: An IPSE for Teaching’, Software Engineering Journal, 7, (5), pp 347-356, September 1992.

1993

• Jakob Ziv-El of Discourse Technologies, Inc. files for a patent for a Remote Teaching System (# 5,437,555) (similar to the prior art of the PLATO system), referencing his 1991 patent. The patent is granted in 1995. The patent is referenced in a 2000 patent filing (# 6,988,138) by representatives of BlackBoard, Inc.
• XT001 Renewable energy, a "landmark" experimental course developing techniques for collaborative and resource-based online learning at a distance, was the first "real" course to use FirstClass as its core online tool at the Open University. There are many references (mostly forgotten now) but particularly useful is http://sustainability.open.ac.uk/gary/pages/oclearn.htm.
• Convene International (a San Francisco collaboration and networking company that acquired Bizlink), contracted to work with University of Phoenix to develop the first large scale commercial product for use in Virtual Classrooms. Convene's unique characteristic enabled students to capture data and then work offline (at a time when people were often charged by the hour or minute for online time). University of Phoenix’ Thomas Bishop brands the product “ALEX” for Apollo Learning Exchange.”
• As Convene finishes the development of ALEX for University of Phoenix the pilot enrolment grows to 600 students within the first few months of implementation.
• Brandon Hall puts out the first issue of his Multimedia and Internet Training Newsletter, one of the first regular publications in the field.
• JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee of the UK Higher Education Funding and Research Councils) is established on 1 April 1993, as a successor body to the Information Systems Committee. See http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=about_history.
• Also in 1993, ALT - the Association for Learning Technology - was founded in the UK, initially with the assistance of a donation by BT.
• Michael Hammer and James A. Champy publish "Reengineering the Corporation: a Manifesto for Business Revolution" (New York: HarperCollins, 1993). As usual with business theories it took some time for Reengineering, or Business Process Reengineering in full (BPR in short), to percolate to higher education; but in fact Reengineering spread (to a few) much faster than some other approaches (such as Activity Based Costing or Benchmarking) - already in the 1995-98 period a number of university e-learning experts in UK, Netherlands and Malaysia were using the language, in many cases to the dismay of their colleagues. It is a moot point whether BPR accelerated the development of e-learning or inhibited it - certainly at CEO level in some universities the ideas were for a while seductive. BPR has a sharp edge - the gentler but vaguer approach of Change Management seems to be more enduring

1994

• In 1994, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its second generation, online, distance education courses. The courses were provided on the Internet through EKKO, NKI's self-developed Learning Management System (LMS). The experiences are described in the article NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability in Morten Flate Paulsen's book Online Education and Learning Management Systems which is available online at http://www.studymentor.com
• CALCampus launches online-based school through which administration, real-time classroom instruction, and materials are provided. Origins of CALCampus
• The Tarrson Family Endowed Chair in Periodontics at UCLA is establish with a testamentary gift to design, develop and launch the UCLA Periodontics Information Center for sharing periodontal practices and concepts with the worldwide dental community via CD-ROM and the Internet.
• Lotus Development Corporation acquires the Human Interest Group. The system evolves into the Lotus Learning Management System and Lotus Virtual Classroomnow owned by IBM. Links to articles that describes how IBM has previously implemented the "inventions" described in the Blackboard patent
• SUNY Learning Network begins in 1994. Traditional faculty were hired to create online courses for asynchronous delivery into the home via computer. Each faculty member worked with an instructional design partner to implement the course. From the fall of 1995 through spring of 1997, forty courses were developed and delivered. SLN now supports over 3,000 faculty, 100,000 enrollments on 40 of the State Univeresity of New York's campuses.
• WEST 1.0 is released by WBT Systems. It eventually is renamed TopClass.
• The Project for OnLine Instructional Support POLIS is designed and developed at the University of Arizona. This tool provides innovative dialog-based lessons to students. To support use of these lessons a method for providing online course context, course organization and course communications tools is created.
• Bob Jensen and Petrea Sandlin publish "Electronic Teaching and Learning: Trends in Adapting to Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Networks in Higher Education" - republished 1997. Text available via hyperlink, including identification of ten leading LMS systems in 1994 (discussed in detail in chapter 3 of their book):
  • Quest from Allen Communication
  • Tourguide from American Training International (Tourguide is no longer listed as a product at Infotec.)
  • Multimedia ToolBook from Asymetrix Corporation, bought by Click2Learn, bought by SumTotal Systems
  • Lesson Builder from the Center for Education Technology in Accounting (this product never was completed)
  • Tencore from Computer Teaching Corporation
  • Course Builder from Discovery Systems International, Inc.
  • Training Icon Environment (TIE) from Global Information Systems Technology, Inc.
  • tbtAuthor from HyperGraphics Corporation (HyperGraphics no longer lists tbtAuthor in its product line)
  • Authorware from Macromedia Corporation
  • Personal Education Authoring Kit (PEAK) from Major Educational Resources Corp. PEAK is for Mac users only and has been discontinued. However, while they last you can get free copies at 800-989-5353
• Banking on the tremendous commercial success and rapid growth for the UOP program, Reda Athanasios of Convene International start making the online virtual classroom suite, built in collaboration with UOP, available for all other schools aiming at success for their distance education programs.
• The JANUS project led by the Open University releases in September 1994 Deliverable 45 describing the interim evaluations of the first three online courses delivered across Europe in conjunction with the JANUS project, including AD280 "What is Europe", DM863 "Lisp Programming" and D309 "Artificial Intelligence" Virtual Summer School. Later in the year the Open University releases a longer final report purely on the Virtual Summer School (http://kmi.open.ac.uk/kmi-misc/virtualsummer.html).
• September 1994: The JANUS User Association holds its first AGM and conference at the Dutch Open University. It is one of the first Europe-wide associations focussed on e-learning. It later changed its name to LearnTel and continued until 1999. An online archive of the newsletter is still available via the support of pjb Associates.
• Athabasca University (Canada) implements first on-line Executive MBA program using Lotus Notes.
• TeleEducation NB introduces a DOS-based working LMS in 1993. In 1994 a more powerful system was proposed for the WWW. A description of the concept was published in 1995 with some of the principal features of an LMS. Reference: McGreal, R. (1995). A heterogeneous distributed database system for distance education networks. The American Journal of Distance Education, 9(1), 27-43. Retrieved August 11, 2006 from http://auspace.athabascau.ca/handle/2149/238
• Taking advantage of Convene International online virtual classroom and hoping for similar success to that of UOP online, several schools start working with Convene International in wiring their Distance Education programs and offering it online via the Internet.
• Mark Lavenant and John Kruper present "The Phoenix Project at the University of Chicago: Developing a Secure, Distributed Hypermedia Authoring Environment Built on the World Wide Web" at the First International World-Wide Web Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. "The Phoenix Project" would later become the Web-based learning environment within the Division of the Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago.
• Swanton High School in Ohio used learning management systems to track student progress, as well as testing results, satellite courses, videodiscs, Hypercard, QuickTime video, and Internet connections.

1995

• Elliott Masie and Rebekah Wolman publish the first edition of "The Computer Training Handbook" (Minneapolis: Lakewood Books).
• Pardner Wynn introduces a free web-based interactive course at testprep.com for SAT test preparation, possibly the first interactive learning course on the internet. Over 1 millions hits are registered within 3 months, encouraging the development of the first commercial web-based e-learning course authoring, publishing, and management system, IBTauthor (announced January 1996 in Brandon Hall's Multimedia Training Newsletter). This product became the basis for VC-backed Docent, Inc. (funded in 1997, IPO in 2000), now named SumTotal Systems.
• European Commission establishes the European Multimedia Task Force, to analyse the status of educational media in Europe. The field covered by the Task Force includes all educational and cultural products and services that can be accessed by TVs and computers, whether via telematics networks or not, and used in the home, industry or educational contexts. See Report of the Task Force
• Lotus Notes used for course materials, syllabi, handouts, homework collection, teams, and multi-instructor, multi-team teaching in the MBA program. Results reported at several academic conferences (ICIS-17, AIS-2) in 1996.
• Mallard web-based course management system developed at the University of Illinois (Mallard overview). See also CyberProf (also copyrighted in 1995 from University of Illinois). Mallard allows for multiple roles. For example, a graduate stiudent can be an instructor in one course and a student in another.
• WOLF (Wolverhampton Online Learning Framework) is developed at the University of Wolverhampton's Broadnet project under the guidance of Stephen Molyneux to deliver training materials to local SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises). In 1999, WOLF is both adopted as the University's VLE, and sold for commercial distribution to Granada Learning, who rebrand the product in partnership with the University and market it to the UK FE and HE sectors under the name Learnwise. WOLF is still in use at the University today, and undergoing continual development to meet the ever-changing needs of education.
• Nicenet ICA launched to the public
• Murray Goldberg begins development of WebCT at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, with a $45,000-grant from UBC’s Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund.
• FirstClass is named the Best General Purpose Tool/School Program by Technology & Learning magazine, 1995-1996 see [awards. http://www.softarc.com/awards/]
• Professors Michael Gage and Arnold Pizer develop the WeBWorK Online Homework Delivery System at the University of Rochester.
• Virtual Science and Mathematics Fair used static HTML pages created by children and a threaded discussion for comment posts left by judges and visitors. PhD research reported by Kevin C Facemyer, 1996.
• The Project for OnLine Instructional Support POLIS is made generally available to faculty at the University of Arizona for managing courses online.
• The Future of Networking Technologies for Learning Workshop held, sponsored by US Department of Education. "In an attempt to answer the question, "What is the future of networking technologies for learning," the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology commissioned a series of white papers on various aspects of educational networking and hosted a workshop to discuss the issues. The white papers and the workshop report are here." Proceedings published following year at http://www.ed.gov/Technology/Futures/carvin.html
• The European Commission release in May 1995 a 104-page report (http://www.pjb.co.uk/delta.pdf) describing the 30 projects commissioned under the DELTA programme of Framework 3. Several of these are concerned with online learning using what many might today call a "virtual learning environment". (The phrase is not used as such but the phrases "learning environment", "interactive learning environment" and "collaborative learning environment" are used quite frequently.)
• About the same time the JANUS project releases the JANUS Final Report describing the project over its 3-year lifetime and all the online courses it has supported during 1993-1994 across Europe (http://www.matic-media.co.uk/publications/JANUS-FINAL.DOC).
• The report Telematics for Distance Education in North America is released in public form in November 1995 after wide dissemination within European research circles. It describes the situation as it pertains to e-learning at 20 organisations including universities and most major vendors, based on a 3-week study trip in summer 1995 by Bacsich and Mason. (There is a summary at http://www.pjb.co.uk/6/visit.htm and the full report at http://www.matic-media.co.uk/publications/USTRIP.DOC).
• A short article in the LIGIS newsletter for November 1995 (http://www.pjb.co.uk/6/paul.htm) on FirstClass confirms that at the time of its writing FirstClass did not have a Web interface. (It also notes that its then rival CAUCUS did have a Web interface and that WEST, later TopClass from WBTSystems, had been recently developed.)
• WBTSystems develops TopClass, a web-based course management system. It allowed personalization in that the instructor could tailor a different version of a course for each student.
• Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC)'s Extended Learning Institute develops and delivers four math, science, and engineering courses using Lotus Notes for computer conferencing/groupware functionality. [10]
• Edward Barrett at MIT received a grant to create a prototype "Electronic Multimedia Online Textbook in Engineering" (EMOTE) for use in classes taught through the new Writing Initiative.
• WebTeach, a web-based asynchronous communication system using chronological threads in the 'Confer' style originally developed in the mid 70s by Robert Parnes, was first used in 1995 in the Professional Development Centre at UNSW. It was written in Apple's Hypercard as a CGI script running behind WebStar by Dr. Chris Hughes and Dr. Lindsay Hewson at UNSW. The 1996 versions supported a Notice Board, a Seminar Room and a Coffee Shop for each class group, and added email notifications, a Quiz function, and a range of pre-programmed communication modes that emulated small group teaching strategies including brainstorming, questioning, case studies and commitment exercises. The modes were characterised by changes in layout, font colours, and the options available to teachers and students. The software was refined in subsequent years, with additional modes, including a formal debate mode, being added. In 2002 it was completely rewritten in Cold Fusion and refined to include many more features, including private groups, voting modes and fully functional web-based administration pages. WebTeach supports an approach to teaching and learning on the web that is more akin to an asynchronous virtual classroom than it is to an instructionally designed and packaged educational experience. Communication forms the basis of the teaching (as opposed to content provision) and the teacher in a group can switch teaching strategies (modes) easily, in order to respond to student contributions.
• Many online schools appear on the educational scenes after working with Convene International. Some of them emerge as leaders of Internet Education like, Baker College and Pacific Oaks College and UCLA extension to name a few.
• The Stanford Center for Professional Development (SCPD, formerly SITN) launches Stanford Online, which "was the first university internet delivery system incorporating text and graphics with video and audio, using technology developed at Stanford."
• "Constructing Educational Courseware using NCSA Mosaic and the World Wide Web" is presented by J.K. Campbell, S. Hurley, S.B. Jones, and N.M. Stephens at the 3rd International World-Wide Web Conference in Darmstadt, Germany.
• Lee A. Newberg, Richard O. Rouse III, and John Kruper publish "Integrating the World-Wide Web and Multi-User Domains to Support Advanced Network-Based Learning Environments" in the Procedings of the World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (1995), Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, Graz, Austria.
• From May to July 1995 Georg Fuellen, Robert Giegerich and others give the "BioComputing Course" using the Electronic Conferencing system BioMOO, later winning the "Multimedia Transfer 1997" presented during the exhibition Learntec 1997.
• Work began at University of Wales, Aberystwyth in developing its integrated Remote Advisory System, a system designed to provide students with remotely sited tutors, sharing workspaces, audio and video. Supported by Internal Outlook Enterprise Funding. Published in Ratcliffe, M. B., Parker, G. R. and Price, D. E. ‘The Remote Advisory Service at Aberystwyth’, IEEE Conference on Frontiers in Education, Utah, USA, 6 pages, November 1996.

1996

• In 1996, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its third generation online distance education courses. The courses were web-based and provided through EKKO (renamed to SESAM), NKI's self-developed Learning Management System (LMS). The experiences are described in the article NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability in Morten Flate Paulsen's book Online Education and Learning Management Systems which is available online at http://www.studymentor.com
• In 1996, after hearing about the Virtual Office Hours Project developed by Prof. Craig Merlic and Matthew Walker in UCLA's Department of Biochemistry, UCLA Social Sciences reviewed it with some of the faculty and decided to try writing a custom version. The deciding factor was finding Jeff Carnahan's Upload.pl Perl CGI Script (available at Misc CGI Scripts - click on FileUploader 6.0 for free, but registration required) that did File Uploads via a web browser. With that, Matt Wright's WWWBoard, a Calendar script, later discarded, and a script written by Social Sciences Computing to edit files on the fly, there were enough tools to make something useful. Originally the plan was to have instructors fill out a web form to request a site. But due to problems getting the email to work, sites were created instantly instead. That turned out to be easier. A password was added and emailed to all the Social Sciences faculty. ClassWeb was first offered to UCLA Social Sciences Faculty in the Spring Quarter of 1997. Eight instructors set up ClassWeb sites (see Spring 1997 sites).
• The UCLA Periodontics Information Center was established in 1996 within the UCLA School of Dentisty with generous gifts from the Tarrson Family and Sun Microsystems. The initial thrust was to provide the most comprehensive website on Periodontics including Tutorials, Case Studies and Continuing Education Credits.
• European Commission agrees to the European Council's 'Learning in the Information Society' action plan.
• Webtester and ChiTester developed at Weber State University through a grant from the Utah Higher Education Technology Initiative. ChiTester early history
• MadDuck Software develops Web Course in a Box. (See this 1997 presentation)
• Doncaster College in South Yorkshire, England, submitted a bid under the "Further Education Competitiveness Fund" proposing to use the Fretwell Downing "Common Learning Environment" integrated into newsgroups, the WWW, and conferencing, all combined into an on-line learning environment. Diagram and a single paragraph from the bid, dated 4 March 1996. The full document is much more explicit, making reference to the use of email, conferencing, newsgroups for the delivery of National Vocational Qualifications and distance learning over the internet and the UK Joint Academic Network. Slides from a presentation, including diagram of the learning environment
• 8 May, 1996 - Paris, France: Murray Golberg presents paper at the 5th WWW conference, introducing WebCT - See session PS10, paper P29 - http://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW5/fich_html/paper-sessions.html. For paper, see: http://www.ra.ethz.ch/CDstore/www5/www156/overview.htm
• In January, Nat Kannan, Carl Tyson, and Michael Anderson form UOL Publishing (now VCampus) and release an Internet course delivery platform; the Java client accesses PLATO content on a CDC mainframe. In November, UOL releases a browser-based course authoring and delivery platform based on the Informix OO database. The UOL system supports multiple campuses (with "buildings" on each "campus" for the different academic functions) and enables multiple roles (admin/author/instructor/student) for every user on a course by course basis. UOL's virtual campus is adopted by Graybar Electric and the University of Texas TeleCampus (among others) in early 1997.
• Paul McKey publishes the design specifications for an "Interactive on-line Tutorial Session Model" in his Masters Thesis "The Development of the On-line Educational Institute", SCU, Australia, July 1996, http://www.redbean.com.au/articles/files/masters/06-Chapter6.html
• Daniel Cane, a sophomore at Cornell University develops the ideas for CourseInfo as part of an independent study project working with Cindy van Es, a senior lecturer in Agricultural, Resource and Managerial Economics (ARME). Early CourseInfo newspaper article.
• Electronic, network-based assignment submission tool in use at Australian National University Department of Computer Science. Web-based course pages also implemented at ANU DCS (both submission tool and course pages may have been in use prior to 1996).
• The University of Michigan launches the UMIE project (the University of Michigan Instructional Environment), a combination of systems to enhance learning online and to create a Learning Management System for use by the campus.
• University of Southern Queensland (USQ) offers its first fully online program, a Graduate Certificate in Open and Distance Learning, using a system that linked together course materials presented in web pages, online discussion via newsgroups (NNTP) and a purpose-built system for online submission of student work.
• The development of COSE was funded from September 1996 to August 1999 by the JISC Technology Applications Programme (JTAP). COSE has continued to gain support from the JISC in its work on interoperability.
• The JTAP programme also funded the Toomol project which produced the Colloquia P2P VLE, developed by Liber, Olivier, Britain and Beauvoir, which has had a major influence in the more recent development of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) concept.
• Pitsco, Inc. (See [11]) ships an updated version of its Synergistic Systems modular education curriculum which includes computer-based assessment and network-based reporting and gathering of assessment results.
• World Wide Satellite Broadcasting (WSB) Inc. develops a satellite-based distance learning system using synchronized video and audio courseware provided by UCLA. Content is delivered via Philips' CleverCast content distribution system to Windows PCs running Active Desktop via the Astro MEASAT Direct To Home (DTH) network, covering Malaysia, Thailand and India.
• The TELSI (Telematic Environment for Language Simulations) VLE is developed at the University of Oulu in Finland. Development was headed by Eric Rouselle and was continued into present day Discendum Optima.
• Marine Corps Management and Simulation Office (MCMSO) adapts DOOM II into Marine Doom, a Virtual Learning Environment for training four-man fire teams.
• KnowledgePlanet introduced the world's first Web-based Learning Management System in 1996. See - http://www.knowledgeplanet.com/inside/milestones.asp
• Stephen Downes, Jeff McLaughlin and Terry Anderson demonstrate and document the MAUD (Multi-Academic User Domain), holding a Canadian Association for Distance Education Seminar on the system, Online Teaching and Learning, January 29, 1996.
• Michigan State University'sVirtual University opened. By 1997, its fully online courses included registration, payment, quizzing, discussions, dropbox, and, of course, course content. The system was created and developed by in-house programmers. Now
• Garry Main and Kevan Gartland, University of Abertay Dundee, UK, A system (webtest) was developed and deployed for use in testing students in the School of Molecular and Life Sciences. This was later extended to allow images to be labelled, self testing and teaching. Also in use at the time was the Question Mark product. The work at Abertay was presented as a keynote talk at the BALANCE workshops KeyNote Presentations in 1997/8.
• Initial release of the ETUDES software at Foothill College, California
• Real Education founded (later changed to eCollege.com) as an LMS/CMS Application Service Provider company. (http://web.archive.org/web/19980509082136/http://realeducation.com/).
• WEST (later WBTSystems) announce in early 1996 a new release of WEST (later renamed TopClass). Among the enhancements mentioned are: support of multiple-choice tests and "fill in the blanks" questions, including choosing questions randomly from a list (question bank?); support of multiple classes with multiple content and students able to take more than one class.(http://www.pjb.co.uk/8/WEST.htm)
• The article Lotus Notes in the Telematic University written for LIGIS in September 1996 confirms that several US universities are using Lotus Notes for e-learning, including via a Web interface. It goes on to observe that "Lotus Notes already has offered for a year or more several of the groupware and Internet features that other systems like FirstClass and Microsoft Exchange are only just now getting". (http://www.pjb.co.uk/10/notes.htm).
• Another article in the same edition of LIGIS confirms that FirstClass, to the relief of many of its users, in August announced a Web interface. (http://www.pjb.co.uk/10/FirstClass.htm but see also http://www.pjb.co.uk/9/FirstClass.htm) The 304-page PDF manual for the FirstClass Intranet Client (Part Number SOF3122) is widely and freely distributed by SoftArc across many bulletin boards and web servers and remains available at several universities (e.g. at the University of Maine, a long-standing user of FirstClass.
• Not to be outdone by the UK Open University, the FernUniversitat Hagen (German OU) described its web-based virtual campus in a LIGIS article in October 1996 on University of Hagen Online by Schlageter and others. (http://www.pjb.co.uk/11/vu.htm). The project "goes beyond current approaches in that it integrates all functions of a university, thus producing a complete and homogeneous system. This does not only include all kinds of learning material delivered via electronic network (most "online university" approaches focus almost exclusively on this aspect) - but for a promising approach the following is absolutely essential: user-friendly and powerful communication, especially also between users themselves for collaborative learning (peer learning) and for social interconnecting, possibilities of group-work (cscw), seminar support, new forms of exercise and practical via net, easy access to library and administration, information and tutoring systems".
• Microsoft announces MS Exchange at Networld+Interop. An article of the era speculates on its relevance to e-learning. (http://www.pjb.co.uk/8/Exchange.htm)
• An article nominates 1996 as "the year of virtual universities". There were a large number of conferences - in particular at Ed-Media Boston there was a packed session even though organised at short notice. (http://www.pjb.co.uk/10/vu1.htm)
• WebSeminar (Gary Brown, Eric Miraglia, Doug Winther, and Information Management Group) (now retired, news release here) an interactive web-based space for integrating discussion and media rich modules.
• The Virtual Classroom (Brown, Burke and Miraglia). (retired) a web-based threaded composition environment. A WSU Boeing grant award and Microsoft, Information Management Group partnership
• Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC)'s Extended Learning Institute switches from Lotus Notes to FirstClass and uses First Class in over 35 courses during the Fall 1996 semester [12]; Sener, J. (1996), "Developing a Distance Education Engineering Program for Home-Based Learners: Lessons Learned," Journal of Instruction Delivery Systems, 10(1), Winter 1996, pp. 41-45; Sener, J. (1996), "Delivering an AS Engineering Degree Program to Home-Based Learners Using Affordable Multiple Media", Journal of Interactive Instruction Development, 9(2), Fall 1996, pp. 19-23.
• March, 1996. Allaire releases Allaire Forums, "a Web conferencing application built entirely on the ColdFusion platform. Forums provided a feature-rich server application for creating Internet, Intranet and Interprise collaborative environments. Already in use by hundreds of leading companies worldwide, Forums was the first in a new line of end-user Web applications." [13]
• Bruce Landon makes a proposal to British Columbia to set up a comparison service for VLEs, which made its first report (on nine systems) in 1997. It was first called Landonline, then later called Edutools. (http://conference.wcet.info/2003/presentations/documents/Landon.ppt)
• Element K, in order to support its eLearning solution launch "one of the market’s first and most widely used hosted LMS" (quoting from their own A Guide to Learning Management Systems
• Hermann Maurer (Graz University of Technology, Austria) publishes "LATE: A Unified Concept for a Unified Teaching and Learning Environment" in Journal of Universal Computer Science, vol. 2, no. 8 (1996), 580-595. Based on the Hyper-G/HyperWave system developed by Maurer, LATE prefigures many of the features available in virtual learning environments, including content-authoring modules, digital libraries, asynchronous and synchronous discussion, and virtual whiteboards. download here
• Technikon South Africa (TSA) now merged with the University of South Africa (Unisa) released the first version of their in-house developed online learning environment (TSA Online) in 1996. The subsequent versions (2 & 3) were renamed TSA COOL (Technikon SA CoOperative Online Learning). Version 4 was under construction when TSA and Unisa merged (See 2004). Version 3 served approximately 24 000 students at the time of the merger.
• The University of Manitoba conducts an evaluation of course management systems that includes Learning Space (University of Washington), Top Class, WebCT and ToolBook. http://www.umanitoba.ca/campus/ist/cms/webct/courseware/
• Iowa State University develops Classnet, a web-based "tightly integrated, automated class management system". It was created to help with the administrative aspects of course management.
• The Oracle Learning Architecture (OLA) is a course management system with over 75 training titles. It has the following features: Home page, bulletin board, Help, User Profile, My Courses, Course Catalog, and Reports. It served up web-based courses, download courses, vendor demos and assessments.
• Empower Corporation developed the Online Learning Infrastruture (OLI), a training management system that used a relational database as a central repository for courses and/or learning objects. It had built-in tools and templates for authoring learning objects. It also had a middleware layer called the Multimedia Learning Object Broker that mapped learning objects as they moved in and out of the database.
• TeamSpace's Learning Junction is an Internet based training management system founded by several ex-Oracle employees. It was developed in Java. The program displayed a graphical list of courses, certification plans and needed skills. Students registered online, and were given an individualized learning plan.
• The Comentor VLE starts development at the University of Huddersfield, UK. The Comentor web site indicates that a dissemination phase of the software started in 1998.
• Work was funded at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth to further develop its Integrated Project Support Environment for Teaching started in 1992. Ratcliffe, M. B., Stotter-Brooks, T. J., Bott M. F. & Whittle, B. R. ‘The TIPSE: An IPSE for Teaching’, Software Engineering Journal, 7, (5), pp 347-356, September 1992.
• Work funded at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth by the Joint Information Systems Committee Technology Applications Programme £164,000 for NEAT - Networked Expertise, Advise and Tuition. A system for students to obtain help across the Internet from tutors - sharing workspace, audio and video. Ratcliffe, M.B., Davies, T.P. & Price, G.M. ‘Remote Advisory Services: A NEAT Approach’, IEEE Multimedia, Vol 6, Issue 1, 16 pages, Jan-March 1999.

1997

• In 1997, Instructional Design for New Media – an online course on how to develop online courses was created using forums, interactive exercises and the notion of collaborative learning by a community of instructors and students. Developed by a Canadian consortium lead by Christian Blanchette (Learn Ontario) and funded by the Canadian government, it was featured in the May 1998 online newsletter NODE.
• Brandon Hall publishes the "Web-Based Training Cookbook: everything you need to know for online training" (New York: John Wiley). The book contains many examples of online training software and content already in commercial use. Brandon Hall also publishes the first of his annual reviews of Learning Management Systems, entitled "Training Management Systems: How to Choose a Program Your Company Can Live With." There are 27 learning management systems listed in this report.
• Elliott Masie publishes the second edition of the "Computer Training Handbook" (the first version was published in 1995, and co-authored by Rebekah Wolman). In this book Elliott describes teaching a pilot course via the Internet called "Training Skills for Teaching New Technology". The book also has a chapter entitled "On-line and Internet-Based Learning".
• In June, 1997, Gotham Writers' Workshop (www.writingclasses.com) launched its online division; classes feature blackboard lectures, class discussion bulletin boards, interactive chat, homework posting/individual teacher response, group assignment posting/group critique files.
• Dan Cane and Stephen Gilfus form CourseInfo and develop and release the Interactive Learning Network 1.5 product, based on a relational database and internet forms and scripts that provided quiz and survey functionality. http://www.cquest.utoronto.ca/env/aera/aera-lists/aera-c/97-11/0123.html
• The Oncourse Project at Indiana University invented the notion and design of a "template - based course management system." This design was later used by Blackboard, WebCT, and all other Course Management systems. Take a look at the old IUPUI WebLab site archived at the Archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/19990221151346/www.weblab.iupui.edu/projects/Oncourse.html
• Lotus LearningSpace deployed as the learning and student team environment for the Indiana University Accounting MBA program and reported in the proceedings of HICSS-32.
• Lotus LearningSpace presented at NERCOMP 3/24/1997: "Interactive Distributed Learning Solutions: Lotus Notes-Based LearningSpace" by Peter Rothstein, Director, Research and Development Programs, Lotus Institute.
• Plateau released TMS 2, an enterprise-class learning management system. TMS 2 was adopted by both the U.S. Air Force and Bristol-Myers Squibb at the time of its release.
• The Bodington VLE deployed at the University of Leeds, UK
• First versions of COSE deployed at Staffordshire University. COSE includes facilities for the publication and reuse of content, facilities for the creation and management of groups and sub-groups of learners by tutors and for the assignment of learning opportunities to those groups and to individual learners. For article (1997) see [14]. This article was republished in 1998 in Australia [15]. For a fuller description of work on COSE to the end of 1997 see: [16] Published mid-1998
• Ziff Davis launches ZDNet University for $4.95/month. Offering courses in programming, graphics and web management. See the Archive at Archive
• Cisco Systems In 1993, Cisco embarked on an initiative to design practical, cost-effective networks for schools. It quickly became apparent that designing and installing the networks was not enough, schools also needed some way to maintain the networks after they were up and running. Cisco Senior Consulting Engineer George Ward developed training for teachers and staff for maintenance of school networks. The students in particular were eager to learn and the demand was such that in 1997 it led to the creation of the Cisco Networking Academy Program, see Cisco networking academy. The Cisco Networking Academy Program, established in 1997, teaches students networking and other information technology-related skills, preparing them for jobs as well as for higher education in engineering, computer science and related fields. Since its launch, the program has grown to more than 10,000 Academies in 50 U.S. states and more than 150 countries with a curriculum taught in nine different languages. More than 400,000 students participate in Academies operating in high schools, colleges and universities, technical schools, community-based organizations, and other educational programs around the world. The Networking Academy program blends face-to-face teaching with web-based curriculum, hands-on lab exercises, and Internet-based assessment. Click here to learn more from Cisco Systems on how this program began, and click here for a pdf document to learn more about the program today Program History PDF.
• Fretwell Downing, based in Sheffield, England, is working on the development of a virtual learning environment, under the auspices of the "LE Club" a partnership between the company and eleven English Further Education colleges. Dr Bob Banks's outline specification for a Learning Environment. The "LE" had arisen from a 1995-1997 EU ACTS Project - Renaissance - in which Fretwell Downing was the prime contractor. (Requirements statements here and here.) Abstract of 17/9/1997 paper by Bob Banks "The Learning Environment: Holistic Support for Open and Distance Learning" [17].
• Convene International is recruited by Microsoft to become their first Education marketing partner. Convene International helps Microsoft with establishing licensing parameters for the ASP companies.
• Foundation of Blackboard Inc as consulting firm.
• WebAssign developed by faculty at North Carolina State University for the online submission of student assignments and a mechanism for immediate assessment and feedback.
• WebCT spins out of UBC forming independent company with several hundred university customers.
• Release of TWEN (The West Education Network), a system which "connects you with the most useful and current legal information and news, while helping you to organize your course information and participate in class discussions". (See archived homepage from archive.org)
• Future Learning Environment (FLE) research and development project starts in Helsinki, Finland (See: http://fle.uiah.fi)
• Stephen Downes presents Web-Based Courses: The Assiniboine Model http://www.westga.edu/~distance/downes22.html at NAWeb 1997, describing the LMS in detail.
• A collaborative writing project between Jr Hi students and University pre-teachers, using Filemaker Pro to create collaborative writing spaces, Jan-Mar, 1997, later described in Payne, J Scott and N. S. Peterson. 2000. The Civil War project: project-based collaborative learning in a virtual space. Educational Technology & Society 3(3).
• The Manhattan Project (now known as the Manhattan Virtual Classroom) is launched at Western New England College in Springfield, MA as a supplement to classroom courses in February 1997. It is later released as an open source project. The Manhattan Project (history and description)
• Delivery starts of the Learning To Teach On-Line course [18] in South Yorkshire, England. Characteristics: delivery over the Internet; materials, tasks/assignments, discussion-board. chat system all accessible by browser; browser-based amending of the materials; learners and tutors all over the world, with learners enrolled to several of the institutions in the (then) South Yorkshire Further Education Consortium, and tutors employed by several different institutions.
• An undergraduate software development course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill included a team addressing the problem of Distance Education. The purpose was to allow interaction between students and instructors located in remote sites by utilizing a computer network, such as the internet. Included in the software requirements were a linked web-browser system, a synchronized blackboard application, and a student/instructor chat tool. There were two levels of access, separately for the instructor and for the students. The simple software suite was accomplished in the spring semester of 1997.
• The Web Project at California State University, Northridge, adapted HyperNews, a shareware discussion board that created specific courses with faculty and students. In addition, QuizMaker from the University of Hawaii, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC), were shortly thereafter added to the shareware suite and indexed to faculty webpages. The Virtual 7 were seven faculty who began to teach online in 1997, with this software.
• University of Aberdeen starts a project to research and evaluate web-based course management and communication tools. Project notes are available, including the original administrator guides for TopClass v.1.2.2b, October 1997 (PDF). Aberdeen ultimately chooses WebCT, and rolls out a live system in 1998.
• Pioneer developed by MEDC (University of Paisley) Pioneer was an online learning environment developed initially for colleges in Scotland. Pioneer was web-based and featured: online course materials (published by the lecturers themselves); integral email to allow communications between students and tutors; forum tools; chat tools; timeatable/calendar; activities. The main driver for Pioneer was Jackie Galbraith. When MEDC was closed, the Pioneer development team moved to SCET in 1998 taking Pioneer with them when it became SCETPioneer. SCETPioneer was used by Glasgow Colleges and a number of other colleges and schools in Scotland. SCET merged with the SCCC and became Learning and Teaching Scotland
• Bob Jensen and Petrea Sandlin republish "Electronic Teaching and Learning: Trends in Adapting to Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Networks in Higher Education" - first published 1994, text of both versions available via hyperlink.
• Speakeasy Studio and Café (Gary Brown, Travis Beard, Dennis Bennett, Eric Miraglia, and others) (now retired, but many references remain on WSU websites, e.g, these) a course delivery system hosted by Washington State University and used on multiple campuses for web-based discussion and collaborative writing.
• The Cougar Crystal Ball (Gary Brown, Randy Lagier, Peg Collins, Greg Turner & Lori Eveleth-Baker and others). an online learning profile and corresponding university resource inventory, implements ideas related to selective release of material based on learner preparedness.
• The WSU OWL (Online Writing Lab) (Gary Brown, Eric Miraglia, Greg Turner Rahman, Jessie Wolf, & Dennis Bennett) (still in use at WSU and by others) an interactive forum for peer tutoring in writing (WSU Boeing grant award), involves a simple threaded discussion.
• The VIRTUS project at University of Cologne, Germany, has started the development of the web-based ILIAS learning management system in 1997. A first version with an integrated web-based authoring environment has been going online at November 02, 1998. In 2000 ILIAS became open source software under the GPL.
• Serf was invented at the University of Delaware by Dr. Fred Hofstetter during the summer of 1997. Initially used to deliver the U.S.'s first PBS TeleWEBcourse (on Internet Literacy), Serf has been used to deliver hundreds of courses. Serf "began as a self-paced multimedia learning environment that enabled students to navigate a syllabus, access instructional resources, communicate, and submit assignments over the Web," and the Serf feature set was expanded from 1997-99 as described in this article (from College & University Media Review (Fall, 1999), 99-123), which includes a detailed table describing the history of Serf's feature development for versions 1 through 3.
• University of Maryland University College (UMUC) offers its first classes using WebTycho, a customized "program developed by UMUC to facilitate course delivery via the World Wide Web." [19]
• Paul McKey launches BigTree Online, a commercial, integrated online learning environment for managing the Apple Certification program in Asia Pacific. Built with FileMaker Pro from a model first described in his Masters Thesis in 1996 - http://www.redbean.com.au/articles/files/masters/06-Chapter6.html
• Saba (http://www.saba.com) founded. Now one of the pre-eminent corporate learning management systems.
• FutureMedia (established in 1982) commenced the development of Solstra with BT Group PLC, launching the first version of the product in February 1998. (Annual report for 2001 to SEC - http://www.futuremedia.co.uk/media/20030612102839.pdf)
• (March 1997) Oleg Liber presents his paper "Viewdata and the World Wide Web: Information or Communication" at CAL 97 at the University of Exeter, England. In it he looks back to the use of videotex in education in the 1980s and forward to a more communications-oriented Web - what we would call Web 2.0 these days - but this was 9 years ago. The paper is worthy of note since Liber is still active in e-learning and as one of the few papers dealing with history of e-learning.
• Formal Systems Inc. of Princeton, NJ, USA introduces an internet version of its Assessment Management System, which started as a DOS program in 1990. (In 2000, Formal Systems changed its name to Pedagogue Solutions).
• Educom's IMS Design Requirements released in document dated December 19,1997.
• Teaching in the switched-on classroom: An introduction to electronic education and HyperCourseware is published online by Kent Norman at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD: Laboratory for Automation Psychology.
• Bob Godwin-Jones and Sue Polyson give a presentation at EDUCOM '97 entitled "Tools for Creating and Managing Interactive Web-based Learning". The presentation compared the features of Web Course in a Box and TopClass. The slides for the presentation are still available online.
• The MadDuck Technologies web site listed the many distinctive features of the Web Course in a Box course management system.
• A online column by Tom Creed called "The Virtual Companion" lists a number of course management systems including Web Course in a Box, WebCT, Nicenet, NetForum, and WebCT.
• Virtual-U, a course management system for universities, was developed at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in British Columbia, Canada. A design paper Virtual-U Development Plan: Issues and Process dated 25 June 1997 gives a clear description including screen shots. By early 1998 the system was deployed in a number of universities and colleges across Canada, including SFU, Laval, Douglas College, McGill, University of Winnipeg, University of Guelph, University of Waterloo, and Aurora College. (Source: The Peak, Simon Fraser University's Student Newspaper, Volume 98, Issue 6 February 16, 1998.)
• A press release dated March 10, 1997 announced that "DLJ’s Pershing Division Aligns with Princeton Learning Systems and KnowledgeSoft to Create On-line University". Knowledgesoft's LOIS (Learning Organization Information System) was described by Brandon Hall, in his book The Web-based Training Cookbook (New York: John Wiley, 1997), as an "innovative Web-based training administration tool." It had three core modules: a competency management system, an assessment system, and a training management system.
• The University of Lincoln and Humberside (ULH) in the UK (later the University of Lincoln) begins development of its "Virtual Campus" software, which was later incorporated into a spin-out company called Teknical, which in 2003 was bought by Serco. Historical references seem fragmentary but some indication of the date of origin is contained in the overview material on the joint SRHE/Lincolnconference on 'Managing Learning Innovation' which took place on 1st & 2nd September 97 at the University. Substantial funding came from BP as noted in an old web page of the former Learning Development Unit at ULH.
• Two key papers on Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) are published: a Kuhn paper on separation of duty; necessary and sufficient conditions for separation safety - and an Osborn paper (in PostScript) on the relationship between RBAC and multilevel security mandatory access (MLS/MAC) security policy models; role lemma relating RBAC and multilevel security.
• Al Seagren and Britt Watwood present "The Virtual Classroom: What Works?" at the Annual International Conference of the Chair Academy. Reno, NV. See ERIC Document Reproduction Service No.ED407029. This presentation reviewed two years of the use of Lotus Notes as a learning management system in a masters and doctoral level education degree from the University of Nebraska.
• July 1997: The Report of the National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education, usually called the Dearing Report, is published in the UK. Many of its recommendations were influential not only in the development of e-learning but in the development ot the national-level support structures for it, including leading eventually to the Higher Education Academy. The report web site is maintained by the University of Leeds.

1998

• In August 11, 1998 Indiana University, IUPUI Campus, issued a press release “Prototype for Web-based Teaching and Learning Environment to be Tested at IUPUI This Year“ http://web.archive.org/web/19990222013218/www.weblab.iupui.edu/projects/oncourseNR.html
• Ucompass.com is founded on July 23, 1998 and begins marketing its Educator Course Management System.
• CourseWork, a web-based, problem set manager, was developed by the at Stanford University's Learning Lab. It formed the core of the CourseWork CMS. This version supported authoring, distribution, completion, and reviewing of automatically graded assigments by students and instructors.
• Humboldt State University's Courseware Development Center builds the ExamMaker application for online testing. ExamMaker supports banks of questions, which may include audio and/or video segments, that may be true/false, fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, or essay. Essay questions are emailed to the teacher for grading, then sent back to ExamMaker to display the graded essays to the students. ExamMaker grades all other types of questions and provides the student immediate feedback as soon as the exam is completed, including an explanation of the correct answers, and automatically posts the grade. Full Description:ASSURED STUDENT ACCESS TO COMPUTING AND THE NETWORK
• On June 1, 1998, a paper describing a web based Peer Review and Assessment tool developed by the Courseware Development Center at Humboldt State University was presented at the 1998 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition: Engineering Education Contributing to U.S. Competitiveness. The Peer Review was a set of web forms that enabled students to upload documents, review each other's work, and for an instructor to review and grade student's uploaded work. More.
• On November 02, 1998, the web-based learning management system ILIAS is gone online at University of Cologne. Within one year more than 30 courses have been created and published for blended learning in economics, business administration and social sciences.
• In the spring of 1998 TeLeTOP, a set of fill-in forms on top of Lotus Domino, saw the light at Twente University, The Netherlands. It was not the first ELO that was used there, but it was the first one where teachers themselves could create a course without any ICT knowledge. Core of this product was and is the central task-scheme ("The Rostar"), where the teacher could create a row of activities for each week. (Typical activity set: before the session, during the session and after the session you must do...) A demo course has been available online since 1998. You still can login with UN: docent.test and PW: docent.test. (A historical perspective on TELETOP can for example be found in the article by Collis and others at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/learningandteaching/eUniCompendium_chap05.pdf.)
• On 5/14/98, Indiana University ARTI receives a "Disclosure of Invention" for the Oncourse (case #9853) describing the invention of a comprehensive course management system by Ali Jafari and his WebLab developers, a comprehensive CMS system with message board, announcement, chat, syllabus, etc. including the dynamic method of creating courses for students and faculty based on the data from the campus SIS system.
• The Cisco Networking Academy Management System (CNAMS) is released to facilitate communication and course management of the largest blended learning initiative of its time, the Cisco Networking Academy. It includes tools to maintain rosters, gradebooks, forums, as well as a scalable, robust assessment engine. Cisco Networking Academy Program.
• The Advanced Information Technology Lab at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis piloted Oncourse. (A description of the initial software was published in 1999 in The Journal.)
• Nicenet Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA2) is launched with web-based conferencing, personal messaging, document sharing, scheduling and link/resource sharing to a variety of learning environments. See their website
• DiscoverWare, Inc. builds and begins to deploy its "Nova" course management system, involving a client/server architecture to deploy rich interactive content in a desktop application, and storing/sharing information on content, users, courses, and quizzes on a central server. This was an adaptive LMS, in that quizzes were generated based on the user's progress through the content, and courses were generated based on the user's responses to a quiz. The playback engine evolved a browser-based version that was SCORM Level 2 Compliant, enabling deployment of DiscoverWare content in third-party LMS such as Pathware.
• Public release of EDUCOM/NLII Instructional Management Systems Specifications Document Version 0.5 (April 29, 1998), produced by an IMS Technical Team including Steve Griffin (COLLEGIS Research Institute), Andy Doyle (International Thomson Publishers), Bob Alcorn (Blackboard), Brad Cox (George Mason University), Frank Farance (Farance Inc), John Barkley (NIST), Ken Schweller (Buena Vista University), Kirsten Boehner (COLLEGIS Research Institute), Mike Pettit (Blackboard), Neal Nored (IBM), Tom Rhodes (NIST), Tom Wason (UNC), Udo Schuermann (Blackboard). Available as PDF, with many diagrams blank, from http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/458919.html.
• Blackboard Inc merges with CourseInfo a corporation created by Cornell University to acquire its core course management software.
• The Instructional Technology Group at Yale University http://www.yale.edu puts the "Classes" system into production for Fall semester. (A copy of the original site is captured in the Internet Archive for Spring of '99 (http://web.archive.org/web/19990128183756/http://classes.yale.edu/))
• WebTestr [20] built and deployed by Nicholas Crosby at SIAST [www.siast.sk.ca].
• Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd (now part of Tribal Group plc) builds a pilot web-based learning environment for use in delivering accredited courses in internet skills (information retrieval, web design and online collaboration) in the UK. ( Partial details, dated 30/12/1997.) The learning environment is a contribution to the work of the Living IT consortium, which includes The Sheffield College and Manchester College or Arts and Technology as well as Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd, and which had been delivering these courses since 1997. (In 1999, the company demonstrates this learning environment as part of its successful tender to build a larger, more sophisticated learning environment for learndirect, which was subsequently used by hundreds of thousands of learners in England and Wales.)
• Teemu Leinonen and Hanni Muukkonen publish a paper on Future Learning Environment - Innovative Methods and Applications for Collaborative Learning.
• Future Learning Environment (FLE) reserarch and development project releases the first version of FLE software. The FLE software is afterwards known as Fle3.
• The survey article "Embedding computer conferencing in university teaching" (Mason and Bacsich) is published in Computers and Education, Volume 30, Number 3, April 1998, pp. 249-258. This describes experiences with using CoSy and FirstClass in online learning at the Open University in the period up to 1995. (Article available online e.g. via Ingenta.)
• CU Online, the virtual campus of the University of Colorado, is described in an online article by Terri Taylor Straut (http://www.pjb.co.uk/16-17/CU.htm) first presented in 1997 at the FLISH97 conference in Sheffield, UK. CU Online uses the LMS from Real Education, later eCollege.com.
• Virtual U, "a Web Based Environment Customised to Support Collaborative Learning and Knowledge Building", is described in an online article by Linda Harasim, Tom Calvert and others (http://www.pjb.co.uk/16-17/virtualU.htm) also first presented at FLISH97. The paper makes it clear that development of Virtual-U has been under way since 1994.
• CTLSilhouette (Gary Brown Randy Lagier, Peg Collins, Josh Yeidel, Greg Turner & Lori Eveleth-Baker). (Still in use) (Help manual) an online survey and automated response generator. Allows authors to use create custom question types in additional to questions made by wizard. Lacks scoring and feedback features of online test/quiz. CTLSilhouette powers The TLT Group's Flashlight Online system, which includes the Flashlight Current Student Inventory item bank, a useful tool for evaluations of Virtual Learning Environments and scholarship of teaching and learning by instructors.
• NextEd founded by its CEO Terry Hilsberg in 1998 to deliver global e-learning from bases in Hong Kong and Australia. Its first prominent university client/partner was the University of Southern Queensland, a major Australian distance learning provider. (http://www.nexted.com/)
• Paul McKey joins NextEd as a foundation employee and CTO and begins development of an online learning management system first described in his Masters Thesis "The Development of the On-line Educational Institute", SCU, Australia, July 1996, http://www.redbean.com.au/articles/files/masters/06-Chapter6.html
• In September 1998 the Computer Science department at RMIT University, Australia (http://www.rmit.edu.au/csit) began delivering its online courses with Serf (http://serfsoft.com/). Over 10,000 Open University Australia (http://www.open.edu.au/wps/portal) student enrollments used Serf’s comprehensive LMS features until 2004 when RMIT’s corporate Blackboard was phased in. During this period, Serf versions 1 to 3 hosted 13 ugrad CS courses, 5 pgrad CS courses and 3 continuously repeating, short IT courses.
• September 1998: The EU SCHEMA project (the web site is still extant at http://www.schema.stir.ac.uk/ - full marks to Stirling University) releases via the Oulu team a "State of the art" review specification on CMC techniques applicable to open and distance learning (Deliverable D5.1). This includes a feature and architectural comparison of FirstClass, LearningSpace, TopClass and WebCT. It also describes a desired system Proto. There is a full discussion of roles. The diagrams are particularly informative. (http://www.stir.ac.uk/schema/deliverables/d5.3.pdf).
• In May 1998, Interlynx Multimedia, Inc. of Toronto, received a contract to develop a learning management system for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The LMS, designed by Dr. Gary Woodill and Dr. Karen Anderson was built in Microsoft ASP. It included a rudimentary authoring system that allowed HTML pages and multiple choice questions to be built and posted online. The generic code for this LMS became the PROFIS LMS, which was then licenced to several other corporations. Later Operitel Corporation of Peterborough acquired the rights to this LMS which was then renamed LearnFlex. This software is in version 5.5, and Gary Woodill is now the Chief Learning Officer of Operitel Corp.
• The Aircraft Industry CBT Committee (AICC) certifies web-based Pathware 3 as its "First Instructional Management Product".
• Asymetrix (later becoming Click2Learn and then SumTotal) buys Meliora Systems' software for learning management called Ingenium, and merges it with its own learning management product, Toolbook II Librarian, a training management and administration system used with an Oracle, MS SQL Server or other ODBC database. Authoring is done either through Asymetrix' Toolbook II Instructor, Toolbook II Assistant, or through Asymetrix IconAuthor.
• In October 1998, CoursePackets.com is founded by Alan Blake, a University of Texas at Austin student, with the goal of posting course packs online.
• By the end of 1998, Indiana University's Oncourse system had grown to support some 9,000 students.
• WebDAV gave a standard method of uploading documents. It was already described in publications in 1998. E.g. WEBDAV: IETF Standard for Collaborative Authoring on the Web IEEE Internet Computing, September/October 1998, pages 34-40 and Collaborative Authoring on the Web: Introducing WebDAV Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 25, No. 1, October/November, 1998, pages 25-29.
• By May 1998, a number of course management systems and collaborative environments were available. These systems included CyberProf, a course management system from the University of Illinois; Mallard 3.0, a course management system from the University of Illinois; netLearningPlace, a collaborative environment for teaching and learning; PlaceWare, software for live presentations; POLIS, a system from the University of Arizona; The Learning Manager (TLM), from Campus America, Inc.; Toolbox II from Asymetrix Corporation; TopClass, from WBT Systems; Virtual Classroom Interface (VCI), from the University of Illinois; Virtual Object Interactive Classroom Environment (VOICE), a graphic MOO; Web Course in a Box, developed at Virginia Commonwealth University; WebCT, from the University of British Columbia; Web Instructional Services Headquarters (WISH), from Penn State University; and Web Lecture System (WLS), a web lecturing system from North Carolina State University.(Source: Distance Learning Environments Feature List, University of Iowa, last updated May 13, 1998)

1999

• Fronter, a European software company, launches its environment for web based collaboration. During 1999 to 2001, the system is implemented by the majority of Norwegian higher education institutions and used as their platform for learning and collaboration.
• In January, 1999 CoursePackets.com goes live, serving dozens of courses at the University of Texas at Austin. The service allowed for the posting of course packs online at a substantial discount over the cost of printed materials. By May, 1999, CoursePackets.com begins work on a courseware system for launch in January, 2000. The courseware system is comparable to Blackboard, and actively marketed as "CourseNotes.com" beginning in the summer of '99.
• September 1999: The IEEE magazine Web-based Learning and Collaboration publishes A Framework for Online Learning: The Virtual-U, describing the history of the Virtual-U system from its inception in 1993. There are screen shots and descriptions. In particular it has a "user interface that gives instructors or moderators the ability to easily set up collaborative groups and define structures, tasks, and objectives". Further, system administrators have tools to help in "creating and maintaining accounts, defining access privileges, and establishing courses on the system".
• In October of 1999, The UCLA School of Dentistry Media Center and Dr. Glenn Clark, develop an Internet-based authoring tool, labeled Integrated Internet Courseware (iic), which provides DDS students simulation modules for diagnosis and treatment planning of patients across a large breadth of possible medical conditions as well as access to lecture notes, exam reviews, course supplements and faculty contact information. Users are presented access to virtual patients based on class, previous coursework and patient/dentist activity within the system. The project was described in the Journal of Dental Education in 1999 (Clark GT, Carnahan J, Masson P and Watanabe, T. Case-Based Courseware for Distance Learning. J. Dent Educ. 63:71 (#191) 1999).
• In October 1999 Liber and Britain publish A Framework for Pedagogical Evaluation of Virtual Learning Environments (MS Word file), a study for the United Kingdom Joint Information Systems Committee evaluating 12 different VLEs in detail. The report contains a schematic of a prototypical VLE, comprising 15 generic functionalities, and describes each of these functionalities in turn. There is a narrative description of each of the evaluated VLEs, and a comparative table summarising which features each provides.
• The Oncourse Project invented and introduced the notion of “Enterprise Course management system” where data from the Student Information System (SIS) was used to automatically and dynamically create CMS course site for all the courses offered at the IUPUI Campus (more than 6,000 courses offered to more than 27,000 students). http://www.aace.org/PUBS/webnet/v1no4/Vol._1_No._4_Jafari.pdf
• Martin Dougiamas trials early prototypes of Moodle at Curtin University of Technology, built during 1998 and 1999. This paper "Improving the effectiveness of tools for Internet based education" published in January 2000 details one case study and includes screenshots.
• The LON-CAPA project is started at Michigan State University.
• Desire2Learn is founded.
• The University of Michigan launches CourseTools, originally a product of the UMIE project (launched in 1996), and moved into its own development and production team due to the scale and scope of the LMS being launched and created.
• The Omnium Project based at The College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales ran its first global creative studio project online for 50 design students from 11 countries. See references below:
  • Outline, the CTIAD journal (ISSN 1365-4349) - issue 9: Winter 1999/2000 - pp.17-24
  • ECi - Education Communication and Information (ISSN 1463-631X (print) /ISSN 1470-6725 (online)/01/010103-01) (DOI 10.1080/14636310120048074) - Volume 1, Number 1: May 1, 2001 - pp.103-103 - Online article
  • Monument (ISSN 1320-1115) - Number 36: June/July 2000 - pp.54-57 and included CD-ROM - PDF copy of article
  • IdN - International Designers Network - Volume 7, Number 1: January 2000 - pp.49-51 - PDF copy of article
  • Omnium website - History
• September 1999 - The brand new Technical University of British Columbia admits its first students. Their 'Course Management System' is a home-grown system with 2+ years of development behind it at this point.
• WebCT purchased by Universal Learning Technology. Roughly 1000 campuses using WebCT by end of year.
• "Courseware Accessibility Study" published, evaluating 7 online courseware systems for their accessibility.
• Stephen Downes publishes Web-Based Courses: The Assiniboine Model in the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration.
• The University of South Australia launches its web-based online learning platform, UniSAnet in March 1999. UniSAnet was developed over 9 months in 1998 and 1999, following a paper to its Academic Board in May 1998.
• Wolfgang Appelt and Peter Mambrey publish a paper on using BSCW as a virtual learning environment.
• ETUDES 2.3 released. ETUDES 2.5 is released in December. The system is used at several community colleges in California, including Foothill, LasPositas, and Miracosta.
• "Practical Know How: Distance Education and Training over the Internet" (Jissen Nouhau Inta-netto de Enkaku Kyouiku/Kenshuu) by Douyama Shinichi published in April, 1999 by NTT publishing. ISBN 4-7571-0016-7. "It would seem easy to begin distance learning and distance education over the Internet, as an extension of (conventional) distance learning. When it comes to teaching several hundred students in this way, there are a number of problems still to be resolved at this time. In this book we will consider, the selection of teaching materials, making online contents, management methods, and introduce concrete practical know how with good cost performance and lots of practical advice." Chapter one details the trial of an Internet distance learning system, from sending out invitations to graduation.
• Sheffield company Fretwell Downing is marketing its "LE" (Learning Environment) product. September 1999 product overview.
• Washington State University publishes online a comparison of 24 VLE's, focusing on 8 that were considered candidates for adoption at WSU. (Note: Only the final draft survives in the archives.)
• Thorough "Comparison of Online Course Delivery Software Products" published by Marshall University - with stated last update of 1 October 1999 - examining in detail the features and functionalities of 16 mainly US and Canadian systems. Marshall University web site version Wayback Machine version
• The Bridge (Gary Brown, Mathew Shirey, Dennis Bennett, Greg Turner-Rahman). (now retired, but available available read-only) a course management system with sub-spaces for teams that empowers students to create resource objects (threaded discussion, file upload, web links, notes, and quizzes) in the course.
• Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC)'s Extended Learning Institute (ELI) begins using Allaire Forums for web-based conferencing in a variety of online/distance courses. [21]
• University of Maryland University College (UMUC)'s unveils Version 2.0 of its customized WebTycho program with a new interface design. Through Fall 1999, UMUC has installed WebTycho servers on three continents and served over 26,000 students and faculty in over 1,000 WebTycho courses. [22]
• In spring 1999 the development of the open source LMS OLAT was initiated by Sabina Jeger, Franziska Schneider and Florian Gnägi to support a tutoring course with 900 students at University of Zurich. The system was put into production in fall 1999 where the 900 students registered to 25 classes that were coached by older students. This first version of OLAT was built on LAMP technology. Later, the system was completely rebuilt on J2EE technology to support the e-learning needs of a whole campus.
• IBM's Lotus group buys Macromedia's Pathware 4 learning management system. This LMS is later merged into the Lotus Learning Space LMS. For article on the purchase, see here.
• Isopia (founded actually in 1998) entered the e-Learning landscape in 1999 with the launch of its Integrated Learning Management System (ILMS), its Web-based infrastructure software. Built on Enterprise Java Beans, Isopia claimed to be "a flexible, open system that allows for massive scalability and adapts to a variety of learning needs and rapidly-growing user communities". Isopia certainly rapidly grew in clients and deals (e.g. see the industry testimonials to its feature list from 1999 and early 2000 at http://www.isopia.com/the_industry/sys.html) until being bought by Sun Microsystems in 2001. (http://trends.masie.com/archives/2001/07/_updates_on_lea_11.html)
• Knowledge Navigators International releases its third version of LearningEngine as MyLearningPlace [Plain English summary http://www.halrichman.com/docs/knavi_summary_990920.doc; detailed spec - http://www.halrichman.com/docs/MLP_WhitePaper_5.05a.doc]. Used by the United Nations Development Programme for several years for world-wide commnunities of practice and adopted by large architectural firm in CA. Company closed in 2001. New incarnation of software lives as www.coachingplatform.com.
• "First Annual WebCT Conference on Learning Technologies" takes place at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada from June 17-18. Tim Barker presents a paper "Community Based Virtual Learning: A WebCT Physics Course" comparing three VLEs (WebCT, Topclass and Learning Space) plus Eventware (web annotations & chat), Ceilidh & Tree of Knowledge (discussion boards), Netmeeting (Whiteboard, chat etc.), Inspiration (Concept Mapping) & Composer/Writers Assistant (scaffolds writing process). Additionally Tim proposes integrating a Learning Companion.
• December 5, 1999: Randy Graebner's proposal for his master's thesis, Online Education Through Shared Resources.
• The BENVIC project started in late 1999 and ran for two years. Its aim was to benchmark the various virtual campuses (i.e. university-level distance e-learning services) operating across Europe. The BENVIC web site contains several useful outcomes. The project became quiescent in early 2002. It represented a move beyond benchmarking VLEs to benchmarking e-learning at a higher level, i.e. the services which the VLEs underpinned.
• Dennis Tsichritzis of the University of Geneva publishes "Reengineering the University" (Communications of the ACM Vol. 42 , Issue 6, June 1999). One reviewer observes "This is a must-read article for academics" but later cautions that "most traditional college students, particularly in the US, do not have the self-discipline to adjust to the educational environment Tsichritzis describes."

2000s

2000

• CourseNotes.com, which had been marketed since the summer of '99, launches in early 2000, with dozens of classes at the University of Texas at Austin. The service provides comprehensive professor web sites, including virtually all features offered by Blackboard (i.e., course documents, calendaring, grades, quizzes & surveys, announcements, etc.) and is later renamed ClassMap. The company was operational until early 2001.
• January 2000: Lamp and Goodwin of Deakin University publish "Using Computer Mediated Communications to Enhance the Teaching of Team Based Project Management" (conference presentation copyright 1999), an evaluation of a trial of FirstClass to teach project management at Deakin in 1998-99. It contains the memorable observation "There were some comments about features which students believed that FirstClass didn't have (eg email, chat sessions on demand) when, in fact, they were available facilities..." (http://lamp.infosys.deakin.edu.au/pubs/acis99cmc.pdf) Note also that there are several specifications of pre-2000 versions of FirstClass available (usually as PDF files at university sites) on the web.
• January 2000: ILIAS, which has been developed at University of Cologne since 1997, has become open source software under the GPL (first release: ILIAS 1.6). Together with developers from other universities in Northrhine-Westfalia the ILIAS team founded the CampusSource initiative to promote the development of opnen source LMS and other software for teaching at universities.
• May, 2000: ArsDigita, a Boston Massachusetts based start-up who developed the Arsdigita Community System since their inception in 1997 deploys Caltech Portals at my.caltech.edu [23]. Later that year in October 2000, deploy the ArsDigita Community Education System (ACES) at MIT Sloan School. The system is called Sloanspace [24]. The ArsDigita Community System as well as ACES in the next few years grow to OpenACS and .LRN

• May 1, 2000: Randy Graebner's master's thesis from MIT is published, Online Education Through Shared Resources.
• Courseware Accessibility Study User based study looks at the accessibility of six VLEs
• Mid June, Reda Athanasios, President of Convene International leaves Convene to form Learning Technology Partners. Now that the Virtual classroom idea is well established, what is needed next is to build all the other supporting technologies to turn the Virtual Classroom to a Virtual Campus with SMS and e-commerce support, he claims. Learning Technology Partners seeks to build technologies to support the Virtual Classroom.
• June 30, 2000: Blackboard Inc. application for patent is filed. Patent claim covers a number of features of VLEs, including network-based architecture, course and role based access via login, electronic assignment submission, online assessment, synchronous and asynchronous communications, and self-registration.
• Blackboard Inc. acquires MadDuck Technologies LLC, developers of "Web Course in a Box".
• ETUDES 2.5 is demonstrated in March at TechEd 2000 in Palm Springs, California. At or prior to this release, ETUDES included a number of features of VLEs, including course and role based access via login, electronic assignment submission, online assessment, and synchronous and asynchronous communications. The system is in use by a number of community colleges in California, including Foothill, Miracosta, and Las Positas.
• * "The Political Economy of Online Education" (Onrain Kyouiku no Seijikeizaigaku) by Kimura Tadamasa was published in May, with the rubric "this book examines the role of secondary education in the new information society, from a a variety of perspectivies - socialogy, psychology, and human resource management - using concrete examples of online education in educational environments." ISBN 4-7571-4017-7. NTT publishing. Tokyo. (Japanese).
• The MIT Sloan School of Management launches the first production version of ACES 3.4 with a pilot of 8 Fall 2000 classes.
• Northern Virginia Community College's Extended Learning Institute begins using Blackboard after having previously used a variety of other products for Internet-based course delivery, including Lotus Notes (1995), FirstClass (1996-1999), Serf (1997-1999), and Allaire Forums (1999ff.) for its engineering degree program and other courses [25]; NVCC also used WebBoard (1999ff) and Web Course in a Box (1998ff), prior to beginning its use of Blackboard. (Sener, J. Bringing ALN into the Mainstream: NVCC Case Studies. In: Bourne, J. and Moore, J. (Eds.), Online Education: Learning Effectiveness, Faculty Satisfaction, and Cost Effectiveness, Volume 2. Needham, MA: Sloan Center for OnLine Education, 7-30, 2001.)
• In fall 2000 the open source LMS OLAT developed at University of Zurich won the MeDiDa-Prix [26] for its paedagogical concept. It was optimized to support a blended learning concept.
• In May 2000, HEFCE, the Higher Education Funding Council for (universities in) England, commissions a comparative analysis of the main VLEs, as part of a series of studies for the imminent UK e-University. Over 40 specially-created vendor submissions mostly delivered by 17 June 2000 are analysed by a team led by Paul Bacsich. A companion study analsyed what were then called Learning Administration Systems, in a team comprising Christopher Dean, Oleg Liber, Sandy Britain and Bill Olivier. Final reports were delivered in September 2000. (The reports were not published until September 2004 - see

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/learningandteaching/eUniCompendium_chap16.DOC and http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/learningandteaching/eUniCompendium_chap18.DOC and http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/learningandteaching/eUniCompendium_chap22.DOC .)

• Webster & Associates / Infosentials Ltd launches learningfast.com in first half of year. Complete course based assessment, with separate user and administrator logins. Users, on login, are provided with a list of courses that matches their subscription level. Subsequently sold to Monash University.
• (November 2000) Element K describe in their A Guide to e-Learning Systems the main features of their proposed LMS v2.0 being jointly developed with Isopia (see pages 14-20 for an interesting architectural diagram and list of features).
• A MANUAL FOR STUDENTS IN WEB-BASED COURSES: WHAT DO YOU DO NOW THAT THEY HAVE GONE TO THE WEB? was published online by Kent Norman at the University of Maryland, College Park, Laboratory for Automation Psychology.
• The Claroline project was initiated in 2000 at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) by Thomas De Praetere and was financially supported by the Louvain Foundation.

2001

• CourseWork.Version I (CW), a full-featured course management system, was developed at Stanford University's Academic Computing. CW supported multiple courses allowing multiple roles for users. CW's was comprised of a set of tools for authoring and distributing course websites that incluced: a course homepage, announcements, syllabus, schedule, course materials, assignments (based on a 1998 version of CW), gradebook and assync discussion. This version was initially developed as part of the Open Knowledge Initiative, partially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
• Microsoft releases Microsoft Encarta Class Server (See Press Release)
• The Bodington system released as open source by the University of Leeds, UK
• Moodle is published via CVS to early testers The announcement is here.
• LON-CAPA is first used in courses at Michigan State University.
• version 2.0 of COSE is launched after further funding from the JISC
• The MIT Sloan School of Management adopts ACES 3.4 (internally named SloanSpace) as their course management system.
• Brandon Hall publishes an article in ASTD's "Learning Circuits", entitled LMS 2001. It lists 59 learning management systems available that year.
• Thinking Cap, the first XML LMS / LCMS launched. Separation of content from presentation allows for single source creation of training content.
• ILIAS 2.0 released in August.
• PTT launches the first commercial version of its Trainee Records Management System (TRMS).
• August 2001: the Pedagogy Group of the UK e-University (UKeU) started work on development of what eventually became (in 2003) the UKeU learning environment. An "e-University Functional Model" was created in October 2001 but specification work continued well into 2002. See the UKeU Overview, especially Section 3, for a description of the early days of UKeU.

2002

• Microsoft release Class Server 3.0 on June 6th Press release
• ATutor first public Open Source release in December ATutor Release News
• Moodle version 1.0 released in August
• Fle3 version 1.0 released in February - the first Open Source version of FLE software
• The MIT Sloan School of Management migrates ACES to OpenACS 4.0, thereby creating the first instance of .LRN (1.0).
• The Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies at the University of Cambridge deploys CamCommunities, an open-source community system (OpenACS) based on .LRN, for use on campus.
• July, Reda Athanasios of Learning Technology Partners buys his old company Convene and instantly gains two data centers and IZIO the Learning Platform developed in Stanford and purchased later by Convene.
• Start of the OLAT rebuilt project. The goal of this project was to rebuilt the LAMP based LMS on a scalable, save and fast J2EE based architecture that supports campus wide e-learning.
• ILIAS open source team started to redesign the system and to develop ILIAS 3.
• November 2002: OpenText announce the acquisition of Centrinity, the then owners of FirstClass - see the press release of 1 November.
• December 2002: ACODE, the Australasian Council on Open, Distance and E-Learning, continues under a new name the work of a series of earlier organisations originating with NCODE in 1993. See the history of ACODE.

2003

• LON-CAPA version 1.0 released in August (in use at 12 universities, 2 community colleges and 8 high scools)
• December 2003: Serco Group acquires Teknical, the VLE company spun out of the University of Lincoln.

2004

• The Sakai Project founded, promising to develop an open source Collaboration and Learning Environment for the needs of higher education.
• Public release of Dokeos open-source VLE, which is a fork of Claroline.
• OLAT 3.0 released. This is the first OLAT release that is entirely written in Java as a result of the OLAT rebuild project initiated in 2002.
• First stable ILIAS 3 release published in June..
• In July ILIAS is certified officially by ADL CO-Lab as SCORM 1.2 compliant. ILIAS is the first free software LMS that reaches the maximum conformance level LMS-RTE3.
• University of South Africa (Unisa) and Technikon South Africa (TSA) merged on 1 January 2004. The functionality of their two in-house developed CMSs (Unisa SOL and TSA COOL) was combined into a new system called "myUnisa" . myUnisa is built within the Sakai framework. The new myUnisa infrastructure was launched on 9 January 2006. By August 2006 myUnisa was one of the largest installs of Sakai with more than 110 000 students.
• October: Murray Goldberg, the inventor of WebCT, and still an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, wins this year's EnCana Principal Award from the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation. The award, with a cash prize of $100,000, is given each year to a Canadian innovator. The press release perhaps comes closest to being a brief official history of WebCT from the University point of view. (http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcnewsdigest/2004/04oct15.html#4)
• Roger Boshier releases an irreverent history of e-learning in British Columbia, covering WebCT and many lesser-known developments. The file date is 2004 but the chronology stops just before 2000. See A Chronology of Technological Triumph, Zealotry and Utopianism in B.C. Education. An earlier (1999) version of this with the title addition of Leaping Fords and Conquering Mountains is also available.
• The American National Standards Institute, International Committee for Information Technology Standards (ANSI/INCITS) adopts the Sandhu, Ferraiolo, Kuhn RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) NIST "unified model" proposal as an industry consensus standard (INCITS 359:2004). A page is prepared (date uncertain) detailing the history of Role-Based Access Control from the Ferrailo and Kuhn paper in 1992 up to the date of the standard.

2005

• Microsoft release Microsoft Class Server 4.0 on 27th January (See Press release).
• Merger of WebCT into the Blackboard company. Both WebCT and Blackboard VLEs continue to exist as separate software. (See press release)
• OLAT 4.0 was introduced with many new features like the integration of Jabber, RSS, SCORM and an extension framework that allows adding code by configuration and without the need to patch the original code set.
• January 2005: EADTU - the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities - launches the "E-xcellence” project, with the support of the eLearning Programme of the European Commission (DG Education and Culture), to set a standard for quality in e-learning. The project is a cooperation between 13 "significant partners" in the European scene of higher education e-learning together with quality assessment and accreditation. See http://www.eadtu.nl/e-xcellence/.
• March 2005: The New Zealand Ministry of Education authorises release of a report describing (in anonymised terms) the benchmarking of e-learning, covering most university-level institutions in the country. The Report on the E-Learning Maturity Model Evaluation of the New Zealand Tertiary Sector weighs in at a hefty 12 MB.
• June 2005: Janice Smith (Jan Smith) publishes "From flowers to palms: 40 years of policy for online learning" [in the UK], ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, vol. 13 no. 2 pp. 93-108 - with a particularly useful chronology on page 95. As the ALT-J editor Jane Seale notes, "the purpose of the review is to make sense of the current position in which the field finds itself, and to highlight lessons that can be learned from the implementation of previous policies".
• July 2005: Dorian James Rutter finishes a long-awaited PhD thesis From Diversity to Convergence: British Computer Networks and the Internet, 1970-1995 (prelims+464 pages). This covers in particular the early history of viewdata and online services with a whole chapter on Prestel. (http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/reports/418.html)
• July 2005: The European Foundation for Quality in eLearning is launched, initially funded by the EU Triangle project. See http://www.qualityfoundation.org/ww/en/pub/efquel/about.htm.
• September 2005: The Higher Education Academy announced the UK Higher Education e-Learning Benchmarking Exercise and Pathfinder Programme during a joint Academy/JISC session at ALT-C 2005. The initial announcement was followed by a call to the sector for Expressions of Interest to participate in the e-learning benchmarking exercise (e-benchmarking). A consultative Town Meeting was also held at the Academy, York in November 2005. (The pilot phase of the e-Learning Benchmarking Exercise commenced in January 2006.) See http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/benchmarking.htm.

2006

• The Virtual Learning Environment SCOLASTANCE is now available in its english version VLE Scolastance
• 14 February 2006: Indiana University awarded the service mark Oncourse from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Reg. No. 3,058,558). FOR: EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, NAMELY, PROVIDING AN ONLINE COURSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS, IN CLASS 41 (U.S. CLS. 100, 101, AND 107). FIRST USE: 1-3-1998; IN COMMERCE 1-3-1998.
• Blackboard granted multinational patent over many features of VLEs as per its patent application of 2000. (US patent 6,988,138) It immediately files a suit against Desire2Learn for patent infringement. Blackboard tells the Chronicle of Higher Ed. that it will not go after Moodle and Sakai.
• August: WBTSystems, which has been an independent VLE developer in Ireland since 1994, is acquired by Horizon Technology Group.

Further reading

• Online Education and Learning Management Systems
• a claim-by-claim community-based analysis of Blackboard’s US patent
• Online Learning History from moodle.org
• Course Management System comparison from EduTools.info
• Visual history of company consolidation in the LMS space
• Jensen, Bob, History and Future of Course Authoring Technologies, Trinity University
• trinity.edu U.S. and International training and education alternatives
• trinity.edu Bob Jensen's Other History and Learning Technology Documents and Links
• A Personal History of CMC (Computer Conferencing) from 1972 to 1998 by Jacob Palme
• History of personal learning environments