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Eledge Open Learning Management System
Welcome to the Eledge home page.Our mission is to give educators the electronic edge in management of online educational and instructional web sites.
Open Source Software
This software is distributed as a free download under the terms of the GNU General Public License.It comes with NO WARRANTY whatsoever, not even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
This method of distribution was chosen to
- ensure that the software will always be freely available
- to allow users to customize the software to meet their individual needs
- to encourage collaborative development and support of the best possible software product
Course Management Software
This software is designed to provide the framework for creating a web site for online instruction, including student registration, authentication, content creation, quizzes, exams, homework graders, report uploads, instructor gradebook, class calendar, and online help. Eledge does not provide knowledge content; we only provide a convenient, flexible way for instructors to make their course materials accessible to students over the Internet.Open Source Supporting Software
Eledge consists of a collection of Java servlets that utilize a MySQL database back end to store information and course content. The Java programming language, MySQL database and Eledge itself are all open source distributions that can be downloaded free. You can even download the Linux operating system, Apache webserver and Tomcat servlet engine free of charge if you choose to use them. If you want distribution media or product support, you may have to pay a fee to these vendors, but you don't have to.Freedom of Choice
You have many options for choosing course management software. Leading commercial vendors such as WebCT and Blackboard offer a mature high-quality product for a substantial fee. However, if the program doesn't do exactly what you want it to, your only choice is to abandon the software and migrate your course to another product at great expense. Eledge is all about choice. If you don't like the way that one of our servlets works, you can simply change it because you have a copy of the source code and a license that allows you to modify it.Try It, You Might Like It
We have provided three demonstrations on this site so that you can try the software in advance of making a commitment to course development. All three demos are fully functional copies of the software.- Student Demo
- Instructor Demo
- Empty Demo
Enter a demonstration course as a student, register yourself in the course by completing a New Student Profile, and explore the electronic tools for taking quizzes, uploading reports, etc.
Enter a demonstration course as the instructor and try out the tools required to administer the course, including adding, deleting and editing course web page content, managing deadlines for assignments, entering questions for exams, quizzes and homeworks, and managing students through the electronic gradebook.
This demo starts by completely removing all of the database tables and course content. You can observe the process by which servlets "bootstrap" themselves by creating their own database tables, and you'll experience the process of starting to create a new course from scratch.