Review and Demo of Tracker.Net Version 3 LMS from Platte Canyon

Platte Canyon Multimedia Software Corporation has released Version 3 of Tracker.Net.

Tracker.Net combines the power of ASP.Net and Microsoft SQL Server to provide a Learning Management System (LMS) packed with features at a cost lower than any major LMS.

As stated by Platte Canyon:

"Tracker.Net implements all mandatory and optional communication elements listed in the SCORM 1.2 and 2004 Runtime Environment Specification. Rather than messing with SCORM manifest files, you use Tracker.Net's Administrator interface to define lesson locations, organize lessons into courses, set passing scores, and more. Tracker.Net manages ToolBook content converted to HTML, Flash, Dreamweaver, Lectora, Captivate, ASP.NET, and any other content that can communicate via SCORM."  

In addition, Platte Canyon has provided a "wrapper" html page that adds SCORM communication to things like a standard HTML page, an Adobe Acrobat file, as well as a PPT file saved as HTML.

These are the requirements as listed by Platte Canyon:

Web Server

Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 or later

Windows® 2000 or later

.NET Framework 1.1 (runtime)

Database

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 or later

Browser

Internet Explorer 5.5 or later (for some users, 5.0 is fine also)

Newer versions of Netscape, Mozilla, and Firefox

 I found this LMS very easy to set up, both on a localhost machine as well as then moving the files to a Web Server. Once I got IIS up and running on a Windows 2000 machine, and installed a Developers Version of Microsoft SQL 2000, it was just a matter of hours to download, install, and configure Tracker.net.  After learning how to set up Organizations, Classes, Courses, and Students, I was a few hours away from developing some ToolBook content to test locally.

Once I was happy with what was going on locally, it was time to put the LMS on a Web Server. That part involved setting up an empty SQL database on the server, and then using the Tracker.Net configuration program to build the database structure on the Web Server. Then it was time to synchronize the remote database with the one on the localhost. For this, I used a program recommended by Jeff Rhodes (the Red Gate SQL Bundle). Finally, I just had to create the same directory structure on the Web Server that I had on the localhost and I was up and running.  As lessons were created on localhost, all I needed to do was FTP them to the Tracker.net folders on the Web Server and add the lessons via an Administrator panel in Tracker.Net.

 The lessons created for the sample LMS site include:

• Several ToolBook-generated lessons

• A PowerPoint Presentation saved as an HTML file

• A Quiz built with Flash MX 2004

• A Standard HTML Document

• A PDF Document

Note: The course created is Open Enrollment, so just log in as a New Student, creating your User Name and Password.

Another Note: Once you are in some of the ToolBook generated lessons assigned to the Course you join, you will notice Notes on each page describing the page type of the current page. Each of these lessons was built using the ToolBook Rapid Development Suite, a suite of services and tools offered by Tom Hall and Lee Karns.  A Verizon version of this set of tools won the SumTotal Systems ToolBook Design Award for Best ToolBook Productivity Tool at TBCON 2005.

 

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