Communication and collaboration
The LMS offers a number of features to support communication and collaboration within subjects and communities. The various communication tools can help manage the sharing of information and promote interactions between members.
- Announcements
- Each subject or community site has an Announcements page, which teaching staff can use to post information about subject activity. Announcements can include text, images, media content, and links to websites and other files.
- Blogs
- The blog (web log) tool provides an interface for reflective writing and topical commentary within a subject or community.
- Chat and Virtual Classroom
- The LMS has two synchronous (real time) tools for online communication within a subject or community.
- Discussion Board
- The Discussion Board is an asynchronous communication tool, allowing messages to be posted and read and any time.
- Email can be sent to members of a subject or community via the Email tool. This feature facilitates selective communication with various combinations of student and staff users based on their role in the subject or community.
- Groups
- Groups may be created within an LMS subject or community for the purposes of communication, collaborative work or administration.
- Portfolios
- The LMS Portfolio tools allow individual users to build a collection of items that demonstrate achievements and capabilities. Portfolios are presented as a web site that may be made available for viewing by selected individuals or members of a subject or community.
- Student and group folders
- Folders can be created for individual students and groups in the Content Collection of the LMS. Students can upload files to these folders for assessment or collaboration.
- Sign-up lists
- A sign-up list can be added to a subject or community to provide students with a means of signing up online for group work, tutorials, essay titles, projects, etc.
- Wikis
- The wiki tool provides an online workspace that can be used for collaborative work within a subject or community. Contributors to a wiki are able to edit and publish content, upload files and link to other resources.