Thank you to Jim Everett, Stevenson College, Edinburgh, who tested Virtual Campus with a Reload package, then wrote about it for us.

Teknical's Virtual Campus [http://www.teknical.com/Products/virtual_campus.htm] is licensed by several colleges and universities across the UK. The Hull-based company offers both self-hosted and centrally hosted options, with current customers split fairly evenly between the two options. These tests were carried out on the centrally hosted installation.

The Virtual Campus has two options for loading content packages; the Content Manager and the eLearning repository. The latter is available as an addition to the Virtual Campus.

The Virtual Campus Content Manager can upload learning materials in a range of formats including "IMS Object." This option will load a Reload package zip file whether it was packaged using the IMS or SCORM option. However, the package metadata is effectively hidden from the system and the package has to be given a title during the upload process. Once in the Content Manager, revisions to the object can be uploaded while the package is in place.

The eLearning Repository provides a standards-compliant learning object repository. As such it is more strict in its requirements than the Content Manager. The eLearning Repository will accept packages conforming to the IMS 1.1.3 and SCORM 1.2 profiles within Reload, however the Reload test object, itemdemo, will not load into the repository as is, because basic metadata items are missing (see note below ). Once a title and description have been added the object loads without a hitch. Metadata records are imported into the repository and are searchable within the constraints of the menu-driven eLearning repository interface as shown below:

The package owner can upload updates to the package within the repository from either an edited version of the original package or a new package. However it is not possible to upload an edited version of the original package as a new item in the repository as this will cause a duplication of the package's GUID: every item in the repository must have a unique GUID.

Once packages are loaded into the Virtual Campus, whether through the Content Manager or the eLearning Repository, they are delivered to students through Teknical's eLearning Objects Viewer. The viewer can appear in a separate window or in the Virtual Campus' main content frame as shown below:

The viewer has all the usual navigation controls, as well as a combo box for choosing between alternate organizations.

Both the Content Manager and eLearning Repository handle aggregate packages created using Reload's "Aggregate..." function. The organizations of all the manifests are available through eLearning Objects Viewer's organizations combo box.

The Virtual Campus tracks students' access to packages uploaded through both the Content Manager and the eLearning Repository as shown below:

Virtual Campus is able to track scores from properly configured questions within SCORM packages, however none of the Reload authored packages tested had this content.

Along with the eLearning Repository, Teknical also sell an authoring tool, eLearning Objects. This MS Word-based tool produces content packages conforming to the IMS and SCORM specifications. As expected, packages produced by this tool work flawlessly with the Virtual Campus. The Reload Editor can open and edit packages authored in eLearning Objects where the IMS profile is used, but does not recognise SCORM packages.

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