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The 10 Becta Approved Suppliers

steve

By steve
in Virtual Learning Platforms

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steve

steve

Posted
Posted

OK, so I went off and found the current offerings from the 10 approved suppliers:

 

Azzurri Communications Ltd - TALMOS

Etech Group - studywiz

Fronter - Fronter VLE

Netmedia Education - MyGrid4Learning

Pearson Education Ltd - KnowledgeBox or PowerSchool??

Ramesys - Assimilate

Research Machines plc - Kaleidos

Serco Ltd - Facility VLE

UniServity - UniServity

Viglen Limited - Viglen ClassLink Learning Environment or it's learning

 

Not 100% sure the offerings from Pearson or Viglen, both have more than 1 product. Anyone able to clear this up?

 

I'm due to help our LA look into these , so hopefully over the next 6-12 months I'll try and review the ones I look at.

contink

contink

Posted
Posted

One of my schools uses Knowledgebox and they are very happy with it.

 

They did have a problem owing to the local tech support not putting it on a UPS that resulted in the hard drive getting corrupted but support from the Kbox support team was excellent to the extent that we got a replacement before the original went back.

 

As to performance, not entirely sure how it compares to anything else but it can be a tad slow.

CyberNerd

CyberNerd

Posted
Posted

@russdev - I assume Jake's comments were with respect to the article.

I've certainly been told by at least one small firm that Becta does require backhanders to get on their recommended lists - sadly they didn't give me any proof either, the register article is simply pointing out that this may be the case.

bossman

bossman

Posted
Posted
It used to be called greasing the wheels of industry until industry got wise, education needs to get it's finger into the 21st century instead of being stuck in the proverbial place.
Jake

Jake

Posted
Posted

I was referring to the article :)

 

Interesting point you bring up though, I wonder what recourse Becta would have for me expressing my opinions on a privately owned forum. Thats definately worth my investigating, not purely for becta of course, but I am curious to know if there are any legalities that can be brought against someones personal forums...for instance, I run a WoW forum for a guild, now if I decide to slag Blizzard off on my forums, I wonder what legal powers Blizzard could use to force me to shut up.

 

Curious. Thats the great thing about forums and the ability to freely express opinions, it brings up all sorts of interesting sidelines like this which extend our knowledge :)

 

*off to search the net for legal standpoints on expression of views on privately owned websites*

Jake

Jake

Posted
Posted

Bah...turns out that there has been many successful libel and slander cases in the last 6 months against blog sites and forums. The end of freedom of expression on the internet?

 

Damn..now I cant slag off microsoft, RM, Labour governments, George Bush or Man Utd anymore on the internet. Well, thats going to seriously hamper how much I can post on the net hehe...oh well. I will duly cave in to those who have power and amend my words. :(

 

(LOL, amazingly, having read further, one person had to pay £12,500 in damages just for calling someone a "nonce" and a "lard brain"....hahah, can you imagine that. "Tell you...that Steve Mclaren is a right nonce for playing Lampard on the wing last weekend, what a twat !" ...right sonny...thats £12000 please !)

 

Legal Disclaimer : *Steve Mclaren reference and wording as example, no intent or belief was aimed in associating his name with the terms nonce and twat*

Guest Guest

Guest Guest

Posted
Posted
Its funny how we've just had this ho-ha about the Weapons sales to the saudi's ;)
MkII

MkII

Posted
Posted
Our LEA has decided on Moodle, it's be nice to have a comparison of companies offering support for that. (As we can't count on our local FE college doing it forever)
Lee_K_81

Lee_K_81

Posted
Posted
Out of interest how many people use moodle. I'm VERY interested in deploying it, but as it's not on the becta recommended list am begining to have second thoughts. Does it do everything all the others do? We currently have thanks to the LA, and pay through the nose for - but nobody uses as it's sh1t: Plus (by Netmedia i believe). Moodle would be a very nice cost saving.
plexer

plexer

Posted
Posted

Moodle is capable of doing anything you wish with it as it's open source and if it doesnt' do sometihng you want you can either write it yourself, pay someone to write it for you or ask the community.

 

Ben

artlader

artlader

Posted
Posted
Out of interest how many people use moodle. I'm VERY interested in deploying it, but as it's not on the becta recommended list am begining to have second thoughts. Does it do everything all the others do? We currently have thanks to the LA, and pay through the nose for - but nobody uses as it's sh1t: Plus (by Netmedia i believe). Moodle would be a very nice cost saving.

 

Here is a list you may find interesting - http://moodle.org/sites/

 

More stats here - http://moodle.org/stats/

 

Hope that helps!

 

-- Art

CyberNerd

CyberNerd

Posted
Posted

from that first link I count 1100 schools/colleges/unversities in the UK - and that doesn't count sites like ours who didn't bother registering !

That's an awful lot of bug-testers.

budgester

budgester

Posted
Posted
from that first link I count 1100 schools/colleges/unversities in the UK - and that doesn't count sites like ours who didn't bother registering !

That's an awful lot of bug-testers.

 

As far as I am concerned, moodle would be the only sensible choice.

 

It is in use worldwide, so skills are transferable.

 

It is getting bigger all the time, it won't be going away any time soon, if moodle inc. went bankrupt it's still available.

 

It's free software(libre), with an excellent amount of support available.

 

The people developing it are passionate about the concept, rather just being a money making scheme.

 

There is an excellent moodlemoot every year in the UK, and some of the things people are doing is astounding.

mberry

mberry

Posted
Posted
I'm VERY interested in deploying it, but as it's not on the becta recommended list am begining to have second thoughts. Does it do everything all the others do?

Word has it that Atomwide's Moodle/Elgg solution passed all of Becta's "exhaustive" technical tests, but their bid for the framework agreements was excluded for other, non-technical reasons.

  • 2 months later...
ctbjs

ctbjs

Posted
Posted
I'm still quite baffled how BECTA have not included a Microsoft Learning Gateway platform into the list. In particular as RM are currently switching their VTLE to a MLG version. The MLG as far as I am aware failed the Becta test because they judged it on the 2003 version and with 2007 only just around the corner, a little short sighted in my opinion but understandable in the circumstances of having to make a decision based on the existing products. The stark irony of it all though is that the DFES exemplar VLEs all happen to be Microsoft Learning Gateways!! I may be sticking with this type of product for our VLE, mind you it could be taken away come the PFI build completion and the Managed Service takeover!!!!!!!
GrumbleDook

GrumbleDook

Posted
Posted

Microsoft Learning Gateway is not on the list becasue no company put it forward as a complete solution, they rebuilt sections of it and have put it forward as their own product *based* on MSLG.

 

Microsoft are happy to do it this way ... they have several partners that they work with to do this and it means they are no longer tied in to deliver only thier solution ... it is part of the framework and people can use it to add things to, like Moodle, CMIS or SIMS web parts ...

 

It works out as a better business model for them I suppose.

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