Technology review: ANGEL(TM) courseware by Angel Learning

Community College Enterprise, The, Spring 2005 by Harris, Mark

The Fall Issue reviewed Open Source software and suggested its potential for improving local development and increasing flexibility while decreasing costs. In this issue we review a specific Open Source course management software offering, Angel(TM) from Angel Learning (formerly CyberLearning Labs).

Online course offerings have grown from a scattered handful in 2000 to become, at many institutions, the fastest-growing segment of the schedule. The 2003 Sloan-C Online Learning Survey Report found that over 1.6 million students took at least one online course in 2002 and that a third of those students-some 578,000-took all of their courses online. From 2002 to 2003, online enrollments increased by nearly 20%, and the increase for 2004 was projected at nearly 25% (Sloan Consortium, http://www.sloan-c.org/resources/overview.asp). Given such rapid growth, it became apparent that good course management software could encourage online course development and ease the transition for teachers and students with widely ranging technical skills.

Early courseware packages struggled to find a balance between utility and usability. That is, those with the most useful features were often the most difficult to learn. And, since the real test of training often comes at two o'clock on a Saturday morning when a user is trying to recall how to edit and repost an exam that was supposed to have been posted on Friday, the learning curve for early courseware users could be brutal.

Angel has its roots in that early wave of courseware packages. Frustrated by the difficulty in finding a package that was feature rich but easy to learn, faculty members at Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis developed in 1996 a courseware system which became OnCourseSM, still in use today supporting 100,000 students across eight Indiana University Campuses (ANGEL Learning, www. angellearning.com/AboutUs/ history.asp). In 2000, ANGEL Learning (first CyberLearning Labs) was launched as a commercial enterprise.

Its not clear whether ANGEL Learning's commitment to Open Source arose from a desire to have the software run on the widest possible number of systems or whether those faculty members were early adopters of the Open Source Philosophy, but by the time Angel was released as a commercial product, the organization's structure and marketing approach centered around Open Source thinking. According to the Vision section of the ANGEL Learning web site, "Openness is ANGEL Learning's foundation," and "The ANGEL Learning commitment to openness extends beyond software to every aspect of our business" (ANGEL Learning, www.angellearning.com/AboutUs/vision.asp).

Unlike other courseware licensing arrangements, which allow purchasers to use the software but specifically prohibit them from modifying the software, Angel's licensing agreement implicates subscribers in a development web. The software is simple to modify locally, and subscribers can share their modifications. Institutions that work together can divide complex projects into more manageable units and integrate these units to their mutual benefit.

The openness and flexibility create robust software that evolves according to users' needs. For example, features like the "WhoDunlt" Agent, which allows instructors to e-mail specific students based on their activity (or inactivity) in the course, are a dream to those who have struggled to compile such information manually. The software is filled with features that reveal its heritage: made by the people who use it, rather than by development teams or marketing groups.

Moreover, the collaborative approach is squarely at the nexus of current course development (re-usable learning objects) and financial reality (doing more with less), so its appeal is easy to see. It fosters a healthy mixture of "coopetition" (cooperation and competition) among institutions as they compete to complete projects and share the results.

ANGEL Learning now engages a diverse "affiliate" base, including large state universities, private liberal arts schools, K-12 school districts, technology consortia, and other non-profits. It seems well-positioned to capture its share of the growing market for online courseware and is billed as the "fastest growing learning management system" (ANGEL Learning www.angellearning.com/News/pressRelease Archive).

By most projections, online course offerings will continue to grow rapidly, and course management software will remain a crucial component in most institution strategies to meet demand while retaining quality. Open Source applications like ANGEL Learning offer many features-not the least of which is cost-that make them well-suited to the current environment. The ease with which the software can be customized encourages local development, which in turn rapidly builds a skilled user base; and the simplicity with which units developed elsewhere can be integrated across institutions makes it an ideal choice for consortia work and multi-institution grant development.