Jalon

Jalon is a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) built by Teachers, for Teachers at Nice Sophia Antipolis University

Project Description

 Jalon is a Virtual Learning Environment system originally developed by the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis in France. It is built on the Plone content management system as an e-learning tool for distance-learning and it’s published using the GNU-GPL license.

The e-learning system is currently used and developed by two universities, the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, its original creator, and University Versailles - Saint Quentin en Yvelinnes, which has joined Jalon as a user and a co-developer.
Jalon delivers around 1500 online courses each year at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis and it's used daily by 30% of teachers and 40% of students. The university has also integrated its e-learning platform into Apogee, a French pedagogical and administrative information system. It allows teachers and instructors to administer students’ assignments and information from within Jalon.

By developing on the robust Plone CMS, the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis can deliver an ergonomic and integrated LCMS connected to many pedagogic tools and our University Information System that can serve all of our instructors and students. Jalon is a unique e-learning tool for distance learning, blended learning, a support for face-to-face learning that has a high satisfaction rate and high usage. It is used to deliver more than 500 online courses per year. Thirty percent of our instructors are active users of the systems, contributing to the creation of resources. And more than 75 percent of our students have taken online courses on the system.

Automated Business Processes

Established throughout the French Riviera (département of the Alpes Maritimes), the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis is the second-largest multidisciplinary University in France in terms of the the number of students. A total of 27,000 students of which 20 percent are internationals. The university employs 1,500 teachers, teacher-researchers, and instructors. It has 9 training and research units, 3 institutes and a University Polytechnic School.

Jalon is a pedagogical hub that enables instructors to build online courses. The philosophy of this Web environment, built by teachers, is to support all pedagogical activities. Experiences from French “Campus Numeriques” demonstrated that the university needed a tool that was more user friendly and geared more toward pedagogical uses than traditional distance elearing tools, such as Moodle.

The model at Nice Sophia Antipolis University has been to integrate both commercial and open source tools to allow instructors to use a pedagogical library to build and integrate teaching content. Teachers can reuse materials from the pedagogical library in different learning contexts.

Because Jalon is integrated with the French pedagocial and administrative information system Apogee, instructors also can manage student information and assignments.

Pain Points Solved

Ability to Manage multiple databases and technologies, including PHP/MySQL (Moodle, Claroline, Ganesha)  without negatively impacting pedagogic uses.

Integration with Existing Systems :

• Adobe Connect Pro: This allows teachers to use virtual meetings easily for the purpose of tutoring and recording class sessions.
• WIMS (Web Interactive Multipurpose Server) (wims.unice.fr): WIMS is both an interactive server and a teaching website. Developed in 1998 by Gang XIAO, Professor at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, it has experienced significant upgrades over the past few years and is used in many Universities, high schools, and primary schools. WIMS is multi-platform and completely web-based; users need only a browser to access its huge database of interactive exercises in a wide range of syllabi. Content is highly customizable so that each student can experience personalized self-tutorials. Thanks to its GNU license of development, WIMS can be constantly updated with new tutorials and exercises by thousands of instructional designers and course creaters in many disciplines. Today, more than 15 servers serve up data in six countries: France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, China, and the United States.   
• Apogée: A French system developed by AMUE and used in the majority of French universities. Apogée  manages enrollment, diploma databases, testing and grading, and other functions.
• OAI PMH Protocol: By indexing all resources (in XML LOM standards), Jalon provides a central database of all courses and courseware resources.
• SingleSignOn CAS (SSO): Students and instructors can use their existing authentication information to connect to LCMS Jalon and its related resources.

Plone Add-Ons and Related Products Used in Jalon

• collective.quickupload
• collective.js.jqueryui
• anz.casclient
• plone.app.ldap
• pymysql_sa
• pas.plugins.sqlalchemy

Current Release

No stable release available yet.

If you are interested in getting the source code of this project, you can get it from the Code repository .