Cognoti: Next-Generation Social LMS

          Date: Fall 2009

          After spending ten years developing, tweaking, observing, questioning, hacking, and shaking our heads at all of the learning management systems (LMS) out there, we felt it was finally time to start again, in a different direction. Cognoti comes out of all of our experiences working with those systems (CoursePath, WebCT/Blackboard, Angel, Moodle, eCollege, etc) and how audiences interact with them, especially teachers.

           

          To that end, we’ve been developing Cognoti focusing on some essentials:

          • use an open, community-supported specification rather than yet another proprietary code-base
          • allow for multiple deployment options, on a range of OS and database flavors, depending on the organizations needs
          • flexibility to allow for modules written in other languages and/or by outside developers
          • easily pluggable model for services so that we can fit the portal with exactly the tools you need
          • an interface that seamlessly exposes and highlights connections between people, objects, institutions, and the rules that govern them
          • a user-friendly and intuitive method for contributing content, with a focus on sharing duties amongst a group
          • enhanced methods of communication and functionality, based on all of the modern advances the Internet has seen in the last few years

          Current Modules:

          • Resources: a repository of certified and user-contributed resources, complete with filtering, search, commenting, and sharing.
          • Curriculum Development: an intuitive way for teachers to develop standards-aligned curriculum from full courses down to individual student activities
          • Content Management: web-based management of your structured content, from basic pages to full-blown professional development courses.
          • Notifications: central utility for informing you about everything you are interested in within the system
          • Calendar: event promotion, registration, and management.
          • Communication: permissions-based discussion forums, internal messaging, commenting on everything, and a connection to your personal or organizational email
          • User & Group Profile: Customizable overview of people and groups within the system, the things they are working on, and ways to keep in touch
          • Academic Standards: flexible structure for displaying academic standards for any state and connecting those to resources and curriculum

          Some of the projects we’ve built on the Cognoti platform:

          Recent portfolio