Comments on: Sharepoint Portal Services vs. Windows Sharepoint Services

By: David Gorbet

David Gorbet — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:50:41 +0000

Hi Chris and Sahmeepee. I can clear up some of your questions about the SharePoint Learning Kit, and if you have others, feel free to ask them in the discussion fora at http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=SLK.

First, neither SLK nor Class Server require Portal Server. Both work fine with WSS. Class Server will only work with WSS 2.0, and SLK will only work with WSS 3.0+ so as you can imagine, SLK is intended to be the successor technology to Class Server.

SLK is an e-learning delivery and tracking tool built on SharePoint. Unlike Class Server, SLK is fully integrated with SharePoint (it’s a SharePoint Solution), and is much easier to install, deploy, configure and use than Class Server.

SLK is a community-source project, and will be free for both customers and partners. Although SLK requires SharePoint (and when I say SharePoint I mean either WSS or SPS), it is built on a componentized e-learning runtime called Microsoft Learning Components (MLC), which can be built into any application and does not require SharePoint.

SLK will run Class Server content, as well as SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 content, but SLK will *not* come with an authoring tool. Because it runs Class Server content, you will be able to use the Class Server Learning Resource Editor (LRE) to create content for SLK, and the LRE will be made available to non-Class-Server users for this purpose.

If you have any other questions, feel free to post them at http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=SLK.

Thanks,
– David Gorbet, Group Manager, MS Learning Server

By: Chris Cramp

Chris Cramp — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:47:06 +0000

Well my current manager thinks things are more secure if you don’t use intergrated security and staff have to remember lots of diffrent passwords, I thoroughly disagree wit this. I even have to logon agian to use the RMCC3 managment console also the certificate that it uses isn’t trusted.

And as for Goverments dictating IT Policy in Schools what a Joke they never ever get it right with major IT projects as they are constantly out of step and out of touch with the latest technology.

By: Sahmeepee

Sahmeepee — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:53:16 +0000

Integration does become a big issue when you start making services accessible from home. It’s been a battle to set Class Server up properly with AD accounts to authenticate – the lazy way out is definitely to issue another username and password. From talking to other network admins working in my local authority, integration is going to be a problem with a lot of the V/MLEs, including the SIMS Learning Gateway.

BECTA is trying to push a system based on Shibboleth:

http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/display.cfm?section=22&id=4665

but it’s a long way off yet, and VLEs will be mandatory by then, so it will probably mean tearing out some existing VLEs and starting again. It’s a shame that the timeline of gov’t schemes often seems to be in reverse.

By: Chris Cramp

Chris Cramp — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:18:15 +0000

The information i found above about Sharepoint learning Kit was from the college I worked at until a couple of weeks ago. They are very intrested in going the Sharepoint route and using Web Dav for Students and staff home directories which is pretty cool as students or staff can see exactly the same files at home as well as class based resources. The School I am currently working at is a long way off anything like that. The ICT co-ordinator who doesn’t actually start working here until September want’s the school to use Learnwise as its what is used in the area she works in currently. IT seems this schools don’t quite get the idea of integration curently staff have to remember 3 or 4 passwords for all the diffrent services they have. Learnwise adds yet anoter one.

By the way if your looking to make SCORM compliant stuff now right now the only tool i can recommend is Macromedia’s Captivate

By: Sahmeepee

Sahmeepee — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:35:59 +0000

Thanks for the comment Chris. I’ll be happy to see some simple authoring tools for creating SCORM-compliant content. At the moment there’s very little content around and it seems to be due to a lack of simple, high quality tools.

From what I’ve read on the Microsoft site, it’s hard to tell what they’re planning for Class Server. It’s had a very unfinished feel for a long while now (currently we’re on version 4) and it seems they have a lot of difficulty making it integrate nicely into Sharepoint. As usual, the Microsoft site tosses the word “Sharepoint” around willy-nilly and rarely specifies whether the product requires Portal Server. Grr.

By: Chris Cramp

Chris Cramp — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:05:20 +0000

Intresting comments about sharepoint portal and WSS, but you may want to keep in mind what microsofts plan are for the near future. They are aparrently droping class server and developing something called Sharepoint learning kit which is a web part for Sharepoint portal server 2007 (due to be released soon betas are available) Then if you are familar with the learning essentials for office 2003, the next version of this software will interact directly with the Sharepoint learnining kit and make it very easy for teaching staff to create course material on your Sharepoint servers. However with everything microsoft i would always wait a good few months to see wether other organisations get any headaches by jumping in the deep end first.

By: Scott Soroko

Scott Soroko — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:55:10 +0000

I agree with your analysis of the differences, we use just wss for our school intranets and use sps & wss for our district wide intranet (mostly due to the audiances, areas, and better search.

Rumor has it MS will be taking the word Portal out in the office 12 version. I’ve heard talk about the new version and there is a blog dedicated to develoment information. http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint