LAMS

LAMS

LAMS Authoring Environment in Firefox
Original author(s)	LAMS Foundation
Stable release	2.4 / April 2012
Written in	Java
Operating system	Cross-platform
Platform	JBoss Application Server
Available in	32 languages [1]
Type	Online Education, Learning Design
License	GPL v2
Website	http://lamsfoundation.org/

LAMS, the Learning Activity Management System, is an open source Learning Design system for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with an intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration. LAMS is 'inspired' by the concept and principles of IMS Learning Design.^[2]

LAMS is developed in collaboration with LAMS Foundation, LAMS International, and the Macquarie E-learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE), all based in Sydney, Australia, in affiliation with Macquarie University.^[3] LAMS has been developed since 2003.^[4]

Community

The LAMS community website is a global community website for teachers and developers who use the LAMS software. As of September 2012, the LAMS Community had over 7950 members across 80 countries sharing 1094 sequences (downloaded 17457, previewed 23493 times) and 7583 discussion forum postings.^[5]

LAMS creates "digital lesson plans" that can be run online with students, as well as shared among teachers. The LAMS Community allows teachers to share and adapt digital lesson plans, and discuss their experiences of using LAMS. Teachers, trainers and professors can find digital lessons plans that are freely available to use and adapt, and they can share their own and adaptations. There is a Greek LAMS community.

LAMS Central

The LAMS Community has a central repository of learning designs (LAMS Central Repository). These are LAMS sequences shared by teachers and practitioners that use LAMS in their teaching. The subjects of these designs vary widely, from Higher Ed Science subjects to basic k-12.

Awards and recognitions

LAMS in conjunction with the associated LAMS Community won a Gold Award and Best Learning System at the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Learning Impact Awards (LIAs) in May 2009.^[6]

Available versions

As of April 2012, the current stable version of LAMS is 2.4.^[7] Version 2.4 is a major release that introduces significant feature and technical improvements.^[8]

LAMS integrations

LAMS can integrate with other LMS or virtual learning environments such as:

• Moodle version 1.x and 2.x
• Sakai
• Blckboard
• .LRN
• WebCT
• SharePoint
• OLAT

Integration modules for Desire2Learn are under development.^[9]

LAMS Tool Contract

The LAMS Tool Contract is an architecture to allow Tool Interoperability across Learning Management Systems (LMS). It allows tools (web applications) to become "pluggable" in any LMS.^[10] The LAMS Tool Contract is the underlying architecture of LAMS and currently tools from other platforms like Moodle and dotLRN can be used within LAMS.^[11]

Conferences

These international conferences are academic conferences where papers submitted are peer-reviewed by members of the conference committee. The main topics of this conferences are LAMS and Learning Design and are mainly in English (although there has been one in Spanish). The first LAMS Conference was in Sydney Australia in December, 2006.^[12] Usually there are two conferences a year, one in Australia and one in Europe or Asia.

• The 1st International LAMS Conference. Sydney, Australia, December 2006 ^[13]
• 2007 European LAMS Conference. UK, July 2007 ^[14]
• The 2nd International LAMS Conference. Sydney, Australia, November 2007 ^[15]
• Conferencia Iberoamericana LAMS 2008 / 2008 European LAMS Conference. Spain, June 2008 ^[16]
• The 3rd International LAMS & Learning Design Conference. Sydney, Australia, December 2008 ^[17]
• 2009 European LAMS & Learning Design Conference. UK, July 2009 ^[18]
• The 4th International LAMS & Learning Design Conference. Sydney, December, 2009 ^[19]
• 2010 European LAMS & Learning Design Conference. Oxford University, UK, July 2010 ^[20]
• The 5th International LAMS & Learning Design Conference. Sydney, December 2010 ^[21]
• 2011 Asia Pacific LAMS & Learning Design. Singapore, June, 2011 ^[22]
• The 6th International LAMS & Learning Design Conference, Sydney, December 2011 ^[23]
• The 7th International LAMS & Learning Design Conference, Sydney, December 2012 ^[24]

Notes

External links

• LAMS Foundation Ltd