Plataforma E-learning

Plataforma E-learning rents out e-learning services and a virtual campus. An organization that wants to run online training gets its own professional e-learning platform, set up and run by the company, rather than building one in-house. The homepage says it in capitals: "CON NOSOTROS TENDRÁS TU PROPIA PLATAFORMA E-LEARNING PROFESIONAL" (with us you will have your own professional e-learning platform). The product is built for training teams, academies and organizations that teach staff or students at a distance, with teachers, tutors and learners all working inside the same campus. The company is based in Oviedo, Asturias, says it taught its first e-learning course in 2002, and runs its site and campus in Spanish. Its campus FAQ describes the product as a platform for distance training over the internet that is also a virtual community, bringing teachers and students together so they can share their experience.

What an organization gets

The campus is configured for each client. The homepage promises design, layout and configuration of content adapted to each client's needs and requirements, so this works more like a managed platform than a tool a buyer configures alone.

Course tools. The tools section lists achievements that students earn, a table of course contents, a glossary of terms, FAQs, a calendar and auxiliary resources. Each course runs between a start date and an end date, and inside that window learners can connect at any hour of any day. A calendar of course calls and a notice system tell learners about new events and courses on the campus.

Assessment. Teachers configure exams and tests and collect assignments. The question types named on the homepage are written answers, matching pairs, single or multiple choice, and true or false. The FAQ explains that, as in classroom teaching, there are mandatory and optional exams to evaluate what a learner knows, plus self-assessments that do not count toward the grade and help learners measure their own progress. Surveys can be created, run and analyzed, and the platform integrates with the FUNDAE quality questionnaire. For exams that need supervision, the homepage names an integration with SMOWL, an online exam supervision service.

Communication. The communication tools cover a lot of ground: questions can be sorted into categories, and there is chat, a video chat and video conference system, and surveys with statistical analysis. Learners can send a question to their tutor at any time through the integrated messaging, and live tutoring sessions run by chat or video chat on a schedule each teacher sets. Academic questions go to the teacher assigned to the course; technical ones go to the support desk.

Tracking teachers as well as learners. The statistics system records and follows both the people who learn and the people who teach, along with the content taught. On the learner side it covers reports, statistics, self-assessments, exams and assignments. On the teacher side it tracks average times, resources, messages, tutoring sessions and connections, so a training manager can follow tutor activity as closely as learner progress. The FAQ adds a detail that matters for formal programs: each course has a minimum connection time, and every period a learner spends connected to the platform is measured, graded and entered in the learner's academic record. Study itself is self-paced, so learners work through the syllabus and tests on their own schedule while the platform keeps the time on record.

Standards and content portability. Under the heading FUNDAE and SEPE requirements, the homepage lists compliance with the cmi5, LTI, IMS, AICC, SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 standards, with import and export in those formats. A training team can bring in courses built in another authoring tool and take its own courses out again if it changes platform.

The learner's side

All a learner needs is a PC, tablet or phone with an internet connection and a browser, from which they sign in at the campus address. The FAQ says only minimal knowledge of using a PC and the internet is required, and that a short read of the "Guía de primeros pasos" (first steps guide) plus the video tutorials under the TUTORIALES tab gets a new learner ready in a few minutes. Every section of the campus has a help button at the top that explains what can be done there. The campus header carries text-size controls and a skip-navigation link, and the support pages even walk learners through opening ZIP files and PDF documents. Technical problems go through the "Soporte Técnico CAU" tab, where the company handles them online, by email or by phone.

Certifications, experience and documentation

The homepage claims Level Double-A (AA) of the accessibility guidelines under priorities 1 and 2 of the UNE 139803:2012 standard established by the W3C-WAI. It also lists ISO 9001:2008 certification in the implementation of e-learning systems, the UNE 66181:2008 standard, and priorities 1 and 2 of UNE 139803:2004. These are the company's own statements on its homepage.

On experience, the homepage says the company has 20 years behind it, that its first e-learning course was taught in 2002, and that it has since trained more than 700 teachers in distance teaching. Documentation includes reference manuals for students, teachers and authors, a repository of platform versions so clients can follow what changed between releases, and a set of reference articles on e-learning. The site also has a videos section.

The site publishes no prices; the homepage asks visitors who want more on features and functionality to get in touch through a phone line, an email address or a contact form. Before that conversation anyone can try the campus: the login page invites visitors to sign in with the user "Demo" and the password "Demo" to see the platform from the inside.

Who it suits and who it does not

Plataforma E-learning suits a training organization, academy or company that runs tutored online courses under FUNDAE or SEPE requirements and wants a provider to set up and configure the campus for it. The connection-time records, teacher tracking, FUNDAE quality questionnaire and SMOWL exam supervision all point at formal, documented training rather than casual learning. Teams with existing SCORM, cmi5 or AICC content can import it, and teams worried about lock-in can export their courses again. Organizations that need an accessible campus will note the AA claim, and teachers and learners with little technical background are clearly in view, given the first steps guide, the video tutorials and the help button in every section.

It is a weaker fit for an individual creator who wants to sell courses to the public, since the pages describe no storefront or checkout, and for a team that needs an English-language campus, because the site, the FAQ and the help material are written in Spanish.