Open Elms: Free Open Source LMS With E-Learning Course Authoring Tools

Open Elms is an open source LMS (Learning Management System) which comes with robust course creation tools and is SCORM compliant. Unlike Moodle, Open elms provides a very handy tool in the form of Jackdaw which can be used for creating 3D based e-learning courses. Open Elms provides many advanced features like progress tracking, testing and scoring, a configurable interface, email integration, audit trail and a 3D virtual training room. The open source nature of Open Elms makes it even more productive as it can be customized according to user needs.

The Free Learning Management System Designed For Businesses

Open Elms is not just an ordinary open source LMS but is rather specifically designed to cater for the complex requirements of businesses, as most organizations cannot depend on mere PowerPoint slides for training their staff or disseminating important technical guidelines. Moreover, Open Elms can even be used for making and selling courses online, which can be quite an easy way of marketing your computer based training nuggets.

Open Elms Requirements And Packages

Open Elms requires IIS 5.0 or later, a Flash enabled Internet Explorer browser, alongwith SQL Server 7.0 or higher.Open Elms comes with Jackdaw, which is a free system for creating 3D based e-learning courses. Moreover, the courses that you create using this tool can even be sold online via the the Jackdaw App Store. Another very handy package that comes with Open Elms is the Employee Management System or EMS. This is an add-on to the Open Elms SCORM LMS for adding compliance type assessment and detailed reporting for exams.

learning module

Open ELMS Installation Guidelines

The installation of Open Elms should take around 10 minutes, however it may take slightly longer if you are collating a large amount of data. To successfully complete your installation, follow the basic steps given below. If you require any assistance during the installation process you can even contact the Open Elms team by a phone number given on their website. In this first step, download and Install the software to a web server folder (e.g. “c:\inetpub\wwwroot”), create your SQL Database and make sure that you are running the database in Mixed Mode.

Installing OpenElms

Now, open Internet Explorer and enter the URL “http://localhost (or servername)/lms/default.htm” and follow the on screen instructions to test access for your staff before they can begin using Open Elms.

Test Open Elms