Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
St. Louis U Heartland Centers To Deploy Meridian LMS Service
7/22/2008
|
|
The Meridian LMS replaces the university's existing training system, which lacked functions for managing training curricula and hosting online collaboration, according to the school.
"We have four different leadership networks that bring people from around the country together to learn. They were using Yahoo! Groups to collaborate, but now we can give them a way to share calendars [and] discuss documents and training topics," said Christy McFarland, LMS coordinator for the Heartland Centers. "We don't have the luxury of IT support, so having Meridian host our LMS off-site made perfect sense. Without Meridian's SaaS offering, we might have encountered firewall issues when delivering preparedness training to an array of health care workers nationwide. Clearly, those kinds of issues would've prevented us from delivering the training when and where first responders need it."
"We serve emergency workers in many rural communities, and these professionals and volunteers don't always have access to face-to-face training," said McFarland. "So we wanted to provide them training and online collaboration capabilities inexpensively via an LMS. With the Meridian LMS, new employees at local county public health agencies will be able to simply log on, register, and get public heath training in minutes."
The HETC is one of 14 public health training centers based at accredited schools of public health covering 45 states and the District of Columbia. The LMS allows users to assess their own level of competency regarding various public health issues, develop a training plan, and access competency-based programs and products to improve competence and track and document professional development activities. Currently, the system houses over 150 public-health related programs in a multiple formats. Most are free.
Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business. Send your higher education technology news to her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Digital Arrays for Evidence-Based Learning
Our culture is redefining itself and we are redefining how we see learning. It is time for educators to get out of the box of seat time, finally, and consider evidence-based learning.
- 'That Which Weaves Together': The NSF Cyberlearning Report
Trent Batson takes a look at the National Science Foundation's Report of the NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning, "Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge."
- The Power of Wikis in Higher Ed
Over the last six years, Stewart Mader has staked his career on the power of wikis. Mader first worked on wiki adoption initiatives in the IT department at Brown University, becoming fascinated by their power and potential. In this first half of a two-part interview, Mader talks about powerful ways to use wikis in education, content ownership issues, and how wikis tend to be used--and why.
- Sakai 2.5.2 Gets Performance Boost; New Modules Released
The Sakai Foundation has released the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment 2.5.2, the first maintenance update to the open-source learning management system since the 2.5 release in March. The new version includes performance enhancements, as well as a number of bug fixes and other enhancements.
- Microsoft Changes Virtualization Licensing Rules
Microsoft has made substantial changes to its virtualization licensing program, changes that will lower the cost of using virtualization for many customers.
- Vorex Upgrades Web-based Data Collection Tool for Schools
Vorex has released an update to its Vorex Online Survey, a Web-based data collection tool designed to allow schools to collect information and gather feedback from education stakeholders.
