Would you like to make a decision using the EduTools Summative Decision Tool?
| Product Name | Educator |
|---|---|
| Developer Name | Ucompass |
| URL | Ucompass |
| Review Date | January 01, 1900 |
| Forums | Educator Discussions |
| Reviewer | Email Review Staff |
| Communication Tools | |
| Discussion Forums |
Discussion forums can be viewed by author, by date, by thread, and by group. Groups can be open to all or only a select set of students. Posts can include attachments.Instructors can allow students to create groups. Discuss |
| File Exchange |
Instructors can upload files to the personal folder of a student. Students can share files using the instant message tool. Students can also download all the contents of a folder at one time. Virus detection technology is used throughout the file upload/download process. Discuss |
| Internal Email |
Students can use the Internal email feature to email individuals and groups. Students can attach files and forward messages to an external Internet email account. The system can generate automated e-mail reminder messages and can send pages to Wireless devices. The system employs virus detection technology. Discuss |
| Online Journal/Notes | |
| Real-time Chat |
The CGI-based chat tool supports private rooms, private messages, customized chat windows and file sharing. Instructors may monitor chats and suspend students from the chat rooms. The system creates archive logs for all chat rooms. There is also a built-in instant messaging tool. Discuss |
| Video Services | |
| Whiteboard |
The software supports a whiteboard. Discuss |
| Productivity Tools | |
| Bookmarks |
Students can create and categorize bookmarks in a course folder. Discuss |
| Orientation/Help |
Students can use keywords to search the product reference center and can use web traceable online forms to access the help desk. Students can also access the help desk using a toll-free phone number or live text chat (if their organization purchased this level of support). Discuss |
| Searching Within Course |
Students can use instructor selected keywords, object ID, or filename to search their course. Discuss |
| Calendar/Progress Review |
Students can keep track of all their assignments, deadlines, and due dates in their personal online calendars. Instructors can post events and announcements in the online course calendar. Instructors can assign tasks. Discuss |
| Work Offline/Synchronize |
Students can download course content and discussion group content with a PDA. Upon re-entering a course, students have the option of resuming at the last page viewed. Discuss |
| Student Involvement Tools | |
| Groupwork |
Instructors can assign students to groups. Each group can have its own discussion forum. Discuss |
| Self-assessment |
Instructors can create self-assessments that students can take up to ten times. The system can display instructor-created feedback and hints. Discuss |
| Student Community Building | |
| Student Portfolios |
Students can create a personal home page. Students’ personal home pages may include links to important websites. Discuss |
| Administration Tools | |
| Authentication |
Administrators can protect access to individual courses with a username and password. Access can be restricted based on IP address or number of login attempts. Discuss |
| Course Authorization | |
| Registration Integration |
Administrators can batch add students to a course using a delimited text file. The software supports integration with a number of student information systems through a tool that is based on scheduled system exports. Discuss |
| Hosted Services |
The product provider offers a hosted system that provides 24x7x365 monitoring, UNIX (FreeBSD) servers, a secure facility with environmental control, a direct T3 connection, a second redundant T3 connection, and a modern alarm/security system. Discuss |
| Course Delivery Tools | |
| Course Management |
Instructors can personalize access to specific course materials at login. Instructors can set up specific course content that is released on a specific date and that students must complete before they continue with course. Discuss |
| Instructor Helpdesk |
Instructors can access an online product user group discussion, email listserve, and the help center, which is keyword searchable. Instructors can contact the technical support helpdesk using a toll-free phone number or using live text chat if their organization purchased this level of technical support. Instructors can share experiences with instructors in their organization, using discussion forums and chat rooms, and can share learning objects. Instructors can submit a helpdesk trouble report through an online form and track its resolution on the web. Discuss |
| Online Grading Tools |
Instructors can provide feedback on all assignments. Instructors can search the gradebook to find all students who meet a specific performance criteria, mark, or status such as exam completion. Instructors can manually edit all grades. Discuss |
| Student Tracking |
Instructors can get reports showing the number of times and time and date on which each student accessed course content, discussion forums, course assessments, assignments, self-assessments, and course bookmarks. Instructors can summarize all discussion posts to date by group or by student. Instructors can view all student folders simultaneously. Discuss |
| Automated Testing and Scoring |
Instructors can create true/false, multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and worksheet questions. Instructors can import questions from existing test banks. The system can randomize the questions in a test. Instructors can set a time limit on a test. Instructors can set dates and times for when students can or must access tests. Instructors can also use IP addresses to restrict access to tests. Discuss |
| Curriculum Design | |
| Accessibility Compliance |
To enable accessibility, the software implements the following features: alt tags on all system images and the software does not use frames. The wireless version of the software provides text-only content, which can be read by most screen readers. Discuss |
| Course Templates |
Instructors can use templates to create course content, glossaries, handouts, links, syllabus and course descriptions. Discuss |
| Curriculum Management | |
| Customized Look and Feel |
Instructors can change the order and name of menu items and the location and width of the navigation menu for a course. Discuss |
| Instructional Standards Compliance |
The product provider self-tested the software and reports that it is compliant with IMS metadata specification 1.2.2 and IMS Content Packaging 1.1.3. Discuss |
| Instructional Design Tools |
Instructors can organize learning objects into learning sequences that are reusable. Discuss |
| Content Sharing/Reuse | |
| Hardware/Software | |
| Client Browser Required |
The software supports Internet Explorer 4+, Netscape 3+. The software also supports Palm OS and Windows CE browsers. Discuss |
| Database Requirements | |
| Server Software |
Whenever the product provider changes the software source code, the change is automatically incorporated into each client’s server. The product provider also provides remote availability monitoring and notification services. The software also implements the following open source utilities: mpack/munpack, postfix, procmail, zip / unzip, Apache/OpenSSL. Discuss |
| UNIX Server |
The software is available for any variant of Linux, Unix or MAC OS X. Suggested hardware recommendations are 128 MB of RAM per 8,000 users and 128Kbps bandwidth connection. Discuss |
| Windows Server | |
| Pricing/Licensing | |
| Company Profile |
Ucompass began in 1995 as a company called Compass Publishing. The original products were college orientation guides. In 1997, it became a commercial web development company. Shortly after that in early 1998, it began focusing exclusively on education technology and developing the Educator software. Discuss |
| Costs |
Educator software is priced based on the number of course developer accounts. Please contact company for annual license fees. Discuss |
| Open Source | |
| Optional Extras |
The system has an API builder that allows course authors to create authenticated links to externally hosted content or applications. This facilitates the integration of a variety of other learning resources and applications. Discuss |
| Software Version |
The software does not have a version number. Discuss |
This site is licensed under a Creative Commons License.