Enterprise technology and innovative solutions provider Blackboard Inc., US, has announced the release of xpLor, a content platform that gives educators unprecedented ability to create, discover and share rich course materials across systems and institutions. xpLor claims to be the industry's first cloud-based learning object repository that supports multiple learning management systems (LMS).
Users can create and store materials in xpLor, and then extend their content by sharing and making it discoverable to instructors across working groups, courses and institutions. Content is delivered through the cloud to users' LMS. xpLor currently supports Blackboard Learn, ANGEL, Joule from Moodlerooms and Sakai. Users can tag and rate content, making it easy to find items their peers found to be valuable.
Content can be adapted over time by multiple users. Content authors can control who can see and change their content, and can apply to their work a variety of rights and permissions from All Rights Reserved to Creative Commons open sharing, to enable crowdsourcing collaboration and remixing of content.
xpLor was developed with emphasis on open standards to ease sharing. Users can create or import any type of content supported by the IMS Common Cartridge standard, including rich documents, discussion boards and assessments. Using the IMS LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) specification, grades are automatically sent to the LMS gradebook and activity is recorded when items are used in a course.
