CLIX 6.1 supports ICQ, Skype, Blogs and Wikis

This spring saw IMC AG, Europe’s market leader for Learning Management solutions, release CLIX Enterprise Version 6. In this major release the focus was on wide-ranging enhancements to usability and administrative Learning Management functions, such as flexibly configurable Notification Management.

The new Campus version sees the update of those functional areas designed especially to support learners and authors, most importantly, functions designed to further extend CLIX for cooperative learning scenarios. The main feature of the new release is the integration of messaging, Wikis and Weblog functionality.

Users personal profiles can now be extended to include Skype and ICQ contact data, with both applications directly called up from CLIX. An internal messaging system enables CLIX users to send messages directly using pop-ups just like with an Instant Messenger.
The future will also see the integration of Wikis as CLIX components in courses and communities. IMC will achieve this by developing a Wiki software as part of the learning platform. The integration of existing Wikis from other systems may become possible in the medium term. In the meantime, external Wikis can be integrated into any training program via links.
Blogs will be enabled for courses and communities and also on the portal page. This is to be achieved by further development of the whiteboard function which is already part of CLIX, extended as a component to function like a Weblog.

The crucial conceptual difference from previous approaches is the focus on social software: rather than as the personal „diaries“ of individuals, in organisation-based learning, Weblogs are regarded as being a part of courses and learning goals, i.e. are related to learning objects themselves. As CLIX product manager Guido Grohmann explains: „The idea of cooperative learning scenarios using social software is that every learner can simultaneously be author, tutor, commentator, and so on. This idea is naturally central to all learning processes which aim to enable the exchange of ideas and know-how and to generally develop methods and approaches to finding solutions. In CLIX 6.1, Blogs and Wikis are therefore placed within an organisational framework arising from the questions, method and learning goals attaching to a particular learning event. Of course, this does not mean that personal Weblogs cannot also be kept. Even previously it has always been possible to make use of articles from this kind of Blog in all courses and communities via links. What we are focussing on here is the social dimension of academic teaching and active participation in a shared learning process of all those involved.“

Alongside the ePortfolio functions available in CLIX 6 (such as certification administration, grade books, grading and credit points, and also renewable skills) the Campus version provides an extensive range of tools for both the administration of teaching processes and the support of learning scenarios. The concept of the new CLIX 6.1 release has been the result of a partnership between IMC and the places of higher learning in HEEN (Higher Education E-Learning Network). Around 25 universities are part of HEEN, a partnership created by IMC AG.

Dr. Tilman Kuechler, Director of Higher Education at IMC AG, highlights the importance of social software in the university environment: „Academic education feeds from communication, exchange between students and teaching staff, and a shared approach to scientific enquiry. The exchanges on the CLIX learning platform between students and teachers opens the way for places of higher learning to achieve a new quality of higher academic training and education. More than anything, teaching and learning are collaborative processes which necessarily involve an interdisciplinary dimension. CLIX 6.1 provides the solid platform on which this can happen.“

Dr. Wolfgang Kraemer, spokesperson for the IMC AG board: „Whether in places of higher learning or across corporations, launching a Learning Management System within an organisation always involves two decision-making dimensions: the administrative/organisational dimension and the teaching/learning dimension. CLIX provides innovative solutions in both areas: well-designed, process-based and versatile management functions coupled with innovative, communicative and collaborative teaching and learning tools. The concept that contents can be created from a partnership between students and teaching staff and be offered within a given curriculum in addition to conventionally edited contents will become an important corporate Learning Management tool. CLIX 6.1. is pointing the direction in which this development will go.“