Why Student Affairs Needs to Know Adrian Sannier

Inside Higher Ed

Prior to this year’s EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, Pearson announced a new “self-service learning management system (LMS)” called OpenClass. Billed as being completely free, OpenClass integrates with Google Apps for Education and is available from the Google Apps Marketplace. The user interface (UI) is stunning. It’s as if a traditional LMS was given a facelift by the Google Docs team (Note that Google did not create OpenClass). The interface is simple and reminds me of a blog. It’s more web 2.0 in look and feel. The top portion of the UI features Gmail, Google Calendar, Gchat, Google Docs, and Skype icons. With such an aesthetically pleasing UI (coupled with useful functionality) I predict that students will love using OpenClass.