INTERNET-BASED EDUCATION SUPPORT SYSTEM AND METHODS

• US 20090317786A1
• Filed: 05/22/2009
• Published: 12/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/1999
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Blackboard Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Blackboard Incorporated
• Inventors: Alcorn, Robert L., Chi, Timothy R., Gilfus, Stephen R., Pittinsky, Matthew L., Chasen, Michael L., Perian, Scott, Cane, Daniel E.
• Application Number:
  US12/470,739
• Publication Number:
  US 20090317786A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 434/323
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 5/02 with visual presentation of the material to be studied, e.g. using film strip
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/02 of the type wherein the student is expected to construct an answer to the question which is presented or wherein the machine gives an answer to the question presented by a student

Abstract

A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet. Various levels of functionality are provided through a three-tiered licensing program that suits the needs of the institution offering the program. In addition, an open platform system is provided such that anyone with access to the Internet can create, manage, and offer a course to anyone else with access to the Internet without the need for an affiliation with an institution, thus enabling the virtual classroom to extend worldwide.

Claims

1-46. -46. (canceled)

47. A method of creating a web page that provides access to courses in an on-line course-based instruction system, comprising the steps of:

authenticating a user, with at least some users concurrently having a plurality of roles, with different roles providing the user with associated respective levels of access to multiple courses in the system; and

generating a web page for the user in response to a single login by the user, the web page comprising a plurality of course hyperlinks, each of the course hyperlinks being associated with a different course, the plurality of course hyperlinks on the web page comprising at least two of the courses with which the user has an associated level of access such that the user is capable of concurrently having different roles in multiple courses, each of the course hyperlinks pointing to an associated course web page that provides access to the associated course in accordance with the user'"'"'s role in the associated course.