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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/EFront (eLearning software) Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/EFront_(eLearning_software)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. According less weight to the argument of WP:SPAs and taking into consideration the effective rebuttals by Nuujinn, I find a consensus to delete. Tim Song (talk) 22:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

EFront (eLearning software)

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EFront (eLearning software) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Promotion for non-notable software product, article by company employee. No independent references are given, and no significant coverage can be found. In its previous AfD, [1] and [2] were pointed out, but none of these are significant. Haakon (talk) 20:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep, Hello and thanks for letting me share my option before you proceed to any deletion.

First of all I do not intent to hide the fact that I support this project and I can certainly accept any criticism and feedback regarding the neutrality and quality of the topic. However, this is a well known project and I post here a few evidence for its importance.

1. First of all eFront is a SCORM 1.2 certified and one of the first SCORM 2004/4th edition compliant products You can find such evidence on ADL's website http://www.adlnet.gov/Technologies/scorm/Custom%20Pages/SCORM%20Adopters.aspx or at http://webapps.adlnet.gov/SCORMAdopters/Adopter.aspx?i=539

2. Jfusion (a known Joomla plugin) and Amember (well known payment solution) have dedicated forums to support their eFront integrations:

http://www.jfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewforum.php?f=53

http://amember.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8632

3. The product is one of the highest ranked systems on opensourcecms

http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/details.php?scriptid=222&name=eFront

4. The product is part of Brandon's Hall LMS review and Capterra's LMS directory

http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/lmskb/lmskb_firms.shtml

http://www.capterra.com/learning-management-system-software/spotlight/18528/Efront/Epignosis?srchid=259808&pos=1

5. The system can be found on several open-source software directories. I include a few of them below

http://osliving.com/content-management/e-learning/efront/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/efrontlearning/

http://www.ohloh.net/projects/11528

6. Techworld had an indepth review for several eLearning tools including eFront

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/223565/10_open_source_e-learning_projects_watch

7. Alexa report the project's portal as the 84,124 most visited site on the internet today

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/efrontlearning.net#

8. There are several blog posts concerning the pro's and con's of the project.

http://daveperso.mediaenglishonline.com/2009/12/23/getting-your-own-lms-part-2-efront/

http://frumpyhausfrau.com/business/efront-lands-in-the-hot-seat/

http://techno-realism.blogspot.com/2008/11/open-source-learning-management-systems.html

http://kavitaragoobar.blogspot.com/2010/03/efront-learning.html

http://www.zimbio.com/Ecommerce+software+Solution/articles/15/Open+Source+LMS+Beyond+Moodle

9. The project is watched by several security lists which informs about security issues

http://securityreason.com/exploitalert/7985

10. Known hosting providers offer dedicated support for hosting eFront on their infrastructure

http://www.siteground.com/efront-hosting.htm

http://www.facebook.com/notes/siteground/xmb-efront-and-glfusion-at-sitegroundcom/73372089834

11. Last but not least, the project itself has an active discussion forum that can be found at: http://forum.efrontlearning.net and a simple google search can reveal thousand of web-sites that are powered from the software (just try a google search with allinurl: "index.php?ctg=contact") Papagel (talk) — Papagel (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Ok, but significant coverage is a bit controversial under various aspects. The fact that thousand public web-sites have installed and use this software is or not a "significant-coverage"?. I spend some more time today on the web for other sources of information for eFront and I post here a few more findings that may help make a more informative decision:

  • Brandon-Hall eLearning Trends Research include eFront on the list of the well known open-source learning management system:

http://discovery-thru-elearning.blogspot.com/2009/07/learning-management-systems-trends-and.html

  • Genbeta, a very well known tech news portal in Spain posted a detailed article regarding eFront on March 2010

http://www.genbeta.com/herramientas/efront-intuitiva-plataforma-de-e-learning

  • Another article about eFront in Spanish

http://www.aplicacionesempresariales.com/efront-mas-rapido-y-productivo.html

  • eFront was part of the research work on evaluating learning management systems with test-tools

Kor, B. & Tanrikulu, Z. (2008). Evaluation of Learning Management Systems with Test Tools. In J. Luca & E. Weippl (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008 (pp. 5261-5266). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

  • A few more blog mentions of eFront

http://barrysampson.com/2009/04/open-source-lms-10-alternatives-to-moodle/

http://dilancreativo.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/efront-plataforma-de-aprendizaje-online/

http://loquenecesita.com/2010/03/efront-plataforma-de-aprendizaje/

  • The CENTRE FOR LEARNING & PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGIES includes eFront in its resource directory:

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/Tools/instructional.html

  • Edutools (an lms comparison web-portal) includes eFront on its short list of LMSs

http://www.edutools.info/item_list.jsp?pj=4

  • Another LMS comparison article in French that includes eFront

http://www.lms-selection.com/fr2/?p=74

  • Eduwiki refers to eFront as "probably the most user friendly LMS"

http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/LMS

  • Delicious has assembled 371 different bookmarks for eFront's website

http://delicious.com/url/4cca5fc536ee79166c46b65d15210808

  • You can find several eFront references on search engines by using as keywords something like "eFront LMS". Otherwise, and due to the fact that there were other services on the past that used the same name the results can be fuzzy.

Papagel (talk)

  • Keep, I am active in the educational technology space as well as being a former developer for the Moodle LMS project. I find that this article is useful. I do agree that some of the verbiage of the article is written in a marketing/spammy tone and should be corrected as well as including the more notable references provided above where applicable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skippybosco (talk • contribs) — Skippybosco (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
    • Ok, but you finding it "useful" is not a keep reason; what's needed are cases of significant coverage in reliable third-party sources. Haakon (talk) 08:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for your response. It seems there are numerous links above from the previous poster which I would assume would be sufficient? A more recent one, while they have not yet posted the public link to the announcement, Brandon Hall (http://www.brandon-hall.com) just awarded eFront the bronze award for "Best Advance in Learning Management Technology for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses". It is a fairly big deal for the e-learning community, which I assumed would be the populous interested in this article, does that qualify it as "significant" or "reliable" for these purposes?

Delete, no hits on efrontlearning or efrontlearning.net in google news, nothing on "efront lms" after the mid 1980s. However, if this efront is related to the efront mentioned in [this], it may be notable on that basis. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:01, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Skippybosco (talk)

  • While used internationally, eFront is developed by a Greek company (Epignosis). As such, you will find a result for eFront in Google News dated April 27, 2010 here (http://www.google.com/news/search?cf=all&ned=el_gr&hl=el&q=efront+lms). This specific news article is in reference to the earlier posters #1 link regarding being one of the first LMS in the industry to achieve SCORM 2004/4th edition compliance.

Papagel (talk)

  • If absence from google news could work as a reject reason for accepting a software article then more than half of them should be deleted (since it covers mainly big media). Also, there are a series of wikipedia articles for similar open-source elearning packages with similar coverage (e.g, like Atutor or Dokeos).
  • I would suggest a Google Scholar for several research work that mention or have as main topic the system or a direct google search using as keywords something like "eFront LMS" or "efrontlearning". Otherwise, and due to the fact that there were other services on the past that used the same name the results can be fuzzy.I include two such search links below:
  • Google search for "efront learning management system" google search
  • Google scholar search for "efront learning management system" Google Scholar Search.
  • Just one more bit of information regarding notability. Brandon-hall research just released the winners for "2009 Excellence in Learning Technology Awards". eFront won a bronze metal on the category for best advance for small-medium enterprises

http://www.brandon-hall.com/awards/award_winners/lta2009_winners.shtml

  • Comment I'm not sure how being compliant to a standard is supposed to confer notability. A general google search reveals expected advertising and discussion, most from various vendor sites and fora. I took a quite look at google scholar, what I found were papers about elearing that mention efront in passing as the software used. As for the award, I'll just say Brandon-Hall seems to hand out a lot of medals. Please see WP:OTHERSTUFF in regard to other possible non-notable software packages. I'm not convinced that this is notable. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:50, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Compliance to a standard (especially an early adopter on a widely used standard) guarantees at least some dedication from the developers on the related field (in this case eLearning). The main question here is the following: among a series of articles about open-source elearning systems does this one satisfies the criteria for a valid contribution or not?

Papagel (talk)

Comment Dedication does not establish notability, and what other articles exist isn't really relevant. What is relevant here is significant coverage by reliable sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Arbitrarily0 (talk) 00:40, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There are several published research papers that either have as main topic eFront or refer to it. I assembled a list from scholar.google.com:

Zaharias, P (2007). Heuristic evaluation in e-learning context: Selecting the appropriate tasks and reporting usability problems. International Conference on eLearning (ICEL) 2007 (main topic)

Kor, B. & Tanrikulu, Z. (2008). Evaluation of Learning Management Systems with Test Tools. In J. Luca & E. Weippl (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008 (pp. 5261-5266). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. (major topic)

Ozarslan, Y., Ozan, O. (2010). eFront Öğrenme Yönetim Sistemi, Akademik Bilisin 2010 (In turkish) (main topic)

Fontanin, M. (2008). Developing an English course for in-service librarians, Library Management (reference)

Martens, B. & Acthen, H (2008). Do you moodle? 26th eCAADe Conference (reference)

Matsunaga, N & Kwan, A. (2008). 6th AECEF Symposium in Vilnius (reference)

Williams, G., A Multi-factor Authentication Model for E-learners and Virtual Learning Systems.Federated Approach.Proceedings of Student Mobility and ICT: Can E-learning overcome barriers of Life-Long learning? Maastricht University (reference)

e-Learning Delivery of the Course “Advanced Multimedia Systems Design” SK Toh - 2008 - sst.unisim.edu.sg http://sst.unisim.edu.sg:8080/dspace/handle/123456789/116 (reference)

Malik, N (2008). Discovering Dependencies in Courseware Repositories, M.Tech.Dissertation, Department of Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (reference)

  • Finally, eFront appears as one of the suggested LMS's from the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS) on a related report:

Functional Specification for NMLS Approved Instructor-Led Online Courses

http://publish.nationwidelicensingsystem.org/courseprovider/Course%20Provider%20Resources/Online%20Functional%20Spec.pdf Papagel (talk)

  • Comment. Please. I couldn't get to all of those, but none that I could access do anything to establish notability:
  • Kor, B. & Tanrikulu, Z is a presentation about tools used to test various elearning software packages, the abstract is here.
  • Ozarslan, Y., Ozan, O. is basically a product review based largely on efront's web pages. [3]
  • SK Toh's research paper is an ENG499 CAPSTONE ELECTRONICS PROJECT, that mentions efront once, in a list of vendors: "Open-source Virtual Learning Environments (VLE): ATutor, Claroline, Dokeos, eFront, The eLearning XHTML editor (eXe), KEWL GLO Maker, Moodle, OLA T, Sakai Project, Virtual Training Studio, WebPA, Xerte" [4]
  • Fontanin, M., is an analysis of blending learning, and used moodle as the test LNS. The article mentions efront once, in a list: "Moodle is not the only LMS available nowadays; many others could have been used, both open source (such as ETutor, Claroline, eFront and so on) and commercially developed (such as Blackboard, eCollege, Learn.com etc.)"
  • Williams, G. is about secure VLEs, and mentions efront once, in a list: "Common VLE tools for developing and driving VLEs include but not limited to blackboard, firstclass, EFRONT, WEBCT (Part of blackboard, Dokeos, Cyber Extension." [5]
  • Matsunaga, N & Kwan, A is also about blended learning in general, and mentions efront once, in a list: "A simple search on the internet for “Moodle” [7], “ILIAS” [8], “eFront” [9], “Sakai” [10], or “Dokeos” [11] will reveal much information and sources of free VLEs." [6]
  • Malik is a master's thesis on searching, and the article mentions efront once, in a list: "There are other open source LMSs also available such as Moodle, SCORM, eFront etc. Every type of LMS supports the following features"/ [7]
  • The NMLS report (you guessed it) mentions efront once, in a list, as an item in List of Learning Management Systems, found in Appendix A.
None of these, I think, meet the bar of significant coverage in a reliable source. Passing reference does not establish notability. If you searched the web for my name IRL you find many hits, but I'm notable. Still not convinced, sorry. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment:Controversy makes the world go round :) You can check next to the references I added what discovered papers seem to have eFront as a main topic and which have a reference to eFront. This obviously is not an exhausted list but pieces of information that together (and combined with other sources) tell a story.
Especially the first three papers are peer-reviewed papers that cover eFront in some considerable extend. I don't understand the point made for the paper (Evaluation of Learning Management Systems with Test Tools) about being a "presentation"- this is a peer-reviewed article on EDMEDIA 2008 (World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications).
Also, regarding the paper from Ozarslan, Y. and Ozan, O they specifically mention on the abstract "In this study, the open source learning management system eFront is evaluated based on literature review and authors experiences during 2008-2009 academic year".
About the NMLS report your remark is a bit unfair. The report has an extensive list of characteristics that are expected from an LMS that is compliant with their needs. At the beginning of Apendix A they state "The following is a list of Learning Management Systems (LMS) that a course provider may want to consider in order to meet many of the conditions associated with offering instructor-led pre-licensure courses". It seems they have done some due diligence before suggesting. On top of this, for each LMS they also provide a short description of their findings instead of just a reference.
Finally, the first paper dealing with "Heuristic Evaluation in eLearning Context" uses eFront as the main evaluation medium. I could find only a part of the paper online from the conference proceedings at: http://books.google.gr/books?id=QX_e-RlW89UC&pg=PA527&lpg=PA527&dq=%22Heuristic+evaluation+in+e-learning+context%22&source=bl&ots=GYnNO2dLg2&sig=OalgBTleLwFBd3ydwHpfyvttOz8&hl=el&ei=UJfiS73OJoOlOKPq5NsN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Heuristic%20evaluation%20in%20e-learning%20context%22&f=false (pages 527-534)

Papagel (talk)

Regarding the "Heuristic Evaluation in eLearning Context" provide a good translation of the introduction/abstract and relevant section from the above, showing that efront's software is the topic of the paper, not just a vehicle used for the study of something else. Likewise, if you can provide access to Kor, B. & Tanrikulu, Z. I'll be happy to take a look, but I can't get to it. Ozarslan, Y. and Ozan, O is really not a scholarly work, they have 4 references, two of which go to efront. It's just a review of features. As for NMLS I stand by my reading of it.
You need to provide significant coverage in reliable sources. The sources you're referencing are pretty reliable, but in my opinion the coverage is not significant--these articles with the exception of Ozarslan, Y. and Ozan, O aren't about efront's LMS, they are about other subjects and mention efront's LMS. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment A software system can rarely be the only context of a scientific paper; it is usually combined with some sort of evaluation under several dimensions.

Since I could not find the "Heuristic Evaluation in eLearning Context" article I asked the author to send me the part of the paper that directly relates with eFront. Here is the link to the related part (3 pages): http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8vrY4OEQsbRYjE1NGJkZmQtNzkyMy00ZjAzLWFkMjMtZmRhNjVlMWEyOGM0&hl=en

I'll try to get a full copy of Kor, B. & Tanrikulu, Z paper as well.

Regarding the paper from Ozarslan, Y and Ozan, O it was presented in a Turkish Conference - I don't know how the number of references can be a valid criterion for the paper quality. For your reference here is the main page of this conference: http://ab2010.mugla.edu.tr/

Finally, there is an MSC thesis on University of Crete called "Towards standards based e-Learning tools and technologies" that deals with the eLearning standards in general but also with the implementation of SCORM 2004/4th edition inside eFront. I got the permission from the author to add a link here to this document: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8vrY4OEQsbRN2JjMTM4Y2UtODk5YS00NjdiLTg3ZjYtN2ZhNzI1MGZjZDFl&hl=en Papagel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Re: "A software system can rarely be the only context of a scientific paper; it is usually combined with some sort of evaluation under several dimensions." Yes, and there's a reason for that--software projects are generally not of interest in scientific papers. One one of the articles we have discussed, Ozarslan, Y and Ozan, O, is about efront's software. The rest mention it in lists, or use it as a tool for some other purpose, but are not about it--and for that reason, they do not, in my opinion, help establish WP:notability of the software or the company behind it. Usually, notability for software projects is established by reviews from reputable sources. You have found lots of web sites, portal, blogs, bit and pieces, but I see no such reviews.
Re: "Heuristic Evaluation in eLearning Context", where's the rest of the article? It looks at first glance that this article is like the others, and not really about efront's software. Same for the master's thesis, it appears to be about scorm, not efront's LMS (although I readily admit that I didn't read the thesis, just the abstract, tables of contents and glanced around a bit).
So we're back to Ozarslan, Y and Ozan, O as apparently the best source. Yes, for a scholarly work, references are important, both the ones used in the paper and number of times the paper itself is referenced in other scholarly works. As a scholarly work, this seems to be very weak. As a software review, it is also weak, since the authors are not professional software reviewers, and this work doesn't appear in a reputable source oriented to software packages. So I'm still not convinced. You have my sympathy, but not my support. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has concentrated on scientific literature due to the exact fact that it is a reliable source of notability. As discussed on notability section on wikipedia "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material". There are (at least) 3 scientific papers and 1 master thesis that have extended sections that discuss eFront under different angles (features, usability, standards). And there are several more scientific papers that refer to it.

Apart from this, there are a lot of other pieces of information reported throughout this discussion including reviews on tech sites like techworld and genbeta.

On a personal note and no matter what this was an interesting discussion. Papagel (talk)

Yes, indeed. As you say, there are lots of pieces. You left out the first line "Significant coverage means that sources address the subject directly in detail," and as I've said, I believe you have one article, Ozarslan, Y and Ozan, O, that meets that criteria. Personally, I don't regard it as a good source, neither fish nor fowl, but it is a source. General notability guidelines also state "Multiple sources are generally expected" with a note to the effect that a paucity of sources suggests a better use of the information would be in an article on a general topic, eg. inclusion in Learning Management Systems. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:34, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

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Since this has gotten long, here's a summary of the votes so far:

Please let me know if I missed anyone, --Nuujinn (talk) 15:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As suggested on the top of this topic consensus is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.

I would like to comment a bit on the last bit of criticism. Wikipedia needs resources that deals with the proposed system directly and in detail. I do believe that all 3 papers and the master thesis are valid eFront sources since they cover the system in depth under different angles (functionality, usability and standards). For example, the paper from Zaharias is about usability in eLearning context. It does *not* use eFront as a medium to report on something else. eFront is an essential part of its report and the system which is both examined and benefited from the findings. The same stands for the paper from Kor, B. & Tanrikulu, Z. (Evaluation of Learning Management Systems with Test Tools). Since the scope of the paper is indeed to evaluate learning management systems this cannot be considered a distant but rather a direct reference to the included systems. Finally, the master thesis does not passively use eFront but it directly analyzes its architecture and extend it to include SCORM 2004 support. Papagel (talk)

If by "the thesis" you mean Towards Standards Based eLearning, it's 108 pages and mentions efront 5 times, once in a footnote reference to your project's web page. I do not believe that is significant coverage.
In the Zacharias paper, from what I can tell from the limited view I get from google, efront appears three times, and I think once is an acknowlegement. From what I have read of it, the paper does not appear to be about efront, and the coverage is not, in my opinion, significant.
Regarding Evaluation of Learning Management Systems with Test Tools, you said "I'll try to get a full copy of Kor, B. & Tanrikulu, Z paper as well". Did you get a copy of the paper, or are you basing your interpretation on the abstract (which makes it appear that the paper is not about efront, but rather about evaluating elearning software, and happens to use efront among others as test cases)?
I'm sorry to have to say this, and I'm assuming that you are acting good faith, but you might ask yourself whether your conflict of interest about this topic might perhaps skew your judgment as to the quality of these sources somewhat. I'm just not seeing significant coverage. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to be as unbiased as possible although certainly this can be difficult. However, perhaps you should question yourself as well regarding being stuck in your initial position. There is a known "anchor" in people decisions that is well explained in a recent book (Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely).

I will just comment on the MSC thesis since you say "it appears in the thesis only 5 times" - and this counting argument stands as well for the rest of the criticism. You forgot to mention the fact that all the MSC is about extending the system providing as a result a SCORM 2004 compliant eFront. Here is a part of the thesis abstract without any more comments. "This thesis aims to provide a reference implementation of the latest version of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM 2004 4th Edition) grounded in a fully functional pre-existent learning management system. For the purpose of this thesis we selected the learning management system eFront which is used in the course “CS-100 Introduction to Computer Science” offered by the Computer Science Department of the University of Crete. Our goal is to accomplish a fully compliant implementation, according to the requirements defined in the SCORM 2004 4th Edition Testing Requirements (TR) Version 1.1" Papagel (talk)

I think that quote supports my point quite well, it seems to me that the thesis is about implementing scorm, and efront is just the vehicle. It certainly does not seem as if there's anything notable about efront that led to their choosing it.
Did you get a copy of Evaluation of Learning Management Systems with Test Tools?
Perhaps I am stuck, certainly I am very stringent in regard to articles about software. I'll think about it. But I'm pretty comfortable about my judgments regarding these sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:16, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it is a difference in points of view after all and it is certainly pointless to try to enforce ones opinion over the other - at least at this stage. I have asked the authors for a full copy for the "Evaluation of Learning Managements Systems with Test Tools" but I have not heard from them yet. Assuming they will answer timely I will add the full paper to this discussion as well. Papagel (talk)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.