At last we finally have a real LMS within Joomla. This LMS really does import Scorm compatible material (1.2 for the moment but 2004 in development) made by any scorm compatible software, Articulate, Camtasia, Lectora etc and gives standard tracking for single scorm packages and page by page tracking for separate scos. The installation is dead easy, though you might need to install ioncube on your server first (easy installation too) and literally within seconds you are able to upload your first scorm.

When uploading scorms, you may need to change your php preferences first to allow uploading of large files but again nothing to difficult to manage.

The interface is easy to use and relatively intuitive. Apart from the standard scorm uploading and tracking, there are a host of other features including chat, web conference, mass mailing to students, and the ability to make your own course material using JoomaLMS. The web conference is pretty excellent and really does allow the teacher to give lessons online. (The quality of the video and sound is perfect and you can write info on the whiteboard or send web addresses or preload documents for the student to see during the lesson.)

The key asset is first that this LMS is integrated within Joolma so there is no need to send students to an external site with another logon etc.

The second asset is that you can charge students for courses if you like as there is an integrated payment method using Paypal for example (but there are others). So you can finally make money from your courses in a very simple way.

All in all, there are few drawbacks to JoomlaLMS. There are one or two minor issues that are being cleared up (which is normal given that it has just been launched). Indeed now is the time to give the trial a go and have your say as to how the component should be improved as the developers really do listen to users comments.

It is true it is not a free component, but I really believe it is a good bargain for those professionals who want to branch out into teaching on the net and who are looking for an effective and viable pay enabled LMS.