Sclipo – the only 100% free Online Campus for University and K-12 teachers

Sclipo provides – to the best of our knowledge – the world’s only 100% free Online Campus for University and K-12 teachers. With our 100% free Academic Plan, teachers get an Online Campus with:

• E-Learning apps: Course manager, tests, learning path, library, discussion forum, and more…
• Virtual classroom web conferencing: live audio and video, multiple webcams, chat, whiteboard, desk-top sharing, multi-language interface, and more…
• Social network: events, grous, wall, friendships, profile, and more…

See all Sclipo Online Campus feature here.

What about open source LMS (Learning Management Systems)?
The cost of an open source solution with the same Sclipo Campus features is not zero. Only the license to use an open source LMS is free. Firstly, to run an open source LMS requires payment for hosting. In addition, most teachers and schools need to pay IT personnel or consultants to install, configure and maintain the open source LMS. Open source LMS provider Moodle actually makes money by charging royalties to Moodle consultants for any service they sell related to Moodle. Finally, open source LMS do not include a Virtual Classroom web conferencing system by default like Sclipo’s Online Campus. Web conferencing needs to be integrated via a paid plugin / API. To integrate an open source web conferencing system requires additional hosting as well as IT personnel or consultants.

In our experience, the costs of an open source LMS* include:

• IT personnel: up from $30 per hour
• Hosting of open source LMS: up from $5 per month (shared hosting) to plus $100 (dedicated server)
• Hosting of open source web conferencing: up from $60 per month (dedicated server)
• Web conferencing plugin: up from $10 per month per room

(* approximate cost examples)

Our calculations show that even our paid Online Campus plans are about 10 times less expensive than the total cost of an open source LMS. And, of course, paid Campus plans also include a bunch of promotion and e-Commerce features to help attract new students and to facilitate selling of services and content.