Microsoft Learning Gateway frequently asked questions

The Learning Gateway from Microsoft is a Web-based collaboration, communications, and content delivery framework tailored for the education system. It enables teachers to manage their administrative workload, empowers students to learn at their own pace, and helps parents become more involved in their children's education.

The Learning Gateway is a framework, which means it uses Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server to bring together a wide range of Microsoft and third-party products into one integrated solution. Working with your technology partner, you can select the software components you want to add to the framework to create a highly customized solution for your district.

Yes. Some products are ready to use out of the box while other applications may need a systems integrator to write software to add your legacy products.

The Learning Gateway is designed for primary, secondary, and higher education.

Developed to deliver education-specific functionality, the Learning Gateway is built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server and integrates knowledge management, collaboration, and communications technologies from Microsoft.

Installing the Learning Gateway as a hosted service removes much of the upfront costs. Because the solution builds on existing server products, schools can maximize the use of their existing technologies. Microsoft Standard Licensing Agreements apply as well as education discounts through Microsoft Schools Licensing Agreements.

The Learning Gateway is a scalable, cost-effective solution that meets all e-learning objectives in one integrated environment. It offers enhanced security to help schools meet privacy laws and help ensure that students are protected from inappropriate Internet content.

The Learning Gateway has several key benefits:

Technology can never be a substitute for teachers, but it can help to provide a more enriching educational experience. The real value of e-learning is providing the right information to the right audience at the right time, maximizing the time spent teaching while minimizing administrative duties.

The Learning Gateway is now available worldwide and has been deployed in more than 35 countries.

The Learning Gateway addresses the requirements and recommendations of ministries of education, schools and higher education institutions, private and public education programs, government administrations, and professional skills associations. It is compliant with SCORM and IMS.

Contact your local systems integrator or one of the worldwide Learning Gateway partners.

List of worldwide Learning Gateway partners
45 KB
Microsoft Word document

Get Microsoft Office file viewers

The Learning Gateway solution uses Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services for the base portal layer. On top of this layer, a framework of educationally relevant Web parts from any vendor can be added to customize a solution. Microsoft has created a set of Web parts and customized technologies to deliver education-centric functionality to the Learning Gateway. This includes Web parts from Microsoft Class Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, and Microsoft Office. With the Microsoft created Web parts, this solution can deliver an online learning management system that enables teachers to create lesson plans, manage classes, and perform curriculum assessment electronically online and offline. However, only the Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft SharePoint are required; but using only these two products would result in a very basic framework.

Every associated teacher, student, and family can be connected from their home or school to the Internet through your proxy or firewall server, or through a hosted service. With Microsoft Exchange Server, each user can have a unique, secure e-mail address. Using a Web-based service means your students can participate in lessons and complete assignments online through the portal, both from home and at school.

Any resource you can deliver over an HTTP connection can be delivered through the Learning Gateway, including videos, music, documents, and more.

Microsoft recommends using Microsoft Active Directory service, but you can use local machine accounts on Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server. You can use anonymous access to SharePoint and authenticated access to the hosted applications in the framework, or you can use a third-party LDAP solution.

For Microsoft supplied software, the data is secured through Microsoft SQL Server and the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system. Non-Microsoft applications may use different data security models.

With a Microsoft Class Server 4.0 implementation, the Learning Gateway supports SCORM 1.2 content and the Runtime Environment (SCORM 1.2 RTE). Class Server preserves the SCORM object state so that when it is viewed by students they get the experience intended by the author. (Because of this object preservation, teachers cannot edit or print SCORM objects, and teacher previewing of certain SCORM objects may result in an error).

Additionally, objects created in the Learning Resource Editor can be ingested into a SCORM-conformant system because each page is treated as an asset. And assessments created with our Question Wizard are translated into a non-interactive form compatible for use outside of Class Server. At this point, Class Server does not use the results of the SCORM data model interactions in the grading and tracking system. SCORM 1.2 compliance details follow: