How Can A Website Benefit Your Business

1. Why should you have a website?

In order to succeed in today's world, you must have an Internet presence. More and more people log on to the internet everyday; there are billions of users world-wide and there are several reasons why one needs a web site. A website is a powerful first impression. Placing your business on the World Wide Web, gives your business the potential for global exposure, no matter the size of your business – be it large or small; singular or multi-national. To have your own website gives your business invaluable advantages, which is illustrated in the answer to the next question, viz-a-viz:

2. How can a website be useful?

Website help you leverage web services for streamlining data transfer to and from your organization.

There are myriad reasons for - How a website can be useful and why you should bring your business online? Some of them are, briefly, mentioned below:

a. Enhanced customer convenience

Your business concern can be more easily and quickly reached, every time a potential or an existing client searches for relevant businesses, products and services over the Internet. Your customers can always keep in touch with you and your business, just by knowing your web site address.

b. Greater reachability of your business profile:

Your business profile can be accessible from anywhere in the world. No other ad medium provides such global coverage. You need not depend on phone book entry or restricted yellow pages and newspaper ad presentations, any longer.

c. Greater possibilities for promoting your business portfolio:

People will not buy your products or services unless they know that they actually exist. You can tell your potential audience much more through a WEBSITE, than you could possibly do via any print advertisements, Yellow Pages listings, or TV/radio commercials. There are no limitations as far as space, time, nationality and residency are concerned. You can say as many things as you want, to as many people as you wish. And your business representation can be as resourceful as is the Internet itself.

d. Efficient low-cost advertising:

Your customers will always be able to obtain thorough up-to-date information about your services or products. Instead of having to rely on randomly aired TV or radio commercials, they can simply browse through your website whenever they like.

e. 24/7 availability:

Website is available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It will be your hardest working employee, never getting sick, or taking a holiday. And you can rest assured that your website is always there for you – to answer your customers’ questions or to collect their feedback on your behalf.

f. Time-saving:

Prospective clients can learn about you and your business at any time of the day simply by visiting your website, so you won’t have to be present or involved with the process in any way. Your precious time can be saved and invested in other activities that can increase your profits and further enhance the scope of your business.

g. Cost -cutting:

You can save a lot of money cutting your costs on print ads, brochures, coupons, flyers, specials, newsletters or mailings. What’s more! Its always quick easy and extremely efficient to update real time information on your website; whereas regular renewals of printed materials turn out to be very expensive and time consuming. The fact optimized productivity at minimal cost is more valued in any business and it is possible only through world wide web.

Web services provide a standard way to implement a business function that can also be managed remotely. It employs an effective exchange of information and data-feeds between B2B and B2C portals, information warehouses, news providers, shopping portals like e bay and search engines like Google, MSN, yahoo etc.

Your website must work hard in today's competitive online environment — attracting visitors, providing a rich user experience and converting them into loyal customers.

3. What makes a site work successfully?

Its a hotly debated question – “What makes a website work well that will genuinely help your business and attract more customers?”

A well designed website can certainly lead to increased business. By following simple guide-lines, it is possible to create a good-looking website that will really give your business the best chance of being noticed.

For your online presence to really count, your brand needs to exude credibility, confidence and efficiency through your website. A well designed website can certainly leverage your business processes. One can achieve this by blending strong design and content, with seamless functionality, and expert support throughout - with time tested processes.

Web Designing is “a process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media delivery via Internet in the form of Markup language suitable for interpretation by Web browser and display as Graphical user interface” (ref- Wikipedia)

Web Design can have a powerful affect. Web Design is important and it must be right! The right design kindles in a website visitor the right perception of your business. It engenders confidence and trust in your business. Success online is vital to the overall strength of your business.

It’s essential that –

In an arena saturated with billions of web pages, it requires innovation and expertise, to represent your brand effectively.

Your site must be easy to navigate and simple to use. If your users and potential customers can’t find what they want, this will undermine your site’s performance, in relation to your business goals.

Your web site should, clearly and concisely, reflect your business, values and products, since your web site is now the first point of contact for a new user or potential customer.

A good and innovative design ensures that the site is memorable and encourages the viewer to explore beyond the home page.

The web functionality and programming should use only standard, compliant, valid coding and also provide an alternative programming, to ensure that your site is viewable in any Browser and at any Screen Resolution.

Most Web design and development companies possess skills in one or the other – rarely both. This is where ImagiNET Ventures web solutions differ, as we understand how to design a website that will most effectively present you, your business or organization, with your products and services.

SCORM and the Learning Management System (LMS)

by: Stuart Campbell

What actually is SCORM? SCORM, Shareable Content Object Reference Model, is a standard for web-based e-learning that has been developed to define communication between client-side content and a runtime environment. In the context of this article, the client-side content would be the course launched by a student and the runtime environment would be a Learning Management System. The SCORM standard has undergone several version releases from SCORM v1.0 in 1999 to the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition in 2006. The purpose of this article is to look in a little more detail at the communication flow between the LMS and a course that is SCORM v2.1 compliant. The intention is not to review every possible communication but just the main calls. We will look at SCORM in the context of a SCORM course, i.e. a course that has been developed and built to communicate with a Learning Management System using the SCORM standard.

First of all, let me define a few terms that I will use and that you may hear in reference to SCORM courses:

• API (Application Programming Interface)

The SCORM standard has a defined API. The term API is not unique to SCORM but is a well known term in application development. The SCORM API is a documented set of messages that are sent between the course and the LMS. The message may require a response so that the sender of the message is guaranteed that the message has been received and processed appropriately.

• Manifest

The manifest is the master file for the SCORM course that contains references to all other files that make up the complete content of the course.

• Single SCO

A single SCO is the most basic and most common form of a SCORM course. All files that make up the course, regardless of the number of lessons in the course, are packaged as one SCO unit. When the course is launched within the Learning Management System, it communicates with the SCO.

• Multiple SCO

A multiple SCO is where a group of files within the course can be treated as an individual SCO but packaged together with other SCOs to comprise one course. For example, the files that comprise each lesson of a SCORM course can be grouped together so that each lesson is a SCO in its own right and all the SCOs will comprise the one course.

Course Installation

For the course to be available in the Learning Management System, the SCORM package needs to be installed on the system. The method of installation will vary from LMS to LMS but will typically go through the following steps:

1. The manifest file will be located and interpreted.

2. The course identified in the manifest will be created in the Learning Management System and the course properties will be populated with the values defined in the manifest. These properties may include course name, creator, etc.

3. The lessons of the course will be created in the LMS and the lesson properties will be populated with the values defined in the manifest. Lesson properties would include information such as the path to the lesson file, passing grade, etc.

The Learning Management System should provide a facility to overwrite an already existing SCORM course so that if updates are made to the existing course, an installation will deploy those changes.

Course Communication

Initialization

When the course is launched within its run time environment, which for our purposes is the LMS, it will detect the existence of the API and attempt to make initial communication with the Learning Management System. This is a one-time handshake to ensure that communication has been established. The SCORM course is responsible for locating the API in the child browser session that it has launched in from the parent. The API is typically deployed using JavaScript. The API call that the course uses to do this is the LMSInitialize call. When the Learning Management System receives this API message call from the course, the LMS will initialize and respond to inform the course that communication has been established. An object model has been created in memory and the properties have been initialized to default values.

Intermediary Course Communication

Once the course has been launched and initialized with the LMS, the interaction between the two is determined by the course. It will use LMSGetValue and LMSSetValue API message calls to retrieve or populate data in the object model. Bear in mind that the object model exists in memory and has not been sent to the Learning Management System.

When the course needs to write the data so it exists in the database, it will send the API message LMSCommit. The LMSCommit will be received by the Learning Management System and the data stored to the LMS. The course developer will determine when an LMSCommit is required and it will be sent to the LMS when the event is activated. This could be at the end of each lesson or it could be at the end of the course.

The LMSCommit is an optional message and does not require a response from the Learning Management System.

Finalization

When the course is completed, it will send an LMSFinish API message to the LMS. This may be triggered by an event in the course that activates the LMSFinish or it may be on the Unload event of the HTML page when the user closes the browser. The LMSFinish indicates to the LMS that the user has ended the course and any further communication between the two will be rejected. The LMSFinish also initiates the Learning Management System to store any data that has been populated in the object model and complete the unloading of the course.

The key difference between the LMSCommit and LMSFinish API message calls is that the latter will prevent further communication with the course.

The LMSFinish is a mandatory message and does not require a response from the LMS.

Learning Management System Considerations

When the LMSFinish is received by the LMS, there are several scenarios that may need to be taken into account. Some of these may be the product of errors in course development but are scenarios that have been experienced in interfacing with a SCORM compliant course:

1. The SCORM course may indicate the student has failed a lesson but the score passed from the SCO may be greater than the lesson passing grade that was installed from the manifest.

2. The SCORM course may indicate a lesson status for the user and pass the score of the lesson but there has been no passing grade defined for the lesson.

3. It would be advantageous for the Learning Management System to provide API message logging so that a communication history may be recreated for debugging or historical purposes. Consideration should be given to the following:

a. Method of storage, whether it is stored in a database or out to a file.

b. Is logging on all the time or is there a switch to turn logging on or off? (There will be some overhead when logging is switched on, as opposed to being off.)

c. If logging is to file, is there a log file for each course, each user, or one large SCORM log file?

d. How is log data purged? When logging is stored in the database, how often is the table purged? Can the data be deleted or does it need to be archived? If logging is to a file, does the file build in size until it is manually renewed or does the logging mechanism have a trigger that automatically generates a new file? (If the file is left to grow too big, it becomes very impractical to open it in a text editor.)

Conclusions

SCORM has a proven track record in the web based e-learning world and is the accepted standard in the industry. Reputable LMS vendors should support your SCORM course out of the box. The SCORM 2004 version has added much more control and sequencing at a more granular level than SCORM v1.2 however those differences are significant enough to cause the user base to be slower in adopting the SCORM 2004 version.