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25th Anniversary

25 years of LON-CAPA, 25 years at MSU

The beginning of the MSU Fall Semester 2017, September 2nd to be exact, is LON-CAPA's 25th anniversary!

That's quite a while back, and happened to coincide with MSU switching to a semester system, as this excerpt from the Green Book shows:

1992

  • CAPA (a Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach) is piloted in a physics class of 92 students, using paper printouts and Telnet to serve and grade personalized homework
  • Multimedia Physics gets started with an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow award, using SuperCard for electronic, interactive course materials

1993

  • Multimedia Physics receives NSF ILI award

1994

  • CAPA starts getting adopted at other colleges and universities

1995

  • CAPA used at over 40 institutions
  • CAPA receives Sloan Foundation funding

1996

  • Multimedia Physics courses published on CD
  • 6000 students on campus of MSU use CAPA
  • CAPA receives Sloan Foundation and Department of Agriculture funding

1997

  • CAPA Version 4.5 released
  • Best Paper Award at IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference for "Using Networked Tools to Enhance Student Success Rates in Large Classes"
  • HTML version of MultiMedia Physics published in Germany ("cliXX Physik")
  • HHMI grant to MSU for First Year Online, using LectureOnline
  • Presentation to US Congress during NSF showcase event
  • LectureOnline started as a web application to run online and blended courses, share course materials, and provide online homework
  • First publisher problems in CAPA
  • First external institutions join LectureOnline

1998

  • Introductory physics courses PHY 231 and PHY 232 are online as virtual university courses in LectureOnline
  • Best Paper Award at IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference for "Multimedia Collaborative Content Creation (mc3)"
  • Ben Dasher Award for "Using Networked Tools to Promote Student Success in Large Classes"
  • CAPA receives Sloan Foundation funding

1999

2000

  • Best Paper Award at IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference for "Teaching with ALN Technology: Benefits and Costs"
  • NSF Information Technology Grant, "Investigation of a Model for Online Creation and Sharing in Educational Settings"
  • 25 research publications

2001

  • LON-CAPA is piloted in two physics courses at MSU
  • LON-CAPA becomes open-source (GNU GPL)

2002

  • Version 0.5 of LON-CAPA released

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

  • Students "cannot do homework" due to power outage
  • LON-CAPA works on iPod with regular interface
  • LON-CAPA used at 90 institutions

2008

2009

  • Finalist, European E-Learning Award, "Project eÜbungen"
  • LON-CAPA supports R statistical package
  • Fifth Annual LON-CAPA Summer Workshop at MSU
  • Every 4th student at MSU uses LON-CAPA
  • LON-CAPA used at 140 institutions

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

  • 170 conference presentations and colloquia
  • LON-CAPA served 108 courses with 506 sections at MSU this year
  • LON-CAPA served 20,585 student/course enrollments at MSU this year, which represented 62,045 credit hours

2017

Contact Us: lon-capa@lon-capa.org

Site maintained by Gerd Kortemeyer.
Supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF-ITR 0085921, NSF-CCLI-ASA 0243126, and NSF-CCLI 0717790. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Initial funding for CAPA has been provided by the Alfred. P. Sloan Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

©2013 Michigan State University Board of Trustees.