LON-CAPA

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E-learning platform

title: "LON-CAPA" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["free-learning-support-software", "learning-management-systems"] description: "E-learning platform" topic_path: "general/free-learning-support-software" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LON-CAPA" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary E-learning platform ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
logo	Lon-capa logo.PNG
developer	Michigan State University
operating_system	Cross-platform
programming language	Perl
genre	Course Management System
license	GPL
website
::

LON-CAPA (Learning Online Network with Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach) is an e-learning platform, also known as a Course Management System (CMS) or Learning Management System (LMS). It possesses the standard features of many learning platforms (user roles, calendar, e-mail, chat rooms, blogs, resource construction, test grading, etc.), but it differs from traditional e-learning platforms in that its many web servers (in various parts of the world) can communicate with each other. Consequently, the term LON-CAPA can also refer to the LON-CAPA network, i.e. the entire set of LON-CAPA web servers and the specific implementation of an internet protocol that connects these web servers. LON-CAPA can also refer to the LON-CAPA project, i.e. the core team of scientists and programmers that develop and maintain the LON-CAPA software.

There are, as of 2010, more than 160 LON-CAPA domains, where a domain is a unified set of LON-CAPA web servers. LON-CAPA domains are operated, generally speaking, by individual universities and high schools in the United States and Canada, but include private organizations and a significant number of universities in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. The LON-CAPA network allows participating universities and schools to create learning resources (test problems, web pages, etc.) and to share them across the network. This collaborative aspect is LON-CAPA's most distinctive feature.

Another special feature of LON-CAPA is the ability to design test resources (called problems) that make use of random numbers (stored in Perl variables). This allows a single "problem resource" to generate a variety of similar (but different) test exercises, thus significantly reducing the risk of cheating amongst students.

Currently, the great majority of LON-CAPA's learning resources are written in English and focus on the mathematical and natural sciences, mostly significantly physics and chemistry. The learning platform works extensively with LaTeX, a language used to represent formulas and mathematical expressions. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

LON-CAPA is open source and free of licensing fees. Significant technologies include Linux, Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, LaTeX and CPAN. The core LON-CAPA development team is based at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. There are also major LON-CAPA network nodes at Simon Fraser University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Purdue University.

The name LON-CAPA is an acronym, derived from Learning Online Network with Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach. In 1999, two distinct e-learning projects, CAPA and LectureOnline, joined efforts in the creation of LON-CAPA, which provides a superset of the CAPA and LectureOnline functionalities.

References

"more about LON-CAPA at SFU".
"LON-CAPA". CampusSource.
"Network Features". LON-CAPA.
Gasperson, Tina. (2006-05-17). "Open source package passes personal learning test". Linux.com.
Moore, Janet. (2003-11-19). "Practice: Computer-Assisted Personalized Assignments, Quizzes, and Examinations". The Sloan Consortium.
"ITaP LON-CAPA Information Page".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::