khatwah.org is the multilingual LMS I developed as part of the the Khatwah project, which supports CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) delivering campaigns and learning around gender-based violence issues in Syrian refugee communities in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

The image below shows the front page of the Khatwah site, including the navigation links to the two courses available there.

Apart from the multilingual aspect of the site, the Learning Management System is fairly simple. There are two courses consisting of ten or eleven lessons. Each lesson includes text, images and embedded videos and is followed by a single quiz question which must be passed before continuing to the next lesson in the sequence.

Interaction between learners is not possible on khatwah.org and this was a deliberate decision taken in the knowledge that there would not be the human resources available to moderate discussion via online forums or commenting on the site. Given the nature of the topic it was felt that moderation would be essential, so learners who wish to engage in the discursive aspect of the learning are encouraged to do so on a closed Facebook group (where systems for moderation and reporting of abuse, for example, are more robust).

Both courses are open to members of the public and are free of charge. Registration on the site (must be verified by a human) is required in order to enrol on a course . Learners can take as long as they wish to work through the courses. To date (February 2016) 130 people have taken one or both of the courses available.

The main technical challenge in developing this learning environment was not only ensuring the site worked in two languages – but that one language (English) is written left-to-right, whereas the other (Arabic) is written right-to-left.

The screenshot below shows the start page for one of the courses included.

The screenshot below shows some of the quizzes in the journalism course in the WordPress admin.