Frequently Asked Questions

Publishing to Learning Management Systems Questions

Desire2Learn users should consult one of these pdf documents. The required procedure varies slightly depending on the version of D2L that you are publishing to.
LodeStar and D2L Versions 8.3 or earlier
LodeStar and D2L Version 8.4
LodeStar and D2L Version 9.0 or later

The following set of export instructions are intended for Minnesota State College and University System faculty using the MODE metadata application profile to publish to Desire2Learn (these are a subset of the larger manual):
Instructions on exporting to D2L.pdf

The following screen capture tutorial demonstrates how to prepare a LodeStar activity for export to Moodle and then how to use Moodle to import the activity into a lesson. The tutorial walks through the process step by step.
Moodle Tutorial

The following instructor guide introduces the basic steps to creating an activity with lodeStar.
Instructions for setting up lodeStar for export to Moodle are included:
Instructions on how to use lodeStar for Moodle.pdf

The following instructor guide introduces the basic steps to creating an activity with lodeStar.
Instructions for setting up lodeStar for one-click publishing to Microsoft Class Server are included:
Instructions on how to use lodeStar.pdf

The following instructor guide introduces the basic steps to creating an activity with lodeStar.
Instructions for setting up lodeStar for export to eCollege are included:
Instructions on how to use lodeStar with eCollege.pdf

Licensing Questions

LodeStar Learning makes it very easy for its users. A perpetual license means that anything that an instructor creates will be active for as long as Flash Player technology exists. There are no time bombs, time limits, student limits. If an institution purchases 5.x version of LodeStar, free upgrades are available for 5.1, 5.2, etc. When LodeStar Learning releases the next major release (in this example, 6.x), the institution can opt to upgrade for a nominal upgrade fee.

Platform Compatability Questions

Currently, lodeStar runs on machines with the Windows VISTA, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows 98 operating systems. lodeStar's output can be played in any environment that supports Macromedia Flash.

MAC users of LodeStar typically use Bootcamp (with XP or VISTA) or Parallels on a MAC. Both work great. With Parallels, be sure that you have plenty of RAM allocated for Parallels.

On the playback side, LodeStar objects will run on the MAC OS, as well as Linux, Unix and Solaris

General Questions

Robert Bilyk began programming lodeStar in 2001. The first release for Microsoft Class Server Users came in September 2001.

In 2003, Bilyk was joined by Mark Burrs, an instructional designer and computer programmer. Together they founded LodeStar Learning, which became incorporated in March, 2003.

LodeStar Learning has collaborated with numerous individuals and companies to build its feature set and templates, to resell LodeStar and to provide support to its users.

Information about Mark Burrs will be available soon. In the meantime, to learn more about Robert Bilyk, please click here.

Yes. Schools can request a developer's license for lodeStar, which includes a guide to the lodeStar Markup language.

The guide details how lodeStar communicates to Flash learning objects.

lodeStar currently supports both XML input and output. lodeStar supports the IMS content packaging specification and can export to any learning management system that is IMS compliant.

lodeStar will also fully support SCORM tracking in a future release.

When the catital letter "L" is used it is in reference to the company, LodeStar Learning Corp.
When the lowercase "l" is used it is in reference to the flagship product "lodeStar", which is an authoring tool for configuring Star Interactions®.