A VLE will usually include some or all of the following elements:
The course syllabus
Administrative information about the course: prerequisites, credits, registration, payments, physical sessions, and contact information for the instructor.
A notice board for current information about the ongoing course
The basic content of some or all of the course; the complete course for distance learning applications, or some part of it, when used as a portion of a conventional course. This normally includes material such as copies of lecture in the form of text, audio, or video presentations, and the supporting visual presentations
Additional resources, either integrated or as links to outside resources. This typically consists of supplementary reading, or innovative equivalents for it.
Self-assessment quizzes or analogous devices, normally scored automatically
Formal assessment functions, such as examinations, essay submission, or presentation of projects. this now frequently includes components to support peer assesment
Support for communications, including e-mail, threaded discussions, chat rooms, twitter and other media, sometimes with the instructor or an assistant acting as moderator. Additional elements include wikis, blogs, RSS and 3D virtual learning spaces.
Management of access rights for instructors, their assistants, course support staff, and students
Documentation and statistics as required for institutional administration and quality control
Authoring tools for creating the necessary documents by the instructor, and, usually, submissions by the students
Provision for the necessary hyperlinks to create a unified presentation to the students.
A VLE is normally not designed for a specific course or subject, but is capable of supporting multiple courses over the full range of the academic program, giving a consistent interface within the institution and—to some degree—with other institutions using the system.