The ORM Foundation

I represent an educational institution, in Australia, that currently uses VisioModeler 3.1 (unsupported). We need to give students free software to ensure that they can all access the tools to complete the course. VisioModeler is a beautiful stand-alone product that has a gentle learning curve and creates awesome models which can be mapped to a data dictionary. Students have no problems grasping it early and understanding the process of creating a CS. VisioModeler no longer works under Win 7. I cannot purchase VEA to obtain the exact same functionality that VisioModeler offered. NORMA is the closest product that fits the criteria we need. I will have to re-write all of the tutorials for our students to use NORMA whilst on campus. I have tested it under Visual Studio 2005, but I am worried about not being able to give students a copy of VS to install on their own machines. My question is - if I give students a copy of Visual Studio Express 2008 (the free app) - will NORMA install and work under that environment? We cannot give them Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 as it is not free.

Just found answer to my own question under the Feb release of NORMA for VS 2005. NORMA does NOT work under Visual Studio Express. That's going to be annoying for my students....

Sorry that your students are annoyed.
NORMA of course is a free add-on that works with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the argument that "The fact that you charge money for Visual Studio annoys my students" will cut much ice with Microsoft.

However, I do believe that Microsoft have special deals for educational institutions.

Ken

  

We are still seeking a way to make NORMA available to run with the Express version of Visual Studio, but unfortunately this is not likely to happen soon. In the meantime, many universities have found it feasible to obtain academic licenses from Microsoft (e.g. academic version of MSDN) so perhaps that might be an option.

Kind regards

Terry

 

Thank you for your reply. I don't mind paying for the software as an educational institution, but students seem to want everything for free. VisioModeler was perfect. I'm fast warming up to NORMA as I can see that the development team are trying to emulate the wonderful features that VisioModeler provided. The more I use it, the more I like it and can see that it will be just as good as VM. I have a big job ahead of me re-writing the course tutes from VisioModeler to suit NORMA, but the ppt tutorials on this site are an excellent starting point - many thanks for those Ken!

Thank you for the advice on the MSDN licence, Terry. I will discuss same with our network administrator who is responsible for all our licencing. Looking forward to the Express version of NORMA in the future. Awesome job with NORMA, by the way. I was beginning to tear my hair looking for a replacement for Visiomodeler, when I discovered your site and downloaded and tested NORMA. I am beginning to love it. My only worry was that VM was a stand alone product and now we will have to do a LAN-wide install of Visual Studio in order to use the ORM module. We don't teach programming using Visual Studio - I have recently decided to change to Alice (because our clientèle here in Brisbane are mostly international students who are not keen on programming and Alice seems to be an awesome motivator) Cheers David :-)