Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides the portal platform for the Learning Gateway. The features from Office SharePoint Server 2007 that are customized to work with the Learning Gateway solution are described below.

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 creating the different sites and Web Parts in the Learning Gateway. Moreover, it provides the document libraries, lists, wikis, and blogs to track, store, and share information.

Microsoft SharePoint Learning Kit is an e-learning delivery and tracking application. It is the tool that lets teachers create an assignment out of any document in a SharePoint Document Library.  The Learning Gateway uses the SharePoint Learning Kit as a means of managing the cycle of assignments online.

Microsoft® Office Live Communications Server 2005 (optional) is responsible for providing Learning Gateway users with real-time collaboration using instant messaging (IM), helping in increasing productivity by sharing ideas and information immediately. 

Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007  provide e-mail messaging and calendaring facilities to students, teachers, and parents through the Outlook Web Access (OWA) service. In other words, Exchange Server provides web enabled mailboxes and calendaring for both students and teachers.

Active Directory  is used to store user accounts of all Learning Gateway users. This includes user accounts of students, teachers, parents, and other Learning Gateway users. With one single account stored in Active Directory, the Learning Gateway user can access the Learning Gateway portal, the Outlook Web Access, and so on with a single login name/password.

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005  functions as the data storage engine for SharePoint Server, Windows SharePoint Services, Live Communications Server, and SharePoint Learning Kit.

Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006  is the gate through which a user passes to the Learning Gateway Portal site or to any other component in the Learning Gateway solution. It is the security gateway that protects applications from Internet-based threats.  ISA Server 2006 manages authentication and provides the single sign-on (SSO) feature.

Microsoft has created a set of custom components to deliver education-centric functionality to the Learning Gateway. These custom components include:

Templates- To manage creating School, Teachers, Students, Parents, Classes, Class, and Collaboration sites with no effort, custom site definitions for each of these sites have been developed.

Web Parts- Web Parts help enhance the education process by aiding teachers and students in automating and speeding up certain parts of the learning process.

Lists- To support the My Planner Web Part, two lists have been created. One of them provides My Planner with the URLs of SharePoint and Public Exchange calendars. The other list saves the user’s selection of calendars.

Web applications- A special Web application is displays the event details when clicking the event title in the My Planner Web Part. Instead of going to the calendar from which the event has been retrieved to view the event details, the user just clicks the event title in My Planner to view the event details.