D2L demo course - Student View
If you want to get started looking at a Desire2Learn course from a student's perspective, I found this online demo course at Minnesota State University. Username and password are both student
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If you want to get started looking at a Desire2Learn course from a student's perspective, I found this online demo course at Minnesota State University. Username and password are both student
James, Susan, Linda, Helen and several members of OET joined the discussion today.
Discussion of what to share with Faculty to inform them of our process.
People will email James with their ideas. The general consensus was that the message should be delivered at the faculty meeting and in writing either through email or inside news.
Discussion of Moodle Experimentation.
Susan lead the discussion from http://demo.moodle.org we decided that we would post our thoughts on Moodle and this discussion as comments to this post.
It's true that Cornell issued new guidelines in response to an infringement complaint from American Association of Publishers. It's also true that AAP is extremely happy with Cornell's response to the complaint and are using news of Cornell's guidelines in many press releases and news stories in the hope that other schools will adopt the same sort of guidelines.
Academic and Library organizations are putting a different spin on the story. For example, The Library Journal posted Settlement? Cornell Issues New Gudielines on Electronic Reserves, in which Carrie Russell, American Library Association copyright specialist, cautions against using the Cornell guidelines as a national standard.
Cornell wasn't the first institution targeted by AAP; the organization made similar claims against the University of California San Diego in 2003. Because UCSD is a state institution, it was able to claim sovereign immunity from damages claimed under federal copyright law; as a private institution, Cornell could have faced a lawsuit had it not complied.
I am not ready to say that the Cornell case puts the question of using an LMS for e-reserves entirely to rest. I am comfortable with saying that an LMS can be used as a vehicle to deliver library e-reserves, but I think we need to be careful not to fall into AAP's conflation of coursepacks, e-reserves, and LMS content into one entity.
Perhaps this seems to be a trivial distinction, but we need to be careful about both our terminology and the uses we assign coursepack, e-reserve, and course content.
This is not to say that there isn't a need to have some sort of guidelines for the use of electronic materials, but I'd like to see guidelines (written without the threat of a lawsuit) come from a collaborative effort among publishers, libraries, and academia.
I created a comparison chart (in Word format) based on James' and Susan's features posting.
I came across an article today about book publishers going after colleges that allow professors to post resources online. One of the first schools they targeted was Cornell University. As a result of this Cornell has written guidelines which the publishers are now happy with, and which they are hoping other schools will also adopt.
The Cornell guidelines are available online (pdf):
Copyright_Guidelines.pdf
Essentially they state that the same rules apply to putting together a coursepack and to putting resources online. Professors are expected to either obtain copyright permission or establish that fair use applies when posting resources online.
None of this is surprising. The interesting part of the policy is that they state that whenever possible online resources should be behind a password protected area and should go away when the course is over. They specifically say that Cornell "provides support for implementing these features in Blackboard."
In my mind, this puts to rest the question of whether or not an LMS can be used for electronic course reserves. Cornell's answer, which is supported by The American Association of Publishers, is that an LMS can be used provided that permission has been obtained or fair use applies. I'm good with that.
The next meeting is 11/28/06 in Murray 116.
The agenda for tomorrow:
* discussion of our impressions of Moodle
* discussion of what we want Rick to announce at the faculty meeting about the group.
As I have not heard buzz about the Minutes Susan took I published them and they are now available online. lms: Minutes of 11-14-06 Meeting.
As we look more indepthly at each LMS please keep the following in mind.
must have features for lms
ability to display links to only the tools being used in the course quizzing tool foreign language support discussion tool - threaded some way for students to share files in groups (webct - faculty use student presentation tool for this) ability to post files, links to web pages (ie, act as course web site) calendar feature
nice to have features for lms
equation editor or some ability to enter equations announcement feature ability to import webct course on some level import quiz questions import files import calendar items import whole course import discussion questions calendar ability to integrate into larger calendaring system email ability to integrate into larger email system ability to open content pieces from individuals in a course through total public
Open source only
look at management of the product. Who decides what features go into the core? When to issue an upgrade?
All products
look at support and training available cost of product is this outright purchase or yearly license long term prospects of company/community hardware requirements
Present: James Fadden, Helen McCullough, Linda Bills, Susan Fenton, Matt Engel
We started by each speaking a bit about the LMS we researched since the last meeting.
Angel - Helen got a guest account and played around as a student and as an instructor. She found she could make the pages look nice, and as an instructor appreciated the graphical representation of what students had done on the first page. She thought it was easy to use and that the sales rep she worked with was very responsive.
Desire2Learn - James is concerned about the Blackboard lawsuit against D2L, as well as the fact that most clients seem to be big university systems, with few small colleges adopting it. He liked that he felt connected to educators when looking over the site, and that the features seem user centric rather than course centric. For example, it has a blog that can be fully open or fully private, or something in between. Other tools, like Briefcase, seemed good because you can share files between courses. D2L has standards compliant import/export and foreign language capability. The Quizzing tool can be bought as a stand-alone tool.
Moodle - Susan expressed concerns about the modularilty of Moodle, particularly that it's easy to fall into the trap of installing a third party module to solve an immediate need, even though this action may lead to problems down the road. On a positive note, many of our peer schools are using it and faculty reviews seem to be quite positive. Most of the features faculty expect are present. Moodle is open source, which has advantages of potential cost savings (at least down the road, when we may not feel a need to pay for support) and a large community of developers.
Sakai - Linda noted that Sakai also has the open source advantages of Moodle. She thought Sakai seemed deeper and more complex than Moodle but that it's not ready for prime time. She didn't feel it's a complete package right now, and gave the example of the manual not being finished yet. She felt it was more powerful and likely to advance than Moodle. She noted that it seemed to be used mostly by large universities with some small colleges using it.
Matt raised the issue of Blackboard, and a discussion followed of the cost of Blackboard and the reasoning behind our initial choice of WebCT over Blackboard.
Linda raised the issue of open source development, and in particular how it's decided which features can added to the core product. We felt this was something we needed to look into for each open source product.
James and Susan are going to work on a list of "must haves" - features that faculty are now using and that must be present in any LMS we adopt. We will use this list when evaluating the products further, but should not limit our examinations to just these features.
James reported a conversation with Tim Hunter concerning open source solutions. Tim was fine with us pursuing open source as long as the software works out of the box, without tinkering with the core.
Linda agreed to determine what library services need to be integrated into an LMS. Susan asked that she also define "integration", as it could mean simply adding a link to a library resource, or it could mean having a common logon, or anything in between.
A discussion was held concerning how to go about looking at these products in more depth. It was decided that each week we would pick one product that we should all take a quick look through. At the following meeting one person will present a short demo of the product and a discussion will follow. Linda suggested that the person in charge of leading the demo of each product should also get usernames and passwords for the others to use when taking a look, and should act as a resource when others have questions about the product.
We agreed on the following dates for demo/discussion of the products. These meetings will be held in Murray 116.:
James asked that we also start thinking about what faculty to involve in this process and how to involve them. Also that we start thinking of some schools we'd like to contact as part of our investigations.
We briefly discussed the timeline, and concensus was that it's difficult to have a firm timeline more than a month out. It was suggested and agreed that we spend 5 minutes at the start of each minute with a quick review/adjustment of the timeline, to be sure we are staying on track.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:03 pm.
I spent a few hours playing in an Angel "sandbox", both as an instructor and a student. The learniing curve compared to WebCT was much lower. Pages were easy to customize and adding content to pages was quite simple--I liked the variety of tools from which I could choose. Angel has so many features that I thought it would be best if I posted a modified version of a document from Angel Learning.
The fact that Moodle is open source is a big plus in my opinion. This should not be taken to imply that there will be no cost to implement Moodle, as it would be wise to spend money for support and training, at least initially. This will be the case whatever LMS we adopt, though.
But with no license fees, an open source product has potential to save us money down the road, should we get comfortable enough with the product that we don't feel we need to pay for support any more. Also, we can rest easy that we won't suddenly have the rug pulled out from under us. Even if any of a number of unlikely events came to pass (Moodle goes commercial, or development comes to a halt) we will still be able to continue using the product in its current state for as long as user's browsers continue to work with it. This is likely to be a very long time.
Another plus for Moodle is that it has a large user base among schools, and in particular among small liberal arts schools.
One major feature of Moodle - its modularily - is of concern to me. On the surface, it sounds like a great feature. If Moodle is lacking some functionality you desire, you either search for a module someone else has written, or you write one yourself and you're all set. But in practice this can cause confusion and difficulties.
To illustrate this, let me use some examples from Movable Type, the blog software we use here. Many people have written "plug-ins" for Movable Type, to add functionality not present in the core product. These plug-ins would work in the same way that Moodle modules would work so issues we've had with plug-ins will give a good idea of issues we can expect with modules in Moodle. I'll list some of these below.
If we eventually decide to implement Moodle, or any other product that allows modular feature creep, I think we should have a policy right from the start about how we will deal with this.
Impressive Features
Overall tools
D2L has the standard suite of tools including threaded discussion, quizzes, drop box, and gradebook. It also has some pieces that are nice to have including...
>> Customizable Design for branding purposes. This is not a must but it is nice to be able to make the product a little
more Allegheny.
>> Blog included that allows a user to determine how public their posts or blog is. The incorporation of the blog and news aggregator is a good example of how the LMS industry is predicted to incorporate more of the Web2.0 features.
>> Email - full featured and not limited to within course correspondences
>> Ability to scale to include portal system that can also be purchased from D2L
Learner Tools
While it is hard to really know without using the interface, the descriptions of the student interface make it seem more customizable than our current myWebCT space as the following tools are present. It also seems that the user's main page is more than the door way to their courses.
>> My "tool" allows student to customize preferences across system and provides a common file repository called my locker/briefcase.
>> ePortfolio tool - the idea of learner portfolios continues to be an idea for changing assessment practices. D2L embraces the idea by including this option. It might be a tool that is useful to the folks in ACCEL?
Instructor Tools
I have similar feelings about the descriptions of the instructor interface as for the student interface. I would hope that the My Briefcase option would ease the upload of content for use in multiple courses. I would also hope that the one click editing would be as easy as it suggests.
>> The common storage space called My Briefcase is a great idea in my opinion. One upload per file with the ability to reuse it in multiple courses.
>> Import and Conversion based on SCORM/IMS standards allows granular import of content whether whole course, quiz, or quiz question. The question is does WebCT allow granular export.
>> The D2L Quizzing tool can be licensed as a standalone tool.
Concerns
The commercial LMS landscape is very unsettled because of patten that Blackboard holds and because of its acquisition of WebCT. The uncertainty of the lawsuits and what the new Blackboard product will look like makes it hard to determine which commercial product is most viable over the long term. That being said my two chief concerns with D2L are:
>> The current Blackboard vs D2L Patent Lawsuit.
>> The majority of clients listed on the site are large research institutions and university systems. Will we be able to find the peer using it? What does this say about the price?
Points of Intrigue
>> The language of the site is very appealing and draws you in to believe that D2L is the answer
>> It seems as if it is the commercial - open-source as much as it tries to convey the importance of the D2L community in developing the products' future.
>> There are many ways to contract for additional support including hosting, training and implementation.
The LMS group will meet again on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 11:00 in the library conference room.
The meetings' agenda is:
1. discussing preliminary findings for Angel, Desire2Learn, Sakai and Moodle
2. confirming the time line
3. topics from those present
Here's a pdf file from Angel Learning that lists an overview of the system. Download file
Linda's post included references to what the Sakai community was saying about Sakai. This got me thinking, "what is the Desire2Learn Community saying or doing?"
The sense that I get from the Desire2Learn(D2L) community is that there are many opportunities for the community to come together for sharing, learning and "drawing the roadmap of future releases"
The sharing and learning has been pretty standard as most LMS have provided user conferences but the helping of developing the roadmap of the products seems to have a different feel than the suggest a feature/improvement that WebCT "offers" us.
The language that the web site uses to explain there products, services and philosophy communicate a commitment to education and users.
The lawsuit with Blackboard is still a major concern.
Sakai is an online Collaboration and Learning Environment. It can be used to support teaching and learning, ad hoc group collaboration, portfolios and research collaboration, according to its website. it is the successor to the CHEF, OnCourse and Stellar systems which were all developed by R1 institutions. It is built using the J2EE environment.
It is open source. Users can voluntarily join the Sakai Foundation and if they do so and pay dues (about $5,000/yr for us) they can participate in foundation governance. However, use and development of the software are open to all.
For a list of functions available and in development , please visit: sakaiproject.org and click on "About" on the left side. I spent most of my time dipping into their support site (sakaipedia) and other discussion areas.
Sakaipedia is a manual/help source in development. It still has lots of blanks waiting to be filled in -- which doesn't mean the info is not out there, it just hasn't been gathered yet. The community seems very active and helpful -- I got the impression of people talking to each other both on the technical and conceptual level.
There is a lot of talk comparing Sakai and other systems from which I took away that Sakai is seen as having more depth than Moodle, but being more difficult and more "designed for the big sites". "However, there isn't any reason why a novice administrator shouldn't be able to deploy Sakai if the Administration tools get some Love." (in this context, not sure what LOVE is)
Sakai users say that it can be used as "enterprise group space for courses and research groups".
There is a lot of discussion which takes the form of "we are working toward", "we want to be able to" which looks to future developments in a very positive way, but also indicates a system that may not have finished its basic set of tools to the users satisfaction. Since we have a year to make a decision, this may not be a problem by then.
There is also talk about interoperability between Sakai and Moodle - perhaps using Moodle as the course managment part of Sakai in some way. this indicates that if we choose one of these systems we may eventually get the benefits of both.
Transition -- I found an article about moving from Blackboard to Sakai, but not WebCT. Again, not an indication that this does not exist, just that it is not yet in the Sakaipedia and I have not finished searching.
There are several users in our area, one of them is a comparison school:
CMU, Walsh, Hiram, Lake Erie College, Penn State, Franklin University and Ohio Learning Network. cornell, Syracuse uinveristy
Finally, for now, I found a webpage comparing several systems which I will forward to James tomorrow.
Background: ANGEL Learning Inc. is based in Indianapolis, IN. The Indiana University Research and Technology Corporation (IURTC), an independent 501(c)3 corporation affiliated with Indiana University, created the company in mid-2000. ANGEL Learning evolved from research conducted by the CyberLab at the Purdue University School of Engineering and Technology on the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus.
The company says that ANGEL features easy customization and secure, simple integration. Because much of their development is driven by ongoing customer feedback, the systems is based on flexibility and customization. Features include ...
Discussion forums: The software includes support for discussion forums. Discussions can be viewed by date, by thread, by title, by author, by group, by the type of post.
File exchange: Students and instructors can edit their text files in their folder using a browser.
Internal email: Students can use the Internal email feature to email individuals and groups.
Online Journal/notes: Students can make private notes about each of their courses and may share them with their instructor.
Real-time chat: The chat tool supports private rooms, private messages, ability to ignore specific participants, and customized chat windows.
Video services: Instructors can include real-time video with slide or web presentations within the optional synchronous tools.
Searching within course: Students can search all titles, subtitles, page content, course notes, and discussion threads by message contents or message topics in their courses.
Calendar/Progress review: Students can keep track of all their assignments, deadlines, and due dates in an online calendar.
Work offline: Students can download course content and email messages and synchronize calendar events with a PDA.
Self-assessment: Instructors can create anonymous, timed or untimed self-assessments that students can take multiple times.
Student Community Building: Students can create online clubs, interest, and study groups.
Student Portfolios: Students can create a personal home page. Personal home pages may include their photo and personal information.
Online grading tools: Instructors can mark all assessments not automatically scored online.
Student tracking: Instructors can get reports showing the number of times and time and date on which each student accessed course content, specific course units, discussion forums, assessments, and assignments.
Automated testing and scoring: Instructors can create automatically scored true/false, multiple choice, multiple answer, fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer, and calculated answer questions.
Accessibility compliance: The product provider self-reports that the software complies with Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act and with the W3C Priority Level I items and most Level II and III items and the WAI WCAG 1.0 Level A guidelines.
Course templates: Instructors can use templates to create announcements, calendar entries, course content, course units, discussion forums, instructor biography, links, syllabus and course descriptions.
Instructional design tools: Instructors can create both linear and nonlinear learning sequences using a content library organized hierarchically by course, lesson, topic, and chunk.
Content sharing/reuse: The system supports sharing content across course and institution boundaries.
Moodle is Open Source software, meaning that it is free to use and to modify. It was developed by a former WebCT system admin, while working on a PhD in education. The name was originally an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. The philosophy of social constructivism underlies the software.
Moodle is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database (other databases can be used, but MySQL seems to be the prefered one.) The M in Moodle (Modular) seems to very much apply. All kinds of people have written and contributed all sorts of modules. Ask me later why I think this is not necessarily a good thing.
Moodle features seem to include all of the usual suspects: quizzes, grades, discussions, wiki, etc. Email is notably missing. The module thing confuses the issue somewhat - if it's not a core feature of Moodle there may be a module out there somewhere that adds the feature.
With a large user base, development of Moodle has been (and continues to be) rapid. Many of the resources and comparisons I found online are a year or two old so are likely to be outdated. They can still be used to help determine that some features exist in Moodle, though shouldn't be taken at face value for features that are missing or inadequate.
I tried to get a sense of whether WebCT courses could be imported into Moodle when doing my research. I found some indication that parts could be imported. One site indicated that WebCT quiz questions could be imported directly. I also found one college with a form that faculty filled out to request a course conversion and one company that did course conversions for a fee. From this, I take it that a certain amount of hands-on work is going to be needed to convert a WebCT course into a Moodle course. James has already talked about the possibility of using student help over the summer to do this.
Commercial hosting of Moodle is available, as is paid support. Moodle.com lists companies around the world who do this. In addition, there are online user forums on the moodle.org site which one can turn to for free peer support.
Moodle seems to be able to use LDAP for authentication and for course enrollment. This will need closer investigation if Moodle becomes a serious contender.
Some of the sites I found that can be of interest to our investigation are:
After a little poking around it seems that Desire2Learn Learning Environment is the packaged deal for LMS.
The features include discussion boards, quizzes, grades drop boxes, blogs, and import/export IMS compliant packages. D2L breaks down the features from a student perspective, instructor perspective, and administrator perspective. I will post more about each of those later.
The language that they use in describing their product and features leads me to believe their learning model is learner centric which fits with current trends in web usage and pedagogy.
Desire2Learn - Innovative Learning Technology is a company that provides a variety of web-based learning technology.
Their clients include large public universities (University of Arizona and The University of Iowa) and university systems (Minnesota State College and Universities (32 institution system) or The University of Wisconsin System (26 institution system) )and international institutions (Fanshawe College in London, Ontario or University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario) as well as private universities (Marquette University) and institutes (Rochester Institute of Technology). The short list of vendors does not include liberal arts colleges that we compare ourselves to.
Desire2Learn does produce a news feed that provides the latest press releases from the company.
Some Desire2Learn Higher Education Solutions are listed on their site.
The solutions seem to range from portal systems to registration and from eCommerce to LMS.