lms

Present: James Fadden, Helen McCullough, Susan Fenton, Linda Bills

1. Faculty Focus Groups. We reviewed the results of the faculty focus groups, using Susan's summary and personal notes. The input we got will be helpful to our examination of the products. The chief observations we want to take forward are

The desire for an intuitive interface
Being able to plug in publisher content is very desirable as publishers get more tuned in to online
Equation editors - there do not seem to be any good ones for the undergraduate level. All
the contenders are aware of this and working on it.
Access to earlier courses, for faculty and perhaps for students
1. faculty want to be able to bring course structures, materials, etc. into a new iteration of a course
2. Students want to "shop" courses based on previous syllabi or course materials by the faculty member
Students may want access to work they did online in earlier courses
3. Do systems allow a storage area tied to users more as well as areas tied to courses?
Email problems. Some faculty are experiencing problems with email communciation with students.
We agreed that any of the products provide tools to substitute for the email uses cited.

2. Student Surveys
We reviewed the student reponses received so far. Some observations.

Students on the whole seem to find WebCT either very/relatively easy, or difficult and annoying.
Students like WebCT because it tends to organize coursework. If they prefer professors' websites it's usually because of the greater freedom these sites have.
Document Sharing, quizzes and gradebooks had high "helpful" scores.
Assignments and drop boxes and Calendars were seen as helpful
Threaded discussions, however were not rated very helpful.

Students suggest that some ways to improve WebCT would be to make it easier to navigate, and to expand the functions used by the faculty. Also strong emphasis on the need for a better equation editor.

James will share more student survey reponses if they come in.

3. Sakai pilot project. James has sent in our application to participate in the project and received good feedback from NITLE staff.

4. Ongoing work. With the reponses of students and faculty in mind, the Committee members will revisit the various products and make note of strengths and weaknesses. Any comments on specific functions can be noted on the comparison sheets and sent to Linda for integration.

Posted by Linda Bills at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, sakaiproject.org announced that Thomson Learning adopts Sakai 'for supporting the delivery of world-class learning products and services.' This announcement is good news for open source LMS users as it demonstrates a commitment to support the open standards for integrating publisher developed content.

Posted by James Fadden at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We met with faculty on 2/22/07 and 2/23/07 to discuss current and future LMS's. Seven faculty attended the two sessions, with an additional faculty member sending comments via email. All three divisions were represented.

This is a summary of what we heard in these sessions.

Current uses of WebCT and other online tools

Several of the faculty who attended aren't regular users of WebCT, but use course web sites and blogs instead. Most who didn't use WebCT use a course web site to post content (handouts, assignments). One had her own online quiz tool, and also password protected areas of her web site. Of those using WebCT, uses included posting of handouts, readings (replacing/reducing printed coursepacks), quizzes, students sharing documents, discussions, chat rooms, gradebook, posting audio and video files. Being able to use accents in typing is critical.

Frustrations with current tools - things they'd like an LMS to do better

Faculty are frustrated with the equation editor. They want one that is truly WYSIWYG, and that they can use anywhere they can input text.

They are also frustrated with image management, finding it too difficult to insert images inline (say in a question). Also difficult to create a question with an image scaled to an appropriate size, while still keeping the image readable.

They are also frustrated with WebCT courses going away after a semester. They would like an easy way to access and review past courses. On this same note, storage for large files is an issue - some classes require lots of large images and some faculty aren't comfortable with their current storage options.

Some expressed dislike for the fact that a WebCT course was closed to outsiders. Others liked this.

Uploading files to WebCT is awkward to do and they would like a better option. One did say that WebDAV, which is an option on WebCT though not widely used, would be satisfactory but she hadn't set it up yet because it seemed like too much work given that WebCT is going away. She did say she would set it up for a new system, though.

Things they like about current tools - hope a new LMS will allow them to still do this

They like using WebCT for students uploading and sharing documents, for linking outside the course, for storing course content, for chatting, discussions (though not used much by faculty attending our sessions), quizzing, making grades available, typing in a foreign language (accent marks), listening to audio files. All these things they will need to continue to do in a new LMS. Most of these they find essential.

One faculty member pointed out that some of what she does on webct - particularly making documents available to students - could be done on a web site, but by using webct she doesn't have to spend time thinking about design or navigation.

They also like being able to use publisher supplied content (eg, epacks) and are concerned that by not using WebCT or Blackboard in the future this ability may go away.

Things they can't do easily now, and would like to be able to do

They would like to be able to easily upload images with a space for some data about the images.

Would like a way for students to mark up documents that faculty post online (eg, readings) the way they would mark up a printed reading.

Would like the LMS to facilitate communication with students. Frustrated with using campus email, and would find it nice if the LMS offered a communication option that would be better.

They would like a better equation editor, and want to be able to insert raw HTML into questions.

Faculty sense of student reaction to WebCT

Students have complained about the quiz tool, especially the fact that they need to make adjustments to their pop-up blocking settings.

They like having access to content and documents online. Some faculty say they appreciate having readings online instead of buying a thicker coursepack. Others say that students don't like doing readings online and complain about cost of printing readings (this may be at other campuses).

Other notes

Some of the faculty who are using a course web site now are happy with what they are doing and don't feel they'd be likely to adopt any LMS, even a new system. Others are interested in giving a new LMS a try.

Faculty are asking about how content can be moved from WebCT into new system, and also about gaining access to old content which is just available in a WebCT backup file.

Posted by Susan Fenton at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Present: Susan Fenton, James Fadden, Helen McCullough, Linda Bills

1. Faculty focus groups. James reported that there would be two meetings. The first would be just himself and two faculty. The second will be on Friday at noon in Murray 120. All the committee members plan to attend to get the faculty input. The group discussed open-ended questions to ask the group.

2. Student survey. Susan and James reported that we have some answers in. We will have a full report for discussion next week.

3. Helen reported that she had some Angel pricing that she will forward to us. James will check on server requirements for that system.

4. We reviewed the draft for the NITLE Sakai pilot grant. James has also sent it to Eric for comment. We agreed that the grant request is in good shape, and James will send it in as soon he incorporates (at his discretion) any comments from Eric.

Posted by Linda Bills at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The LMS group, the group charged with investigation of online course tools to replace WebCT, needs student input to help guide the process of selecting a new learning management system.

Your responses will provide the LMS group a more complete understanding of the online tools central to learning and the general landscape of online course tool use at the College. This survey is not just for WebCT users but for all students, whether or not you are currently enrolled in courses using the web or web-based tools.

Start Survey

Posted by James Fadden at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Present: Linda, Susan, James, Helen

1. We reviewed the student survey that Susan had drafted and agreed that it will help gather some of the information we want. James will set up aon announcement on Inside News and on WebCT. He will also email faculty who have WebCT classes asking them to encourage their students to take the survey. The survey will be open for 3 weeks, though we hope to get most of the responses in two for discussion by the group.

2. There was some discussion about the decision-making process and what infomation we need. We agreed that we were not yet ready to make a decision, though some factors are becoming clear.

Moodle may be a problem because of its mangement style and the need to get contributed modules for some functions, however it is well-liked by faculty in the schools which use it.

We don't know enough about Sakai yet, but the user group meeting in April will teach us a lot.

Desire2Learn is a good program with good support, but the price is currently too high. We will see what the new pricing is like.

Angel has a new version out that we should look at.

3. James proposed setting up faculty focus group meetings on the 22nd in the afternoon and the 23rd at lunch. He will send a message out to faculty. As many people as possible should go from the committee and one person will take notes.

4. James set up the Sakai Pilot project proposal on a wiki. He will send out the URL so we can comment. Please make comments exact and sign them.

Posted by Linda Bills at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am not sure of the etiquette (so if I cross some imaginary line of what is acceptable please forgive me) in addressing the readers of your blog directly. But, I would like to extend a warm welcome to those following the blog. I also encourage you to join in the conversation with reactions, feedback, news and resources.

Our group chose a blog to communicate our work, as it allows the readers to not only easily stay informed but contribute to the process through comments, trackbacks, and tagging of related content and posts. You might have noticed the 'Tags:' line beneath each post title. A tag is a keyword that with each of our posts. One tag that we associate with all of our posts is 'acelms'. If you are blogging or social bookmarking, co-commenting, or what have you, please include the 'acelms' tag to broaden the conversation.

Posted by James Fadden at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Present: James, Susan, Linda

1. Review of the Faculty Survey results
We discussed the survey results and noted that there were no big surprises. We can use some of the responses as a start to conversations with the focus groups.

2. Student input. James reported on his meeting with the Student Technology Group. Their comments seemed to reflect their ideas on what all students want, not just personal experiences. They appreciate the organizational aspects of WebCT and the way it gives them instant access to assignments and handouts – for those faculty who use it. Several had used similar systems in high school.

James asked how best to get feedback from students; they thought that surveying either those who currently have classes using WebCT, or the student body more generally would be good. They suggested some incentive as well. Focus groups are not likely to work for students.

Susan is going to draft a student survey form for the next meeting.

3. Pricing. James had preliminary pricing from Desire2Learn. His sales contact was not clear on how the cost elements inter-relate and also said that there is going to be a new price model for small colleges out soon. However, the pricing we did see is very high, and is a multi server system. We will wait for more price information in is due out in a couple weeks.

4. Narrowing down the choices. The group assembled felt that we could eliminate Angel from the group of choices, but we are not yet ready to move down to two choices.

5. Faculty focus groups. We will ask the faculty members who indicated on the survey that they would like more input to participate in focus groups. We will set up two times and let them choose which to attend. These will occur soon and discuss the elements in the survey to get a more nuanced view of the faculty needs. James will set up dates.

We will have another set of focus group sessions in late March or early April. The important activities before that time will be discovering whether we have been accepted for the Sakai trial and possible attendance at the Sakai User Group meeting. At the second set of faculty meetings we would like to have narrowed the choice down to one or two and get their reactions to demos.

6. Sakai pilot. James is working on the proposal.

Posted by James Fadden at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We as a group are starting to look at hardware and software requirements for the LMS under consideration. This data comes from web sites and documents provided by the company or organization.

Desire2Learn (request documentation)

Application Server: CPU: Xeon 2-way Processor @ 2.8 + GHz Memory: 2-4 GB RAM I/O: 20 GB+, 10k + RPM Hard drive Software Specifications: OS: Windows 2003 32-bit Standard Edition, windows 2000

Database Server:
CPU: Xeon up to 64-way Processors @ 2.8 + GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM (Additional memory dependant on the size of the DB and # of transactions)
Software Specifications:
OS: windows 2003 Standard Edition, windows 2003 Enterprise Edition, SQL server 2000 standard/enterprise/data edition

File Server:
CPU: Xeon 2-way Processors @ 2.8 + GHz
Memory: 1-2 GB RAM
I/O: depends on requirements for storage (~100 GB)

Moodle (view page)

Application Server
Disk space: 160Mb free (min). You will require more free space to store your teaching materials.
Memory: 256Mb (min), 1Gb (recommended).
Software:
Web server software. Most people use Apache, but Moodle should work fine under any web server that supports PHP, such as IIS on Windows platforms.
PHP scripting language (version 4.1.0 or later).
Database server:
MySQL or PostgreSQL are completely supported and recommended for use with any version of Moodle. The minimum version of MySql required for Moodle 1.5 is 3.23. Moodle 1.6 or later requires MySQL 4.1.16 (4.1.12 if you use latin languages only).

Sakai - (view page)

Hardware requirements
Hardware specifications were not listed on site. But implementations are typically at least two servers.
Software requirements -
OS - Linux, Windows 2003, Solaris
Java
MySQL 4.1 or 5.0

Posted by James Fadden at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today, Blackboard committed not to assert certain patents it holds against Home-Grown or Open-Source LMS. Or at least the ones that are not bundled with proprietary software.
In response to this statement, Educause and the Sakai Foundation issued a statement of their own.

Posted by James Fadden at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)