Replacing UW-ACE - LMS Selection
David Bean (DCE), Andrea Chappell (IST)
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Agenda
What’s an LMS? Why switch? (with some UW LMS history) Options (including “open”) Keeping up with standards What are others selecting? Project progress to date Next steps
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
What’s an LMS?
Learning management system Provides educational tools, helps manage course
operations, integrates other tools. E.g.: Ed tools: discussion forums, quizzes, assignment uploads
(dropboxes), feedback Admin tools: course content creation and delivery,
gradebook, announcements, calendar Integration tools: Turnitin plagiarism, Wimba voice
recordings, iClicker, Ares e-reserves
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
UW History of LMSes
UWone UW homegrown system, with vendor “back-end” tools Ran from 2000 – 2003
Blackboard UW ran (as back-end to UWone) 2000 – 2002 Some groups used Blackboard without UWone
Angel UW ran (as back-end) in 2003, part 2004 Ran as full system 2004 to now
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
UW-ACE
ANGEL 7.3
Currently supporting: 27,000+ faculty and students 3,000+ concurrent sessions
~1,200 Face to Face, Blended and Online courses running per semester
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Online Learning Environment Review
A previous project, October 2008 - May 2009 Environmental scan, internal faculty and student
feedback Conclusion: continue to run ANGEL as our LMS
as there is no significant appetite to change from it Continue to augment with other tools as needed
(iClickers, Wimba, Turnitin)
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Why switch from ANGEL?
6th May 2009, Angel Learning Inc. sold to Blackboard Inc.
“Best of” ANGEL features to be incorporated into Blackboard Not sure which, and when
ANGEL product will be supported until 2013/2014 … in some manner
So, it’s Blackboard migration, or migration to another LMS … big changes either way
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
What are our options?
Choose another commercial LMS Two biggest are Blackboard and Desire2Learn Others include: eCollege, Atutor, SharePoint, …
Choose an open LMS Two biggest are Moodle and Sakai Others include: ELGG, LON-CAPA, …
Go Web 2.0 – Use FB, Wiki, Blog, Twitter, ... Not entirely practical on own, but want to incorporate
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Let’s talk “open” – what’s it mean?
Open source Access to the end product source code Generally royalty-free Generally has a large community of peer support
Moodle and Sakai are free, but need to assess whether additional local or purchased support required
Can purchase support and also hosting from 3rd party vendors (Unicon, rSmart, Longsight)
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Keeping up with Standards
Web Standards (Beyond IE and Firefox) W3C: HTML, WCAG 2.0 Accessibility and Mobile computing Avoid required plug-ins (Java, ActiveX)
Ed/Tech Standards (IMS Global) Interoperability – Between systems Portability – Student & Course data E.g., Common Course Cartridge, Quizzes (QTI), LTI, LIS
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
What are others selecting?
Look at … Overall market share of the LMSes Adoption trends
http://www.deltainitiative.com/picts/pdf/deltainitiativelmswebinar09-2.pdf - August 2009
Recent LMS selection results http://www.masmithers.com/2009/09/20/public-lms-evalua
tions/ September 2009
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Recent LMS Selection Results
University of Canterbury, New Zealand Chose Moodle over BlackBoard– October 2008
North Carolina Community College System Chose Moodle over BlackBoard - August 2009
McMaster University Chose BlackBoard - April 2008
Guelph Chose Desire2Learn (already using in their distance dept)
Laurier is in RFP process right now Desire2Learn or BlackBoard?
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Project progress to date
UW Team selected (link) and meetings ITMS, CTE, DCE, OPD, Library, Faculty
Charter: Make recommendation to UCIST Time line (approx.)
Investigate options, Gather input, Host pilot, Recommend, Migrate, Deploy
Spring 2012? Criteria
Using workflow scenarios, not just feature lists
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Some Criteria
Course Administration, Assessments, Teams, Online Discussions, Gradebook, Assignments, Course content, Communications and Collaborations, System Administration, Infrastructure Integration, Accessibility, Standards compliance, Adaptability, Programmability, Automation…
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Next steps
Create a Request For Proposals (RFP) Important scenarios and critical features Ask vendors to respond to how to support those Who answers for the open systems? Support entities,
perhaps. Initial testing on product sandboxes Hold campus info sessions
Open forums Perhaps survey Other info dissemination and feedback forums
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
Find out more, even get involved!
How to participate …http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/projects/lms_selection
Contact [email protected]
WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Replacing UW-ACE
That’s it …
Questions?