Houston Community College LMS - Committee Update

Evaluating Learning

Management Systems

Houston Community College System

DE Faculty Day 2009

Committee Charge

• Review and rate specifically identified learning management systems to stay abreast and updated on the quality, features, viability of these systems using a standardized rubric (and edutools.com);

• Rank the systems and publish these rankings with a broader group of college/district stake holders within the HCC community;

• Future decisions about changing to a new LMS should be made based on these findings.

2DE Faculty Day 2009

Committee Members

• 18 faculty and 11 staff (5 LMS admin. and techs)

• Steve Levey, Tom Haymes, Sandra Lebron, Navid Tabrizi, Angela Secrest, Richard Gosselin, Lorah Gough, Jose (Tony) Davila, Ruben Duran, Feliciano Arrazolo, Robert Hume, Aaron Knight, Alan Johnson, Joella Robinson, Linda Rosenkranz, Richard Rosing, Madeline Burillo, Ritu Raju, Roger Boston, Jennifer Stidham, Matias Garza, Ruth Dunn, Evelyn Ballard, Lloyd Schuh, Abass Alamnehe, Doug Sutherland,Jordan Carswell, June Woest, Doug Rowlett


Initial Sub-Committees

• LMS Selection (narrowing down the LMS’s to evaluate)

• Evaluation Criteria Committee – set up the first survey to find out what tools HCC faculty currently use in Bb Vista

• Timeline Committee – estimate the timeline

• All three committees goals completely overlapped – so the subcommittees are now one again


Surveys “one” and “two”

• Survey “One” Goal - find out what “tools” are currently being used by faculty in our current LMS

• Survey “Two” Goal – expanded survey for committee members used to match up with the edutools.com “feature” listing

• Edutools.com was used to narrow the list of LMS available with HCC preferred “features”


Survey “one” results

• Seven most important tools (98 responses):

• Assessments (15.24%)

• Discussion (14.29%)

• Roster (14.29%)

• Learning Modules (12. 38%)

• Mail (10. 48%)

• Assignments and Calendar (tied) for sixth (9.52%)


Survey “one” results

• Five least important tools (98 responses)

• SCORM (26.6%)

• Goals (13.83%)

• Notes (10.64%)

• Who’s online (10.64%)

• Media Library (8.51%)


Survey “two”

• Survey sent to committee members

• Had some additional information about LMS features

• Left room for “comments” about the features

• Used to “match” up features with LMS using the edutools.com website


http://www.edutools.com/

Survey “two” results

Using the results from the survey (must have and very important selections) and matching them to the “feature list” at edutools.com, these LM systems came up:

• Blackboard, Angel, Desire2Learn, WebStudy

• Fronter, OLAT, TimeCruiser (European systems)

• Need to add open-source SAKAI and Moodle


Using edutools.com


Admin List of Requirements - 1

LMS LevelsAbility to divide colleges with different requirements for each (if the colleges still want this) – college control of hybrid and web-enhanced – for support – local support neededSandbox or development area at one level that all can see and access courses

Hosting Clustering? How many students per node?What types of servers/ size? UNIX, Windows, Mac, Size?What is the largest school that they host?Report capabilities for our administrators?Statistics and log capabilities?Cross listing capabilities?


Admin List of Requirements –2

DisasterBackups provided at end of each semester (cost? / free?)Percent up time?Ability to restore courses (how fast)Redundancy – and/or mirrored sites?

Local HostingPersonnel needsAdmin needs (Oracle DB admin? software admin? Others)Equipment needs? – who will purchase the servers/ backup servers, etc100% disaster recovery at Hayes road?


Admin List of Requirements - 3

PeopleSoft ConnectivitySame type of batch process we have now or preferably better?Perhaps an interface like UMASS has (a program that runs in between the two systems and allows for more optionsLDAP authentication?Reset password capability?

Course Transfer capabilitiesWizard (automatic transfer of files)Other (Web DAV, drag and drop, etc)

TrainingHow much training is involved?How many faculty to train?


Next Steps

• Product demonstrations for (NG) Blackboard, Desire2Learn (Nov. 16), WebStudy, Sakai, and Moodle (Angel was taken off the list since Blackboard’s acquisition of it)

• Select the top 2-4 systems (based on faculty and admin/technicians) and try them as a demo and teach with them in the spring or summer 2010(How many?)

• Student survey?


Next Steps

Post evaluation of LM system(s) used by faculty:

Did the system’s “tools/features” work how we expected (Using a rubric, the LM systems will be ranked) ?

Does it meet our Admin/ Technical requirements?Will it/ did it work effectively with PeopleSoft?

Is it cost effective?How much will it cost and what is included in the cost (hosting, support, licensing)?

Request for Proposal?


Additional Input

• Create a database for additional comments and suggestions – organized by feature?

• Other ideas?

Note: http://desire2learn.com/roadshow/TX


Education

Houston Community College LMS - Committee Update