Adopting a new Course Management System Michael Wilder, Assistant Dir. Instructional Design Joel Johnson, Instructional Designer Northwestern College, St. Paul, MN Center for Distance Education distance.nwc.edu

Adopting a new Course Management System Quote of the Week "For a smart material to be able to send out a more complex signal it needs to be nonlinear. If you hit a tuning fork twice as hard it will ring twice as loud but still at the same frequency. That's a linear response. If you hit a person twice as hard they're unlikely just to shout twice as loud. That property lets you learn more about the person than the tuning fork." -Neil Gershenfeld, When Things Start to Think, 1999

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Workshop AGENDA  Introductions  Discuss your institution’s current status with an CMS  Stats and Definitions  Benefits of and Opportunities for using an CMS  Northwestern College’s experience with it’s CMS  Lessons Learned  Demonstration of Moodle  Systems Structure  CourseSite Tour  Q and A

Adopting a new Course Management System Describe your CMS experience  Introduce yourself to 2 other people and describe your CMS status  Share with the group your unique experience

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Stats and Definitions  CMS – Course Management System  LMS – Learning Management System  Open Source and Commercial  The LMS market was worth $500 million in 2005 with the top 6 players taking 43% of the marketLMS market  Open Source (GPL license) is taking ground  People are moving away from BlackboardBlackboard  More people are using Moodle. See statsMoodle

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Stats and Definitions  CMS and LMS provides a repository for learning content and manages all learner interactions  Comparison chart of Features

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Benefits of Using a CMS  Consistent presentation  Allows multiple users to access same data  Role based  Content can be stored, linked and released sequentially

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Benefits of Using a CMS  Communication record is consistent and resides inside the university  Vulnerability of external systems  Legal issues and FERPA issues  Establishes a record of validation for assignments and interactions  User logs track user participation, including the instructor’s

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Opportunities for Teaching with a CMS  Discuss with your small group how you’re institution is using a CMS  Northwestern uses an Instructor site to disseminate information  We host a group site for Certificate students  Students in various geographical locations can all interact with the same course

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Northwestern’s Experience BLACKBOARD  Adopted Blackboard in 1999  License Level and Cost  Usage Level  Other NWC Activity

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Northwestern’s Experience The Switch  Task Force Created  Needs Analysis  Cost Analysis

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Northwestern’s Experience

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Northwestern’s Experience The Switch  Task Force Created  Needs Analysis  Cost Analysis  Feature Comparison

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Northwestern’s Experience

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Northwestern’s Experience The Switch  Task Force Created  Needs Analysis  Cost Analysis  Feature Comparison  Recommendation Pros VS Cons

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Northwestern’s Experience

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Northwestern’s Experience MOODLE  Switched to Moodle during SU 2006  Ongoing Training  Used Both Systems during 06/07 Year  Campus Wide Adoption by FA 2007  Current Support Structure

March 7, 2008 ACCESS Conference Northwestern College’s Center for Distance Education Lessons Learned  Know your institution - it’s users and needs  Top-down buy in  Define roles and usage levels early on  Clear communication is the key  Manage expectations  Faculty may expect to hang on to old system  Incremental rollout

Adopting a new Course Management System Look under the hood  Define Your System Architecture  Hardware  Users and Roles  Categories  Naming Convention

Adopting a new Course Management System Look under the hood  CourseSite Tour  Topics  Content types  Participants  Things to do and submit

Adopting a new Course Management System Questions ?  Time for Q & A  Hand out CD of resources THANK YOU!