Learning Management Systems—versions and assessment CIRPM – November 9, 2004 Leila Lyons Director, IT-User Services

Class delivery mechanism On and off campus Suite of tools for courses Web space, discussion groups, chat rooms calendars, assignment submission, grading Organizes course materials Password protected access to course materials More than a 18 fold growth rate in number of courses

Update 9/20/04* 25,847 registrations 13,915 unique students 555 courses 1,118 instructors OHS—3,240 registrations, 2,556 unique 1,176 UDOnline registrations * Numbers include students not dropped

Status of LMS at UD WebCT Campus Edition 4.1 Course-based LMS Adopt features incrementally Meets faculty needs currently Adoption rate= staff working hard to find more efficient ways of handling requests

WebCT CE 4.1 Pros Significant campus adoption Ease of use Full suite of tools Centrally administered Administrative data updated nightly from current SIS

WebCT CE 4.1 Cons Course based—no way to track student learning beyond the individual course Not designed for sharing content among courses (we have good workarounds) Proprietary—we cannot modify code

Evolving Learning Environment

Campus Edition 6.0 Oracle database Has several features we would like Allows for multiple designers in a course Freeze columns in gradebook Discussion lists editable and searchable Non graded assignments Etc. Support issues: unknown

VISTA Version 3.0 Oracle database Enterprise-wide learning solution Has many of the same features that are promised in CE 6.0 Marketed for “Program branding” Facilitates sharing information among courses in a unit

VISTA—the enterprise solution? Unit branding Top down learning environment Shared administration Ability to modify source code; potential to bring in Open Source tools Premier version

VISTA—the Enterprise Solution Cluster computing Separate database server (plus support) CE Courses must be converted to VISTA Different look and feel; therefore faculty re- training Expensive $$$$$ both in terms of licensing and support

VISTA and SIS Integration potential No real time data exchange between WebCT and PeopleSoft SIS yet We already do batch data transfer! WebCT “roles” w.r.t SIS implementation

Assessment Focus and WebCT Student within a course—WebCT is quite good Student throughout University career-no Student as a lifelong learner-no Program assessment-no Institutional Assessment-no

WebCT: Assessment within a course Formative assessment Give feedback throughout the semester so that student responds and learns better Grading assignments Quizzes throughout semester Summative Summarize at some point in time Traditional multiple choice finals WebCT does these well

Web logs ( Both versions of WebCT) Data on interactions within WebCT Which tools are used, but not how Would such analysis tell you anything about the learning that is occurring? Might be some use in course re-design

Technology Tools and Assessment beyond the Course WebCT does not offer tools for assessment beyond the course E-portfolios offer potential functionality for longitudinal student assessment, program assessment institutional assessment Consensus as to what constitutes evidence of learning is biggest hurdle

Conclusion WebCT CE meets current needs WebCT VISTA No current demand for main features of “branding” and “sharing” data Positioning Data export to OSPI (for assessment) Ability to modify code and import tools SAKAI Open source Ongoing support structure not yet defined