OpenSyllabus A Sakai and OpenSyllabus Pilot at HEC Montréal Martin Montminy, Functional analyst, HEC Montréal Rémi Saïas, Developer / ScrumMaster, HEC Montréal 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Presentation Plan What is OpenSyllabus? Two pilots are better then one! Winter pilot Summer pilot Lessons learned Next step: deployment Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus What is OpenSyllabus Structured Hierarchical Course Outline (or Syllabus) Editor Integrated into Sakai environment and works with other Sakai tools. Successor of ZoneCours (first generation syllabus editor at HEC). Collaboration tool: Between teachers and students; Between teachers; Within the institution: registrar, department, library Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus 4

OpenSyllabus in Sakai – Big Picture 6 Institution Academic System (PeopleSoft) List of courses List of sections List of students Schedule Location … Institution Academic System (PeopleSoft) List of courses List of sections List of students Schedule Location … OpenSyllabus Resources Citations Course Management Assignment Entity picker for other tools 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. In house integration – Available connectors does not support our version of PeopleSoft In house integration – Available connectors does not support our version of PeopleSoft

OpenSyllabus Hierarchical CO example 7 Course Introduction Contact Information Learning Material Assessments Lectures Lecture 1 … Lecture 10 Course Introduction Contact Information Learning Material Assessments Lectures Lecture 1 … Lecture 12 Course Introduction Contact Information Learning Material Assessments Lectures Lecture 1 … Lecture 11 Economics 101 Generic course outline from Coordinator Economics 101 Section A course outline from Section A’s teacher Economics 101 Section B course outline from Section B’s teacher Reuse 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Hierarchical CO example 8 Lecture 1 Description Coordinator’s description Objectives Coordinator’s objectives Lecture 1 Description Teacher’s description Objectives Teacher’s objectives Coordinator Teacher Section A Student Section A Lecture 1 Description Coordinator’s description Teacher’s description Objectives Coordinator’s objectives Teacher’s objectives Merge of coordinator’s and Teacher’s course outlines 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Presentation Plan What is OpenSyllabus? Two pilots are better then one! Winter pilot Summer pilot Lessons learned Next step: production Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Winter Pilot’s Objectives Objectives related to the environment (Sakai + OpenSyllabus) Collect feedback from different classes of user: instructors, secretaries, students. Identify bugs and improvement opportunities. Public relation objectives: Gave the application visibility in all departments by finding one instructors to use it in the context of its course. Other Objectives Evaluate training needs and communication needs. Show the community that OpenSyllabus can be used in real context Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Winter Pilot’s Statistics 11 courses(3 coordinated)/16 sections All instructors and secretaries were volunteer to participate. 13 instructors and approximately 600 students. Each department had at least one course. All groups used OpenSyllabus with integration with Resources and Citations. 3 groups used the integration with Assignment Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Winter Pilot’s Strategy Pre-pilot Careful planning Training and documentation Migration of existing syllabi During pilot Proactive support (2 lines of support) On demand training After pilot Postmortem meeting with instructors and secretaries Survey students of the pilot Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Winter Pilot’s Problems s avalanche Documents added to Syllabus Students cannot access documents located in parent Syllabi Students cannot access documents with special characters “( )” or “[ ]” Problems with browser cache (blank page) Problems with new wireless network configuration on campus Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Winter Pilot’s Feedback Postmortem meeting with instructors 9 out of 13 were present Feedback was strongly positive Strengths mentioned: Ease of use Performance (compared to current system) Team behind the pilot (development, training, support) Improvement opportunities User interface: too many scrollbars, font problems, size of windows Feedback missing on certain tasks Need to work on available rubrics in OpenSyllabus Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Winter Pilot’s Feedback Student survey 168 responses / 600 participants Incentive: 3 prices of 100$ Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Student survey – Technical problems Types of problems- interpretation of comments Colonne1Nb. Occurrences% occurrences problem (too many)1013% Browser compatibility68% Download1419% Performance problems1013% Display problem4357% Nombre of occurrences repported %: number of occurrences on total number of answers to the question 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Student survey – support &documentation Do you think there is a need for additional documentation or training help students in there use of OpenSyllabus? Answer Options Response Percent Response Count Additional documentation 8.4%14 Training for student 6.0%10 Not necessary 86.7%144 Comments 34 answered question166 skipped question5 Most cited reason: Not necessary because easy to use, intuitive 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Bibliographic References In OpenSyllabus almost all bibliographic references have links that brings you to the reference in the library catalogue for a book or to the full text of the article when available in one of the databases to which the library subscribes. Have you used this feature? Answer Options Response Percent Response Count Yes and that was very useful 19.3%32 Yes and that was more or less useful 24.1%40 No 56.6%94 answered question166 skipped question Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. We strongly believe this is a key feature of OpenSyllabus and we were disappointed by the results but: Authors (instructors, secretaries) and librarians sees it as a major improvement in quality and productivity. Our pilot had only bachelor’s degree students. It was a goal to use that feature to bring the student in the library because it was a known problem that students (B.A.A) rarely go to the library. We’ll have to try harder We strongly believe this is a key feature of OpenSyllabus and we were disappointed by the results but: Authors (instructors, secretaries) and librarians sees it as a major improvement in quality and productivity. Our pilot had only bachelor’s degree students. It was a goal to use that feature to bring the student in the library because it was a known problem that students (B.A.A) rarely go to the library. We’ll have to try harder

OpenSyllabus OpenSyllabus vs ZoneCours Do you think that OpenSyllabus is : Answer Options Response Percent Response Count Better than Zone Cours 47.0%77 Same as Zone Cours 30.5%50 Worst thanZone Cours 22.6%37 Please explain: 109 answered question164 skipped question7 Most cited answer in commentary: Not different enough from ZoneCours Interface needs to be improved 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Overall Appreciation What is your overall satisfaction regarding OpenSyllabus? Answer Options Response Percent Response Count Very satisfied 13.4%22 Satisfied 59.8%98 Neutral 17.1%28 Not satisfied 8.5%14 Not satisfied at all 1.2%2 answered question164 skipped question Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Winter Pilot’s Feedback - Conclusion Instructors: Very satisfied Big improvement Better performance Ease of use and more functionalities Students: Moderately satisfied No major gain for them Will see the benefit when more tools will be available and used to change their learning experience Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Summer Pilot’s Objectives Same as winter’s pilot plus: Training Train all 44 secretaries: creation of syllabi from scratch. Train level 1 and 2 support team with secretaries. Test new features and improvements: Automated creation and update (instructors and students) of course site based on data coming from institution academic system (PeopleSoft). Revamped User Interface. Test performance of application and infrastructure Increase load on application. Increase volume of data: number of sites, documents, etc. In parallel with migration of syllabi from old system for fall Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Summer Pilot’s Statistics 40 courses/53 sections (10 coordinated) All secretaries had to participate and selected a course in collaboration with their department and the instructors. 53 instructors and approximately 2600 students Each department had multiple courses in the pilot. All groups used OpenSyllabus with integration with Resources and Citations 1 or 2 groups used the integration with Assignment Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Summer Pilot’s Status From May 6 to June 23 Problems encountered so far Some students and instructors not having access to their sites Updates to membership to course site / synchronization with academic system (PeopleSoft) Access to document in parent syllabi Other isolated problems Majority of problems occurred at the beginning Very quiet since Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Lessons learned Careful planning paid off. Take care of your pilot participants, they are your ambassadors. Two pilots approach gave us the opportunity to start earlier, learn and adjust. Start non-functional(performance, volume, etc.) testing early. Design carefully and test thoroughly all interfaces with Sakai tools and core. This is where we had most of our problems. Make sure your support team has all the training and tools (e.g. become user) to diagnose the problems. Need to define promote the use of best practices Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus What’s next? Staged deployment starting in September July th Sakai Conference - Boston, MA, U.S.A Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus To Learn More… Presentations this afternoon 3:25 Chasm Creek A: Open Syllabus in Sakai 2.6: Up and Running! See us at the technical demonstrations Wednesday night Watch the OSYL video at Try OpenSyllabus at Confluence: Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

OpenSyllabus Questions? Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.