Transforming the Instructional Landscape
Scott Delinger
Transition from Blackboard Vista to Moodle 2.0
Scott Delinger
IT Strategic Initiatives Officer
Office of the AVP and Vice-Provost (Information Technology)
Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic)
BLUF: moving to Moodle
Transition from Blackboard Vista to Moodle 2.0
LMS use at UAlberta
Process & Reasons for Choosing Moodle
Results of Our Moodle 2.0 Pilot (Winter Term 2011)
Migration Process from Vista to Moodle 2.0
Migration Process from ‘mini-Moodles’ to Moodle 2.0
Outcomes (Needs Arising, Next Steps)
LMS at UAlberta
WebCT centrally supported since 1998
15,000 course sections in Vista since 2007
AB School of Business: Blackboard since 2004
Moodles since 2005
Moodles:
Campus St Jean, CS, English, History,
Augustana, Humanities Computing, Physics,
Philosophy, Psychology, Engineering, Education
Static Websites
Publishers’ Websites
Process & Reasons for Choosing Moodle
LMS Review in 2009
Support for Bb Vista to end in January 2013
VPIT: arm's-length research, report
Research: LMSes available, in use. Features.
Reasons:
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Local experience
Existing Moodles
Flexibility
AB School Districts
Other PSE Institutions
Respect the Students (an aside)
LMS @ University of
Alberta
First Year Student Experience
Victoria Smart
Biological Sciences - First Year
Fall 2010
Course
Online
Content
Winter 2011
Course
Biology
Biology
Chemistry
Statistics
Math
EAS
English
EAS
English
Online
Content
LMS @ U of A
Advantages
O Accessibility of
content
O Electronic copy of
content
O Examples of correct
work
Disadvantages
O Multiple IDs and
passwords
O Trying to remember
where different
content is located
O Many systems to learn
O Have to print most
things
Addressing Student Concerns
Steps:
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Choose a platform that instructors would embrace
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Easy to use
Pre-populate required material
Grade book
Maintain consistent yet not slavish design layout
Provide training materials and workshops for instructors
Encourage tool use
Moodle 2.0 Pilot, Winter Term 2011
Pilot parameters:
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Must be positive experience allowing for transformation
Must represent wide variety of class types
Must inform our design of production environment
Must help us develop training resources
Must reveal Vista to Moodle translation needs
Must offer all Vista tools and more
Project Team:
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Ownership
Project Manager
CTL Tech team, AICT Managed Services
CSJ Moodle Dev
Communications
Training
Oversight cmte
Results of Moodle 2.0 Pilot
Very positive feedback*
Concerns:
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Forums
File management
‘Linearity’ or scrolling
Elluminate (oops)
Next Steps: Spring Term 2011, project plan
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Plan includes work packages, comm plan, training plan
Migration from Bb Vista to Moodle 2.0
Look at course complexity
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How many are simple courses?
How many will be manual conversions?
How well do commercial migration tools work?
A number of instructors prefer starting from “scratch”.
How many Moodle instances will be used? Faculties may want admin
rights.
o Will unit(s) move as programs or individual courses?
Migration from mini-Moodles (Moodle 1.x) to Moodle 2.0
Many Faculties have their own instances of Moodle ranging
from 1.5 -> 1.9 that need to be migrated to Moodle 2.x
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Any third-party plugins must be converted first
How many use third-party plugins?
What Moodle version do Faculties run? May imply many steps.
Migration process document provided by CSJ.
New Moodle 1.9 -> Moodle 2.x conversion tools
Help from CTL/CSJ provided to all Faculties
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
University communications challenges
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Five campuses, other outlying sites
Decentralized structure
18 faculties, 78 departments, many non-academic units
Email not universally read
Google Apps project
8,400 faculty, librarians, grad assts, other academic staff
6,500+ support staff
37,600 undergrad, grad students; 14,300 extension students
Outcomes: Needs Arising
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Themes - Default and Faculty-specific
Forum management
Grade book modifications - allowing 10ths*
E-portfolios - Mahara
Google integration - groups, sites etc.
Peoplesoft
IMS and SSO
Elluminate Live web conferencing
Lecture capture
Outcomes: Next Steps
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Spring Term and Summer Term
Set up production hardware environment
Automate data conversion
Invite instructors to transition courses for Fall Term
Continue to develop training materials, workshops
Celebrate stellar adoption and uses in Festival of
Teaching
Questions?
scott.delinger@ualberta.ca
http://www.moodle.ualberta.ca/
Thanks to Victoria Smart, UAlberta student