Provost’s Academic Computing Advisory Committee
Minutes for November 15, 2010
November 15, 2010 PACAC Agenda
1. Introductory remarks
2. LMS Decision subcommittee report
3. LMS general discussion (subcommittee findings, discussion forums, surveys, etc.)
4. Vote (PACAC members only)
5. Decision recommendation guidance from committee to chair
Meeting Minutes
Attending: John Campbell, Don Carter, Lesley Cephas, Joe Collentine, Bernd Conrad, Rodrigo De
Toledo, Fred Estrella, Evie Garcia, Pattie Gibson, Angie Golden, Kerry Henrickson, Ray Huang, Jill
Koelling, Marc Lord, Casey Machula, Georgia Michalicek, Pin Ng (for John Eastwood,) James Palmer,
ElizaBeth Pifer, Jeff Rhode, Chih Tu, and guests: Jayme Davis, John Doherty, Lorraine Elder, Chris
Gray, Chris Greenough, and Dan Stoffel.
Introductory remarks
Joe Collentine welcomed members to this important meeting which would be focused on a summary and
discussion of the decision to be made on which learning management system (LMS) to recommend for
adoption by the University, and ending with a vote between Moodle and Blackboard Learn (Bb Learn.)
LMS Decision subcommittee report
Don Carter passed out a handout titled, LMS Decision Subcommittee Report, to all members which can
be found on the PACAC web site under Subcommittee Work. This handout summarized the results of
the work done by the subcommittee, in conjunction with the e-Learning Center (ELC), ITS Online
Learning Environments team, and the Student Technology Center over the past year with various data
points being drawn from surveys of pilot faculty and students, surveys of use case testing by faculty and
students, a survey of ELC staff, and a final eight-question survey sent to all faculty involved at any
level. Don shared that while none of the data points were overwhelmingly in favor of either system, all
leaned slightly towards Blackboard Learn.
Don said he had attended the recent WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET)
Conference, participating in the LMS interest group there, and discovered that everyone was in the same
quandary as NAU over what LMS to adopt. He said no one thinks these choices are better than
Blackboard Vista, yet everyone knows we have no other option.
In summary, Don reminded the members that the campus would be implementing a product, not a
philosophy. At one extreme, with a product like Blackboard, there would be a subset, maybe twenty-five
percent of faculty, who really appreciate those features. At the other extreme, the personal learning tools
we would be able to control would be important, but he cautioned the members to be careful of that kind
of change saying those faculty may stop using an LMS altogether. He reminded the group that the
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Provost’s Academic Computing Advisory Committee
Minutes for November 15, 2010
comments from those who participated in the surveys were on the PACAC web site. However, the
comments were all over the place with no true consensus.
LMS general discussion
Members’ discussion points are listed below.
Open source vs. vendor product
 Factors such as support from ITS or e-Learning, and what we are looking at four to five years down
the road need to be considered
 Tremendous advantage to open source as ITS would hire two new people and make NAU a major
player in Moodle community
 Blackboard will at least be there; Moodle is community of open source volunteers
 A product should evolve over time and that has not happened with Blackboard
 Faculty who are not experienced will feel more comfortable with Blackboard
 Open source is for those who want to explore, and we take the risk of failure
 Making this recommendation for entire university; what will be the best decision for everyone?
 Concern about the future, and whether University will be forced to make the same decision in three
to four years
Architecture
 Bb Learn is called an open platform and there are tools we could use to customize much more than
Vista
 Whether Moodle or Bb Learn is adopted, customization will be done
 ITS is familiar with this type of process having integrated grading, etc.
 Decisions will have to be made to provide a set package or template for faculty to use whether it’s
Moodle or Bb Learn
Budget
 Blackboard could raise their rates, budgets could get cut and we could no longer afford Blackboard
fees, or both could happen
 People supporting Moodle could be cut as well
 Current Blackboard fee is being paid out of the Student IT Fee and that will continue
 Developers [hired for Moodle] would also be paid out of Student IT Fee
Accessibility
 NAU Disability Resources tested both systems
 Primarily, both are the same when using a screen reader
 Moodle was not as intuitive to use as Bb Learn
 Some things didn’t work properly in Moodle, and had consistent problem of screen freezing up
 Email in Moodle is actually chat - could not find the email function
 Bb Learn has seal of approval from National Federation for the Blind (NFB)
 NFB has filed lawsuit against Penn State which is using Angel
 Scholarly journals show no research being done on accessibility in LMSs
 Chat is not accessible no matter the product
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Provost’s Academic Computing Advisory Committee
Minutes for November 15, 2010
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Much depends on teachers and the design they use in a course; problem could be tackled if we
address that
Students who don’t know how to use technology will blame the product, those who are proficient
will figure it out
Those who are not proficient [with using assistive technology] will have trouble no matter what they
are using
The blind have been sorely left behind and some people will be marginalized
Needs to be better adherence to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards on campus
Communication
 Need to address communication issue
 Subcommittee decided issue with communication in Moodle could be addressed
 Would have to find or build an internal email-type communication tool to replace chat
communication tool in Moodle
 Would not have one by spring semester, maybe not even by summer if it has to be built
 Does not seem like a good use of resources to take six to nine months to make Moodle into Bb Learn
 Could not find email in Bb Learn either at first
Additional costs
 Would have to add license for Turnitin at cost of $40,000/year if Moodle is adopted
Support
 There is a difference between development and configuration of a product - requires different kinds
of technical support at NAU
 Blackboard currently provides 24-hour support which is sometimes helpful
 With Moodle, we are on our own to track down a problem – could take hours or days
 ITS staff already solves a high percentage of the problems and then convinces Blackboard it’s
serious
 LMS is most mission-critical system we have on campus
 Not hearing huge complaints from Blackboard community anymore
 ELC depends on ITS staff for faculty technical support
 Do like having a vendor to go to when problem is not resolved
 ELC is part of specific cohort of Vista to Blackboard users
 Blackboard offers migration, tool mapping, and other support
 Have developed relationship with Blackboard – can call VP to get support issue escalated
 That type of chain will not be there with open source product
 [Blackboard support] provides more stability while open source is more of a risk
Integration
 Have done most of the work for both systems due to current integration of PeopleSoft into Vista
 Grade upload should be minor in the end on both
 Calendar will be the same on both
 Will not hold us back
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Minutes for November 15, 2010
Mobile learning and small devices
 Pretty equivalent
 Different price points, though
Vote
Nine members voted for Blackboard Learn and eight members voted for Moodle. Two members
abstained.
Decision recommendation guidance from committee to chair
Fred Estrella, Joe Collentine, Don Carter, and John Campbell will take the recommendation for
Blackboard Learn to be the campus LMS to a meeting with the Provost and Vice Provost of Academic
Affairs within the week. The final decision will be made by the Provost and President. Communication
with the campus about the decision will also be discussed.
Joe Collentine said the PACAC and LMS Decision subcommittee can be proud of the work they have
done. He believes the faculty and students will be able to be productive in the new system. In addition
he said the discussion encourages the campus to address disability issues further.
Fred Estrella said he appreciated the work of the PACAC also, and could see faculty had taken the
decision very seriously. He applauded everyone in the room, and said ITS will make Blackboard Learn
work for the campus.
Assuming the Provost and President ratify the Blackboard recommendation the following will occur:
Timeline
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Spring 2011 - Blackboard Learn will be up on brand new server; will host as many courses as e-Learning
Center can support
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Summer 2011 - Will migrate as many courses as possible
Fall 2011 - Bb Learn will be default for all new courses; faculty will need to petition to stay on Vista
Spring 2012 – all courses will be on Bb Learn
Migration/conversion of courses
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Migration tool exists
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e-Learning Center will support faculty in making any necessary adjustments in courses after
migration
e-Learning will start taking requests to make conversions; will be able to use system currently being
used for pilot courses and not have to wait for new server
e-Learning will hone in on best practices department-by-department
Want to pare down on multiple copies of a course
Training will happen mostly in spring
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