Moodle at Brandeis University:
The LATTE Experience at Brandeis
after One Year
Adam Lipkin
Academic Systems Administrator
&
Darwin F. Scott
Assistant Director for Research and Instruction,
Creative Arts & Humanities
Library and Technology Services
Brandeis University
ACRL NEC
LOCI Panel Discussion: Course Management Alternatives
Tufts University
March 14, 2008
Moodle at Brandeis = LATTE
Learning and Teaching Technology Environment
LATTE marketed as a
learning and teaching environment not just a
course management system
Course Management Systems at Brandeis
• Course management systems in use by the
Brandeis community for nearly a decade.
• WebCT Campus Edition, the first online course
management system at Brandeis, introduced in
fall 1997.
• In spring and summer 2005, Library and
Technology Services (LTS—the newly merged
organization of the Brandeis University Libraries
and Information Technology Services) began the
transition to WebCT Vista, an updated version of
WebCT’s course management system.
Why Replace the WebCT Vista
Course Management System at Brandeis?
• Because of WebCT Vista’s system architecture,
heavy ongoing use by faculty and students made
the WebCT database grow by 1 to 2 gigabytes each
day.
• This rapid growth produced incidents of system
downtime, and future downtime was certain.
• We could not guarantee recovery of course
materials or content if WebCT Vista were to fail.
• WebCT’s growth also prevented regular backups of
course content—files inadvertently deleted from a
WebCT course might be impossible to recover.
Why Replace the WebCT Vista
Course Management System at Brandeis? (cont.)
• Even with successful file recovery, faculty and
students might be forced to recreate some of the
work completed before the file loss.
• Since WebCT’s acquisition by Blackboard in 2006,
LTS staff experienced poor vendor support for the
WebCT Vista system at Brandeis.
• Without adequate vendor support, LTS often cannot
quickly resolve technical issues faced by faculty and
students.
The Deciding Moment
When did LTS first recognize the risk associated with
continued use of WebCT Vista?
• Fall 2006 was the first semester during which faculty
exclusively used WebCT Vista for their courses—550
Brandeis courses were now dependent on WebCT
Vista.
• Throughout that semester, LTS staff monitored the
Vista database and became increasingly alarmed
when incidents of system downtime were caused by
the database’s rapid growth and ballooning size.
LATTE Project Time Line
• LATTE website launched April 18, 2007
• Faculty workshops begin April 25, 2007
A Summer of Total LATTE Immersion
involving ca. 75% of the LTS staff of 102
• LATTE sandbox provided for faculty May 1, 2007
• Course content migration from WebCT begins
May 9, 2007
• Course template completed June 15, 2007
• Launch LATTE Help Web site July 20, 2007
• Launch LATTE learning environment for community
use August 1, 2007
LATTE Project Teams for the
2007 Development and Implementation
• Project Administration
• Communications & Marketing
• Functionality
• Course Content Migration
• Training
• Technology Infrastructure
• Support
• User Acceptance Testing
The Result:
Total Moodle at Brandeis
&
a Successful Transition
and Implementation
The Brandeis WebCT Look
The Brandeis LATTE (Moodle) Look
LATTE Technical Facts
• Brandeis presently using Moodle 1.8
• In August, will upgrade to Moodle 1.8.4
– Presently testing compatibility with present boltons, new features, etc. behind the scenes
• LATTE upgrades
– Major upgrade (LATTE 1.2) in January 2008
– Another major upgrade scheduled in May 2008
– 3rd major upgrade in 2008 will be in August with
the upgrade to Moodle 1.8.4
LATTE / Moodle Technical Environment
• We use Development, Test, and Production servers.
• No changes are made to Production until carefully
examined on Development and Test.
• Virtualized environment using Xen allows us to
increase space on the fly.
• LATTE production management staff:
– 3 FTEs on back end of project.
– Work in close tandem with staff of Research and
Instruction Services (front end) as well as the
technical team overseeing the technology
infrastructure.
LATTE Statistics
• 587 out of 987 potential courses across Brandeis are
using LATTE as of spring 2008.
• Only 27 out of 987 are using WebCT.
– Confined mostly to the distance education
courses in the Division of Graduate Professional
Studies).
– All will transfer to LATTE in summer 2008.
• 508 courses use the syllabus tool.
• Runs 24/7, with only 1.5 hours of downtime (a single
outage) in 7.5 months of service.
LATTE Support at Brandeis
LATTE Home Page
LATTE Staff Support
(The Front Lines)
• 13 Research and Instruction Services staff members
– 10 reference / subject specialist librarians
– 2 instructional technologist
– 1 multimedia specialist
• 18 students
• LATTE Support overseen by one Assistant Director for
Research and Instruction Services (interacting with Director
and second Assistant Director).
• Support offered in person, by phone, and online (via a report
ticketing queue).
• LATTE workshops offered by staff throughout each semester.
Faculty Resource Center
• The LATTE Support Center
• Located adjacent the Information Commons
• Hours:
– Monday–Thursday: 9:00 a.m. – midnight
– Friday: 9:00 a.m. – 8 p.m. (with phone and online service
until 10 to cover distance learning programs)
– Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 8 p.m.
– Sunday: 10:00 a.m. – midnight
• RIS staff member on duty 9–9 Monday–Thursday, 9–5 Friday, 1–
5 Saturday, 1–9 Sunday.
• In addition, two student staff members work in the FRC during
all open hours.
LATTE Support Web Pages
Faculty Guide to LATTE
LATTE Support Web Pages
Faculty Guide to LATTE (continued)
Example from Faculty Guide to LATTE (1)
Example from Faculty Guide to LATTE (2)
RT (Request Tracker )
Ticketing System Used for LATTE Support
LATTE Support Ticket in RT Queue
LATTE Internal Support Wiki
How to Contact Us
Adam Lipkin
alipkin@brandeis.edu
781-736-4795
Darwin Scott
dscott@brandeis.edu
781-736-4680