Open Source Projects e.g. Moodle Barron Koralesky Macalester College Barry Bandstra Hope College June 1, 2005

Outline Open source solutions What is Moodle, why use it? Institutional case studies – Hope College – Macalester College MITC, open source, & collaboration Discussion

Open Source Learning Management Systems (LMS) What is open source & what is an LMS? – How does it differ from commercial models? Cost Control – What are examples of open source LMS systems? – – Why open source for higher education?

Why use an LMS? Promotes active learning Accessibility (reserve readings) Reusability Extend the course outside of the classroom Because millennial students want/expect it Incoming faculty expect a LMS Reduce photocopy and duplicating costs Because everyone's doing it?

What is Moodle? Name - Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment – Moodle - v. to lazily meander through something Developer - Martin Dougiamas Appeared August 2002 Guiding philosophy - Social constructivism

Why consider the Moodle open source LMS? – Advantages Cost (no licensing restrictions) Linux/Win/Mac, Apache, mySQL, PHP Configurability Very active developer community – Driven by educators Very active user (help) community

Why consider an open source LMS? – Potential challenges? Institutional buy-in – Faculty – IT Credibility Installation Faculty training Operational support and help desk Integrating LMS with other campus data systems

Functionality & Use Syllabus tools (calendaring) – fluid syllabus Communication tools (mailing lists, discussion forums, journals, course notices, file/link dispersal) – enhanced connection to students Assessment and evaluation tools (quizzes, surveys, grade book, polls) – Formative & evaluative assessments – Enable student self-assessment Assignments Glossaries

Functionality & Use Syllabus tools (calendaring) – fluid syllabus

Functionality & Use Communication tools

Functionality & Use Assessment and evaluation tools

Case Study – Hope College Inception – Needed a platform for teaching Hebrew, but Hope had no LMS, and no plans to get one Gestation – MITC-ITLAC symposium was the opportunity to hear about CMS and institutional experiences (primarily no CMS, some Blackboard & WebCT) Experimentation – Searched the web, found possibilities – Hope's computing department allowed me to "play with" a number of open source projects – Piloted Moodle in religion courses (Spring 2003).

Case Study – Hope College Campus pilot project (Fall 2003) All-campus resource (Spring 2004) and why it has been so well received Will be the delivery platform for summer 2006 online courses

Case Study – Macalester Macalester had no LMS ( ) Instructional technologists saw need Heard about Moodle from MITC colleagues & MITC itself Free software, desktop hardware, allowed instructional techs to run pilot ( ) Pilot pedagogically-focused faculty workshops with faculty development center and early adopter faculty B.K.

Macalester

Case Study – Macalester First semester – 25 faculty, 400 students, 35 courses Second semester – 80 faculty, 1,200 students, 90 courses – Macalester ~1,800 FTE Full support starting fall 2005 – Central IT server administration – Accounts linked to central systems – Courses/enrollment linked to registrar data

MITC, Open Source, & Collaborations MITC collaborations – Liaison meetings – ITLAC symposia Helps overcome our natural isolation & limited resources MITC hosted projects – LMSs Moodle, CHEF – Digital Asset Management ContentDM

1 / 3 MITC Colleges using Moodle Albion Beloit Earlham Hope Lake Forest Lawrence University Macalester St. Olaf

MITC, Open Source, & Collaborations MITC provides informal Moodle support – CMS mailing list Moodle users chimed in Discussions of campus adoption of CMS Discussions about some issues, i.e. FERPA compliance – Call for collaboration Improving use Extending functionality

Collaboration Case Study Mac helped Beloit with server choice & configuration – Heard of us and others through MITC – Existing relationships with colleagues – MITC server + local server Macalester took workshop to Beloit – Macalester workshop in development – MITC funded travel expenses – MITC staff attended & assisted Beloit expanding Moodle campus wide

Questions? Comments? Discussion? Barry Bandstra Barron Koralesky