Status 2005 Ian D. Thompson ©University of Strathclyde 2005

in-house VLE project started in 1998 initially one developer (Ian Thompson) development contributions from Tim Plumridge (Pharmaceutical Sciences) Ian Thurlbeck (STAMS) Fraser Murray (Mathematics/ P&A Chemistry) additional modules e.g. CIS student projects SPIDER

Usage of SPIDER

Table 1: Class and user growth since inception in 1998 * estimate, as figures not available Usage of SPIDER

Faculty of Science used by all 10 departments organised into 7 “clusters” Business School Master of International Management MSc Economic Management & Policy MSc International and Financial Economics ~40 staff, ~600 students + alumni LASS - providing ePDP for all new ug (~800+) Education/ CAS/ SCA PDP and classes for 395 students + 31 staff Chemeng - ePDP for ~200 students (17 staff users)

Usage of SPIDER Monthly usage - term time ~1.5M page visits* per month, ~50-70,000 per day - 4,000 different users/ week * page visit - single page request by user, rather than “hits” - a single page request will generate many hits (one for HTML + each image or other media)

SPIDER hardware Primary server Dual Xeon 3GHz CPU 2Gb RAM, RAID 5 ~90Gb SCSI ~£3,500 in 2004 Mirror server x2 PIII 800MHz, 1Gb RAM, RAID 5 ~60Gb SCSI rsync + MySQL slaves Development server PII 533MHz, 512Mb RAM, 10Gb HD

Typical VLE class is in class learner controls tutor VLE structure

SPIDER cluster department class SPIDER cluster 2 department class can view department is in class learner tutor belongs to can view cluster 3 department class cluster 4 department class department class profile classes, groups exam & quiz results progress ePDP... VLE structure

SPIDER “clusters” structure model university structure of degrees, departments and classes provide control & communication at course/ programme level (cluster) department level class level allow customisation

SPIDER management each cluster has own admin(s) one or more academic/technical/computing/administrative staff 11 user groups - flexible administration distributed/ shared “central”/ individual(s) mix of both to suit departmental needs after training  local expertise first line help & advice + help from other admins/ developers

Class/ cluster content control Editor, sub-admin and admins manage content at cluster level “Class editor” user any (staff) user can control one (or more) classes’: content exam returns class lists

open access to any class* curiosity/ general interest learner revision view good practice/ staff peer review no problems with late registration class list is stored independantly * option to limit access to class list/ staff if required SPIDER classes

session tabs groups class material by academic session (e.g ) auto-archiving of materials student access for revision session tab access can be restricted to students on class list for matching session e.g. only allow revision students to access solutions * option to limit access to class list/ staff if required SPIDER classes

student “object” allows SPIDER to provide class independent: information to staff tools for students (+ staff) examples counsellees tool  student profile performance monitoring/ tracking - EWS ePDP myCounsellor attendance register blogs non-class groups User object

Any staff user can post news items appear on home page +/- copy - replaces lists for many depts target any combination of 1 or more class(es), year(s), cluster user can filter news “feeds” moves to archive after 7 days or once “marked read” by user Private messaging appears in users private message space +/- copy staff can target individuals, counsellees or sub groups of counsellees, user input list students can message each other via groups/ discussions News/ communication

EWS Early Warning System Uses myCounsellees tool Staff can quickly view student progress/results Indication of poor peformance  Remedial action can be taken early

Addresses Development server Ian Thompson x2969