What you always wanted to know about Course Management Systems (… but didn’t know to ask ) Serge Goldstein, Princeton University CIT

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT Decisions, Decisions, Decisions BlackBoard, WebCT, which of these?  Features: 80/20 rule   Cost  Integration Common Issues  Courses  Faculty  Students Easy! Hard!

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT CourseWare at Princeton 1K Faculty, 1K courses, 4K U/1.5K G, 10K total SemesterCourseWareCourseInfoOtherTotal Fall Spri Fall Spri Fall Spri Fall Spri Fall

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT CourseInfo 4.0 1K Faculty, 1K courses, 4K U/1.5K G, 10K total Enterprise 450/2-400, 2Gig/180 Gig, Solaris 2.6 Support: 1 Full, 2 Part, 10 TA In-Office Faculty Visits (50/semester) In-Department Staff Training Develop: 1 Programmer Perl5, MySQL Future: BlackBoard 5, PeopleSoft

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT Why CourseInfo? Ease-of-Use, Ease-of-Use, Ease-of Use  Faculty bake-off  Stability, usability What we like:  Ease-of-use  Can muck with guts (shhhhhhh) What we don’t like:  Ugly  Not modular

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT Course Decisions What is a Course?  Courses versus Sections versus Seminars  At what level do you create a Web site?  Course=Web site? Section=Web site?  Registrar (for-credit), non-Registrar  Who gets to create course?  Naming conventions  Who gets to list courses?  Non-course use. Who owns a course?  How much work do you do? Does faculty do?  Copyright!  Access restrictions (Faculty buy-in)

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT Course Decisions When does a Course start?  Faculty prep time  When do faculty get back to campus?  Offline faculty access (disable student access)  Student enrollment  When in Course? When in site?  Pre-enrollment activities  Surveys  Marketing/Sales When does a Course end?  What happens to the Course? Course Data?  What happens to the Students? Student data?  Archive? Re-cycle (copyright issues)?

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT Faculty Decisions Who are the faculty?  University ID? Visiting?  Jointly taught with other Institution? What can faculty do?  Create courses?  Naming conventions  Enroll students?  Policy (What is a student?) What can be done to protect faculty?  overload!  Too much work  Automate!!!! Prebuild!!!!

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT Student Decisions Who are the students?  Incoming? Outgoing?  Auditors? (ID?)  Other Institutions? (ID?) What can students do?  Edit site?  Submit work?  Chat … not just for distance ed. When deleted?  What happens to work?  Ownership? Pictures!

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT Conclusions Before you buy:  Know how courses REALLY work at your institution!  Most IT, and MANY FACULTY don’t.  Know what faculty really need, not just what they say they want.  Watch them teach.  Talk to students.  Know what students really need, not just what they say they want.  Talk to Faculty, Deans, Advisors.

January 11, 2000 CSG Duke University Serge J. Goldstein, Princeton U. CIT Conclusions Gotchas:  Large-enrollment course issues:  Unmanageable lists.  Is it better than ?  Enrollment/Unenrollment  Delete nothing! Inactivate.  Ownership!  Access restrictions  Open access (no login possible)?  Important to your faculty?