1. A Change on the Horizon? EDUCAUSE June 2, 2008 East Carolina University

2. Introduction Presenters Biwu Yang Sharon Collins Ginny Sconiers Matt Long Agenda Purpose of the CMS Platform project The process Experiences East Carolina University

3. Fine Print Presenters' comments reflect their experiences with each platform and this presentation is not designed to promote one platform over another. East Carolina University

4. Purpose of the CMS Study Review the features of CMS platforms o Blackboard Version at the beginning of the study was 6.3 When? o Before major upgrades, the last time was 2004 Why? o Two recommendations under the PACE study Choices? o Bb and two front runner open source platforms East Carolina University

5. The Process Faculty o Seek faculty to participate o Ask them to teach one platform for a semester long course o Give them training Technical o Setup servers, we support all three in our campus Wrap up o Conduct survey at the end of semester and at the end of the project East Carolina University

6. Survey Sample East Carolina University

7. Timeline Summer 2008 A Recommendation Will be Made Spring 2008 2 nd Sakai Faculty Group Blackboard 7.3 Deployed Final Comparison Survey at end of Spring 08 Fall 2007 1 st Sakai Faculty Group 2 nd Moodle Faculty Group Blackboard 7.1 Pilot Group Summer 2007 1 st Moodle Faculty Group Spring 2007 Set Up Moodle & Sakai Server Timeline East Carolina University

8. Technical Support Administrator for each platform Student support for each platform Virtual Servers ITCS Systems support East Carolina University

9. Training and Support Group training sessions for each platform One-on-one training as needed Sakai/Moodle/Blackboard Cafe! Email Follow Up CMS platform website East Carolina University

10. Challenges Time and Effort for all participants Buy in from Academic and ITCS o Elmer Poe, Associate Vice Chancellor Faculty participation long term o 18 months Response time for issues Upgrades Blackboard mindset Course design East Carolina University

11. Moodle 2006 o ECU begins using Moodle in 2006 with a request from faculty members 5 members 2007-2008 o Current course base including CMS project users Approximately 130 courses http://moodle.aos.ecu.edu East Carolina University

12. Moodle Statistics East Carolina University

13. Moodle Survey East Carolina University

14. Moodle-Challenges Challenges Support was a challenge This is not the only thing we do Instructional design for faculty East Carolina University

15. Moodle-Lessons Learned Lessons Learned Moodle is used because of social feel o Organization of material and the look and feel of content presentation Obtaining faculty participation can be difficult Need a good conversion tool Faculty need assistance in reformatting their course for Moodle East Carolina University

16. Sakai Sakai 2.4 offered Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 Project Sites for research and collaboration My Workspace area for personal file storage Blackboard Conversion Tool to transfer content and Test/Quizzes More Information: http://sakaiproject.org East Carolina University

17. Sakai Survey East Carolina University

18. Sakai - Challenges Assignment Feature o Resubmission o Ownership of Content Tests/Quizzes o Feedback o Retake o Student Submission o Importing Issues Ownership of Pools Settings/Scores East Carolina University

19. Sakai – Lessons Learned Communication, Communication… Training is so important Flexibility is a necessity Faculty want consistency East Carolina University

20. Blackboard Bb 7.2 ECU upgrade policy o Production, Test, and Staging 23 Courses,18 Faculty F2F and Online Expectations - Full Use East Carolina University

21. Blackboard - Challenges Faculty and Student support New features training and support Updating the course sites w/ current enrollments TA and GA support Export/Import of courses East Carolina University

22. Blackboard – Lessons Learned Lessons Learned - 7.3 was much better than 7.2 Biggest challenge was re-training faculty on the threaded discussion tool Easy upgrade for students High adoption of features East Carolina University

23. Blackboard Eventually moved production to 7.3 over the holiday break Archived all sites and moved to 7.3 production for backup and use for any incompletes East Carolina University

24. Blackboard Survey East Carolina University

25. Final Survey Three CMS Platforms Comparison East Carolina University

26. RESULTS Three CMS Platforms Comparison East Carolina University

27. RESULTS Three CMS Platforms Comparison East Carolina University

28. RESULTS Three CMS Platforms Comparison East Carolina University

29. Next Steps Presentation to Associate Vice Chancellor Presentation to DEAC Presentation to IRCC East Carolina University

30. Comments from Faculty It's funny because I really kind of liked Moodle equally as well as Blackboard, but find Bb much more intuitive and easy to use. I think it's because I haven't had enough time to play around with and really get to know Moodle. With that time, I might have ranked them differently. While quantitative values are used, I found little difference between Moodle and Blackboard after one semester of teaching. I had a little trouble with assessment tools in Moodle and Sakai so I didn't pursue their use. I found Moodle very hard to use. Many students have commented that they prefer moodle's layout because they can see the topic contents without the need to enter a specific folder. Moodle is by far the most user-friendly and intuitive! I HATE the gradebook in Sakai. It is not easy to use or intuitive. I felt as if there were several steps needed to accomplish one thing. The gradebook for Moodle and Sakai was not used- external software gradebooks were used with ICTN3530 and ICTN3540. I have never used groups in any CMS. East Carolina University

31. More Comments I could never get the gradebook to weight the different types of assignments in either sakai or moodle, so used the blackboard grade book and reentered the data. I explored the create/manage groups in Moodle and Sakai, but did not actually use them! Moodle was by far the most flexible with regard to Content Organization and tools. I found Moodle clunky when uploading content, but I probably don't know the shortcut. This deficiency is not enough to prevent me from using Moodle in the future. I did not have any experience with RSS feeds, and I'm not sure about the HTML editor. The communication features were the best part of Moodle and allowed me to highly individualize the course. I loved that! Students were less likely to use Sakai's communications features. Students used Moodle's email and forum features extensively. There needs to be a N/A category on here. Moodle's email is problematic when there are a large number of students. The screen hangs until the emails have been sent- recommend the email module is backgrounded so the process is not visible to the instructor. East Carolina University

32. More Comments I only learned about the use of Blogs and Wikis; I did not use them. I really liked the discussion forum grader in Moodle and found it easier to use than even the updated Bb7. All of my experience with Assessment has been with Blackboard only. However, I ranked Moodle / Sakai based on other features within the CMS. I did not do alot of fancy testing, it was difficult enough to just get the basic test set up the way that you wanted. The test set up in moodle was difficult to navigate, but the feedback options to the students after the test was better. Sakai seemed to give us difficulty when students actually did the testing. Assessment wasn't used in Moodle or Sakai, but Blackboard's assessment feature is very powerful. Haven't really used a survey function! Thanks for doing this, and for all your help throughout the semesters! East Carolina University

33. Conclusion Blackboard Contract is Up for Renewal o Blackboard will be continued Academic Outreach will continue running multiple platforms o Courses run in Moodle for Summer 08 o Several projects will use Sakai East Carolina University

34. Questions ? East Carolina University