Session Description Over the past 18 months, Purchase College has migrated from Blackboard to Moodle for our campus learning management system. Our decision was partially driven by the lower total costs for Moodle as an open source product and our desire to avoid the risks and lack of control associated with commercial applications. Our primary consideration however was that Moodle provides a pedagogically stronger learning platform, and its openness allows us to integrate it with other learning applications that faculty would like to use to promote student engagement. In addition to Moodle, we have a variety of other open-source applications in use, in development or under consideration. These include e-portfolios (Mahara), faculty web sites (OpenScholar), blogs (WordPress MU), project web sites (Drupal), and synchronous online classrooms (DimDim or Big Blue Button). We are beginning to build an ecosystem of open-source applications that will provide a flexible and robust platform to support instruction and scholarship. This session will present our experiences with the adoption of open source applications, provide evaluations of products we have implemented, and discuss how open source fits into the mix of applications to support the strategic directions of the college.
Moodle is our learning management system platform. We switched from Blackboard to Moodle over the course of the 2009/2010 academic year.
Moodle is our learning management system platform. We switched from Blackboard to Moodle over the course of the 2009/2010 academic year.
This illustration was developed by the independent management consulting company, Delta Initiative, less than a year ago (late 2009) to summarize (quite well) how the landscape of the LMS has changed in roughly the last decade. This is a busy screen so let me attempt to describe what you are seeing: For each year displayed along the x-axis (or the columns at the top) you can see the amount of usage for each of the various LMS technologies used for that year. The thickness associated with each individual LMS demonstrates the number of users using that particular system. This illustration also identifies the mergers or acquisitions that have taken place over the years. For example we see when eCollege was acquired by Pearson in 2007 and when several systems including WebCT and ANGEL were acquired by Blackboard. A couple things stand out to me with this illustration: 1) Below the dotted line you can see that in the proprietary space there has been quite a bit of volatility primarily due to acquisitions. In fact, there is only proprietary system displayed that appears to have not YET been acquired by either Pearson or Blackboard. 2) Above the dotted line you can see the most notable open source systems. The story here is quite different. Here it is clear that the open source systems are experiencing slow, consistent yet substantial adoption by institutions. In a recent survey by the Campus Computing Project, Moodle is the second most used Learning Management System in the US behind Blackboard (or Blackboard’s suite of acquired systems). Not only does this illustration do a fantastic job of demonstrating where we have come from, but also signals the direction in which LMS technology adoption is headed.
Self-host vs. vendor host: http://www.slideshare.net/keith.landa/the-lms-delimma-self-host-or-vendor-host-kurt-beer
Moodle is our learning management system platform. We switched from Blackboard to Moodle over the course of the 2009/2010 academic year.
Adventures in Open Source - Moodle, Mahara, Drupal et. al. at Purchase College Keith Landa SUNY Wizard Conference 18 November 2010 http:// www.slideshare.net/keith.landa
Student Information System Library Information Systems Academic Analytics Campus Repository The View from 30,000 Feet
Background – Purchase – 2008 Liberal Arts and Sciences plus Arts Conservatories ~4200 FTE Web enhancement of F2F courses Online programs in the works ERes electronic reserves
What is Moodle? The world’s most widely used open source LMS
49,000 Registered Moodle Sites
35,000,000 Registered Users
http://www.moodle.org/stats
Faculty Blackboard uses
Distribute materials
Library services
Integration with SIS
Course communications
Links to external web sites
One stop shopping for students
Discussion forum
Gradebook
New media (blogs, wikis, podcasts)
Drop boxes
Student collaboration tools
Course reports
Self-directed lessons
Online quizzing
Real-time tools (chat, etc)
Clickers
LMS desired features No “killer app” tying us to Blackboard
Student Survey Responses
Implementation – course migration
Blackboard - ~1000 courses; ERes – substantially more
ERes – document download, upload to Moodle
Blackboard – Moodle can import Blackboard course archives (zip files), but…. (problems with the Bb archives)
Temp services staff - ~300 hours from May to Aug 2009, primarily ERes migration
Bb course migration on request during 2009/2010 year
Implementation – faculty development
Spring 2009 workshops: hour long sessions, various topics; early adopters; 28 faculty
2009 Summer Faculty Workshop Series: new programming, not just Moodle; half- and full-day workshops; stipends; 36 faculty at Moodle sessions
Cost comparisons Switch to Moodle saves us over $50K each year (Blackboard and ERes licensing costs) Risk management: -dislocations in the commercial space -self-host vs vendor host: http ://goo.gl/tQ5uX Blackboard Moodle Licensing $40K $0K Server VM VM Staff Fraction FTE server admin 1 FTE instructional tech Fraction FTE server admin 1 FTE instructional tech Course migration NA $3K onetime (ERes, mostly) Faculty development ?? $3.6K summer 2009
Community contributed modules Community Modules and Plugins page http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009 Map activity Lightbox Gallery resource
Bringing the cloud into the course
Student Information System Library Information Systems Academic Analytics Campus Repository Enrollment automation Open advantages
Library integration
Reserve requests
Electronic resources
Senior projects
Focus on teaching & learning - Robust set of activities & resources - Add-on modules from the community - Moodle development pathway Costs - No licensing costs - Similar support costs Integration - Other systems - Web 2.0 world Flexible open architecture Why @ Purchase? Risk management - Risks of open source - Commercial products have different risks
Campus lessons - Moodle
LMS focus should be learning
Faculty AND student perspectives
Change is hard, and exhilarating
Stewardship of campus resources
Choose the risk you’re comfortable with
Importance of community critical mass for open source apps
Clear roadmap for product development
“ Mahoodle”
Single sign-on
Mahara assignment in Moodle
Adoption process for Mahara
Why e-portfolios?
Tool to showcase student/faculty work?
Tool to support student learning?
Tool to collect institutional data?
http:// mahara.org
Mahara overview
“ Collect, select, reflect” and share (access control)
Resume building Social networking
Building and sharing a portfolio
Assembling artifacts
File uploads
Blog reflections
External materials (web video, RSS feeds, etc)
Creating a view
Determining the layout
Assembling and arranging portfolio components
Determining access controls
Share with individual user (e.g., instructor)
Make public, generate unique URL
Share with group (e.g., course group)
Submit to a course group (freezes portfolio view)
Creating templates
Campus lessons - Mahara
Adoption slower than with Moodle
Less faculty interest
Stealth adoption
Stronger tie to Moodle 2.0
Repositories
Focus on tool for student learning
Constraints on student showcase uses
Constraints on harvesting institutional data
Campus Repository
Importance of video at Purchase College
Film and media studies; cinema studies; journalism
Class projects
Student organizations
Training materials
Existing use of cloud video
Journalism & YouTube
TLTC Vimeo channel
http://vimeo.com/channels/97810
Five Minute Moodling
Need for a campus solution?
Kaltura open source video
kaltura.com vs kaltura.org
Use by serious players
Plugins already available
Campus lessons - Kaltura
Too early to tell, hopeful
SaaS and community source model is interesting
Developer community appears vibrant
Baseline integrations with apps on campus
WordPress, Drupal, OpenScholar WordPress -Implemented on campus before Moodle - http:// blogs.purchase.edu -Some active individual blogs -Departmental use instead of homegrown CMS -e.g.: http:// tltc.blogs.purchase.edu Drupal -Replacement for our home-grown CMS? -CampusEAI portal – includes CMS -Drupal for special projects - http:// drupalsites.purchase.edu OpenScholar -Faculty scholarly web pages -Customized Drupal application
Why were we so interested? -Legacy faculty web page service -Faculty desire for self-service -Information reuse possibilities -External faculty profile pages
Ease of faculty updates -Editing existing content -Adding new items -Default layouts, widgets
Faculty choice of -features -themes/appearance Ability to add others Central content access However….
Campus lessons - OpenScholar
Make sure application is ready for primetime
Default authentication, site creation
Server constraints
Be prepared for community growing pains
Persistence
Recent progress
WordPress Drupal
Campus lessons – WordPress, Drupal
WordPress – plug-in proliferation
Plug-in and version upgrades
Initial decisions can be critical – WP config
WordPress is easy for most users
Drupal is powerful, can be daunting
Need for turn-key Drupal set-ups
Student Information System Library Information Systems Academic Analytics Campus Repository The View from 30,000 Feet
Questions? Keith Landa Purchase College SUNY 914-251-6450 [email_address]