Presentation given at the 2010 Sakai Conference in Denver.

1. A Sakai and OpenSyllabus Pilot at HEC Montréal Martin Montminy , Functional analyst, HEC Montréal Rémi Saïas, Developer / ScrumMaster, HEC Montréal 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

2. Presentation Plan What is OpenSyllabus? Two pilots are better then one! Winter pilot Summer pilot Lessons learned Next step: deployment 2 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

3. What is OpenSyllabus Structured Hierarchical Course Outline (or Syllabus) Editor Integrated into Sakai environment and works with other Sakai tools. Successor of ZoneCours (first generation syllabus editor at HEC). Collaboration tool: Between teachers and students; Between teachers; Within the institution: registrar, department, library. 3 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

4. Open Syllabus 4

5. Open Syllabus

7. List of sections

8. List of students

9. Schedule

10. Location

11. …Resources In house integration – Available connectors does not support our version of PeopleSoft Assignment Course Management OpenSyllabus Entitypicker for othertools Citations 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

13. Contact Information

14. Learning Material

15. Assessments

16. Lectures

18. Contact Information

19. Learning Material

20. Assessments

21. Lectures

23. Course Introduction

24. Contact Information

25. Learning Material

26. Assessments

27. Lectures

29. Hierarchical CO example 8 Lecture 1 Description Coordinator’s description Objectives Coordinator’s objectives Lecture 1 Description Coordinator’s description Teacher’s description Objectives Coordinator’s objectives Teacher’s objectives Coordinator Lecture 1 Description Teacher’s description Objectives Teacher’s objectives Merge of coordinator’s and Teacher’s course outlines Teacher Section A Student Section A 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

30. Presentation Plan What is OpenSyllabus? Two pilots are better then one! Winter pilot Summer pilot Lessons learned Next step: production 9 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

31. Winter Pilot’s Objectives Objectives related to the environment (Sakai + OpenSyllabus) Collect feedback from different classes of user: instructors, secretaries, students. Identify bugs and improvement opportunities. Public relation objectives: Gave the application visibility in all departments by finding one instructors to use it in the context of its course. Other Objectives Evaluate training needs and communication needs. Show the community that OpenSyllabus can be used in real context. 10 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

32. Winter Pilot’s Statistics 11 courses(3 coordinated)/16 sections All instructors and secretaries were volunteer to participate. 13 instructors and approximately 600 students. Each department had at least one course. All groups used OpenSyllabus with integration with Resources and Citations. 3 groups used the integration with Assignment. 11 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

33. Winter Pilot’s Strategy Pre-pilot Careful planning Training and documentation Migration of existing syllabi During pilot Proactive support (2 lines of support) On demand training After pilot Postmortem meeting with instructors and secretaries Survey students of the pilot 12 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

34. Winter Pilot’s Problems Emails avalanche Documents added to Syllabus Students cannot access documents located in parent Syllabi Students cannot access documents with special characters “( )” or “[ ]” Problems with browser cache (blank page) Problems with new wireless network configuration on campus 13 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

35. Winter Pilot’s Feedback Postmortem meeting with instructors 9 out of 13 were present Feedback was strongly positive Strengths mentioned: Ease of use Performance (compared to current system) Team behind the pilot (development, training, support) Improvement opportunities User interface: too many scrollbars, font problems, size of windows Feedback missing on certain tasks Need to work on available rubrics in OpenSyllabus 14 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

36. Winter Pilot’s Feedback Student survey 168 responses / 600 participants Incentive: 3 prices of 100$ 15 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

37. Student survey – Technical problems 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

40. Our pilot had only bachelor’s degree students.

41. It was a goal to use that feature to bring the student in the library because it was a known problem that students (B.A.A) rarely go to the library.

42. We’ll have to try harder2010Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

44. Interface needs to be improved2010Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

45. Overall Appreciation 2010Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

46. Winter Pilot’s Feedback - Conclusion Instructors: Very satisfied Big improvement Better performance Ease of use and more functionalities Students: Moderately satisfied No major gain for them Will see the benefit when more tools will be available and used to change their learning experience. 21 2010Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

47. Summer Pilot’s Objectives Same as winter’s pilot plus: Training Train all 44 secretaries: creation of syllabi from scratch. Train level 1 and 2 support team with secretaries. Test new features and improvements: Automated creation and update (instructors and students) of course site based on data coming from institution academic system (PeopleSoft). Revamped User Interface. Test performance of application and infrastructure Increase load on application. Increase volume of data: number of sites, documents, etc. In parallel with migration of syllabi from old system for fall. 22 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

48. Summer Pilot’s Statistics 40 courses/53 sections (10 coordinated) All secretaries had to participate and selected a course in collaboration with their department and the instructors. 53 instructors and approximately 2600 students Each department had multiple courses in the pilot. All groups used OpenSyllabus with integration with Resources and Citations 1 or 2 groups used the integration with Assignment. 23 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

49. Summer Pilot’s Status From May 6 to June 23 Problems encountered so far Some students and instructors not having access to their sites Updates to membership to course site / synchronization with academic system (PeopleSoft) Access to document in parent syllabi Other isolated problems Majority of problems occurred at the beginning Very quiet since 24 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

50. Lessons learned Careful planning paid off. Take care of your pilot participants, they are your ambassadors. Two pilots approach gave us the opportunity to start earlier, learn and adjust. Start non-functional(performance, volume, etc.) testing early. Design carefully and test thoroughly all interfaces with Sakai tools and core. This is where we had most of our problems. Make sure your support team has all the training and tools (e.g. become user) to diagnose the problems. Need to define promote the use of best practices. 25 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

51. What’s next? Staged deployment starting in September 10th Sakai Conference - Boston, MA, U.S.A. 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. July 2009 26

52. To Learn More… Presentationsthisafternoon 3:25 Chasm Creek A: Open Syllabus in Sakai 2.6: Up and Running! See us at the technicaldemonstrationsWednesday night Watch the OSYL videoathttp://vimeo.com/12495226 Try OpenSyllabus athttp://osyltest.hec.ca Confluence: http://tinyurl.com/opensyllabus 27 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

53. Questions? 28 2010 Sakai Conference - Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.