The story of how Digital Cultures helped introduce Moodle within a WebCT shop at the University of Sydney. NOTE: Eight full screen slides of this presentation are followed by the same slides with notes on the talk. These slides are for a lightening talk at the Open Education Workshop Nov 21, 2008 at Macquarie University's Graduate School of Management organised by ASKOSS http://opened.notlong.com

1. Open education
as a practice
Introducing Moodle in the Digital Cultures
Program at the University of Sydney
Chris Chesher, Director of Digital Cultures
chris.chesher@arts.usyd.edu.au
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/digitalcultures

2. From Brugger, Rolf (2000) 'Web Based Course Environments: an Overview'
http://diuf.unifr.ch/people/brugger/papers/00_flashinfo/wbc-environmentsEN.html

7. The Quadrangle, University of Sydney by i.say
http://www.flickr.com/photos/myflickrbox/1758919815/

8. Graffiti Tunnel, U of Sydney by adpal3180
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adpal80/450349014/

9. Open education
as a practice
Introducing Moodle in the Digital Cultures
Program at the University of Sydney
Chris Chesher, Director of Digital Cultures
chris.chesher@arts.usyd.edu.au
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/digitalcultures 1
This short talk tells the story of our experience
introducing Moodle as the main learning
management system (LMS) for Digital Cultures at
the University of Sydney.
I'd like to frame our experience with Moodle as an
example of how open education is a practice rather
than a thing. Learning is an event, and not an
object. It is an ongoing relationship between people
and artefacts.
I also want to address the question of why institutions
resist adopting open source software, and how
spaces can be found.

10. 2
From Brugger, Rolf (2000) 'Web Based Course Environments: an Overview'
http://diuf.unifr.ch/people/brugger/papers/00_flashinfo/wbc-environmentsEN.html
However, I want to start with why we looked for an
open source software solution for our teaching.
Our main initial motivation for looking to open source
was dis-satisfaction with the dominant LMS,
WebCT. WebCT organises learning resources into
functional clusters: course materials, assessments,
course materials, and so on. Elements of different
kinds cannot easily be grouped or linked. This
structure doesn't follow the way I teach, or how
students learn.
The look and feel of WebCT was, and remains, very
dated, belonging to the Windows 3.1 / CD-ROM
era. Its esoteric aesthetics and operation shouted
out that education is a strange and special space,
away from the world outside.

11. 3
Without a compelling LMS, we continued the practice
of building our own sites, using whichever tools we
could master.
In Media at UNSW we published these sites on the
open web. This meant we could show others our
teaching materials. We built connections with
others teaching in our area. We built relationships
and reputations.
It also exposed the University to the risks of
openness: our IP might be stolen; if any of us used
copyrighted material we might be sued, we might
defame someone, and so on.
Our biggest worries, though, were the time it took to
develop skills, and build and maintain sites.

12. 4
When I moved to University of Sydney in 2005 I
found a similar story to UNSW. WebCT was the
standard. I tried using it, but again I was not happy.
Many advocates of WebCT thought that academic
resistance to WebCT was technophobia or
curmudgeonliness. I believe it's WebCT.
At that stage I knew that Free and Open Source
Software existed, but didn't know what it could do
for me, let alone what I could do for it.
So we held a forum called' Learning from Free
Software' (we were known as Arts Informatics until
2007). This was valuable not only for what we
learned, but particularly for the connections we
made: especially Pia Waugh and Geoffrey
Robertson.

13. 5
For not much more than petty cash, Geoffrey
established a Moodle install for us at an external
domain artsinformatics.com. Initially this was simply
a quick and dirty sandbox for experimentation.
Gradually, however, it became our standard LMS.
I prefer Moodle's way of organising courses as a
series of lessons (with or without a date, or even in
social mode, with no actual lessons). Each lesson
can include any number resources, activities and
explanatory text. There are many activities
supported: real time chat, wikis, glossaries and
databases, as well as more familiar forums, quizzes
and assignments. Moodle gave us not only more
features and better (if not perfect) look and feel, but
also all the attractions of open source community.

14. 6
After Digital Cultures had used moodle independently
for a year, the eLearning people in our Faculty saw
that it had become central to our teaching, and
arranged to install it on a University server.
Others in the Faculty also took up Moodle, including
Peace and Conflict Studies, Yiddish and
Archaeology. Some needed Moodle's special
features. Digital Cultures legitimately argues that
we need wikis, real time chat, and so on because of
what we teach. Yiddish needs an LMS that supports
special characters.
At the moment, though, we're at a point where
Moodle is more than a special case. In this past
semester there were over 500 students enrolled in
units of study using Moodle. This level of use
means Moodle may attract formal recognition.

15. 7
The Quadrangle, University of Sydney by i.say
http://www.flickr.com/photos/myflickrbox/1758919815/
At this stage it is unlikely that Sydney, or other
Universities, will move away from standardising on
the merged WebCT/Blackboard as the learning
management system, which now has no
commercial rivals.
Universities have committed millions of dollars to this
platform already. Licences for WebCT are in the
order of $1 per student. In addition, at Sydney there
are 23 staff in the unit that supports WebCT.
WebCT gives a consistent user experience for
teachers and learners. It is embedded in many
University intranets. It adheres to risk management
principles and accountability to the Academic
Board. It is the LMS of the institution.

16. 8
Graffiti Tunnel, U of Sydney by adpal3180
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adpal80/450349014/
However, there are still spaces within Universities in
which outside practices can emerge and thrive. At
Sydney this is symbolised in the well-known graffiti
tunnel: a pedestrian tunnel on campus where it is
acceptable to draw, spray or brush on anything on
the walls, floor and ceiling. Spaces like these are
models for how things can be done differently.
However, as I have argued, open education systems
are often better, and certainly far cheaper to install
and support than the dominant systems. While
Moodle is not without its problems, it is remarkably
stable and accessible, attracting enthusiasm, or at
least respect, from students and teachers alike.
Introducing Moodle to Digital Cultures requires a
practice of open education: with pragmatism,
improvisation and willingness to experiment.