farewell webct, hello moodle: managing institutional change
- 1. farewell webct, hello moodle: managing institutional change Stephen Bruce & James Blair Information Services Edinburgh Napier University
- 2. outline • project 2 year timeline • webct to moodle migration • on the job technical skills development • maintaining feature continuity • devolved administration • value of learning technologists • involving academics in the change • institutional benchmark for technology • upcoming developments
- 3. project 2 year timeline Oct 2010 Functional requirements gathering Feb 2011 RFI issued to suppliers Apr 2011 Product Focus Days May 2011 Decision in principle for Moodle Aug 2011 Decision confirmed. Recruitment process begins Oct 2011 ITQ Moodle Partner. Synergy Learning appointed Jan 2012 Staff training server available Online staff development Apr 2012 Trimester modules migrated from WebCT to Moodle Staging server May 2012 Staging server moved to Moodle Live server Moodle Live for trimester 3 students Migration of TR1 modules to Moodle Live July 2012 Migration trimester 2 modules and programme sites to Moodle Live Sept 2012 Moodle Live for all students Oct 2012 Access to WebCT closes. WebCT Archive server available
- 4. webct to moodle migration • migration service provided by the University of Kent • entire WebCT database migrated to a Moodle 1.9 server (WebCT Archive) • manually moved ~2500 migrated courses to Moodle Live (backup/restore) • post-migration course clean up • issues with 1.9 MYSQL courses restoring to 2.2 MSSQL. Now using 2.2 MySQL • webct archive server has preserved migrated course from session 2005-6
- 5. webct to moodle migration
- 6. on the job technical skills development • delayed recruitment of system developers • utilise existing IT staff • quickly configure multiple moodle environments • benchmarking server OS and database combinations • conference calls with moodle partner
- 7. maintaining feature continuity • manually convert Learning Modules to Moodle Books • group sign-up sheets • grades customisation • course overview plus • collapsed topics to manage long scrolling pages of migrated courses
- 8. devolved administration • staff enrolment processed by administrators in each school • move away from SITS & external dB • accommodate exceptional student enrolments • create non-standard courses and associated enrolments • custom moodle roles to control access to the block
- 9. value of learning technologists • funded through limited project money • based within the faculties • support multiple aspects of the transition to moodle • deal with a rapidly evolving system • work with information services • focussing the university to consider future support
- 10. involving academics in the change • vle requirements, product focus days, final vote for moodle • established local moodle operational groups • sharing practice and promoting the new benchmark • moodle advisory forum
- 11. institutional benchmark for technology • new university benchmark for use of technology. to make active use of technology to meaningfully enhance the learning, teaching and assessment experience across all modules. • 3E framework of examples to illustrate how technology can be used to across a range of contexts. • Published under a Creative Commons license for potential re-use and adaptation.
- 12. institutional benchmark for technology illustrative examples module mappings
- 13. upcoming developments • planning for the academic year roll forward • upgrade to 2.4, theme enhancements, ePortfolio • evaluation of moodle and new benchmark • digital futures working group led by VP Academic • digital literacies • digitally enhanced education • digital equivalence • digital communication and outreach • digital scholarship • digital infrastructure
- 14. thank you Stephen Bruce Academic Development Advisor Information Services Edinburgh Napier University s.bruce@napier.ac.uk James Blair Head of Application Systems Group Information Services Edinburgh Napier University j.blair@napier.ac.uk