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An Outsourced Open Source LMS and a Pot of Gold?

An Outsourced Open Source LMS and a Pot of Gold?. Clark Shah-Nelson, Coordinator of Online Education SUNY Delhi College of Technology. Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike: Clark Shah-Nelson, 2008. Background. SUNY Delhi: over sixty 1, 2, and 4 year programs

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An Outsourced Open Source LMS and a Pot of Gold?

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  1. An Outsourced Open Source LMS and a Pot of Gold? Clark Shah-Nelson, Coordinator of Online EducationSUNY Delhi College of Technology Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike: Clark Shah-Nelson, 2008.

  2. Background • SUNY Delhi: • over sixty 1, 2, and 4 year programs • approximately 2700 students • In house WebCT server since 2004 • Also hosted courses on SUNY Learning Network • Predominantly web-enhanced courses • Small but increasing number of fully online / asynchronous courses

  3. Online Courses and Enrollments • Growth:

  4. Online Coordinator • Began December 2006 • Past experience teaching with • E-Education (Jones) (1999-2001) • eCollege (2001-2007) • Past experience admin/support for: • Blackboard (2006) • Position described working with WebCT and SLN…

  5. The Task… • Research and select a new system • Migrate courses • Train users • Develop orientations, documentation, etc. • By end of 2008…No time for lengthy focus group sessions, LMS comparisons, etc.

  6. Documentation • Agile Project Management • Requirements Gathering in Confluence wiki • Business, Technical, Functional Requirements: • Integration with Luminis Message Broker for course setup, user enrollment via Banner • Match current functions of WebCT • Upload and store media files • Online quizzes, discussions, etc.

  7. Total Cost of Ownership

  8. Total Cost of Ownership

  9. Total Cost of Ownership

  10. Total Cost of Ownership

  11. Total Cost of Ownership

  12. Final Selection • Outsourced Open Source LMS: Moodle hosted by Moodlerooms, Inc. • Do we need to hire more personnel? • No. • Is the LMS stable and secure? • Yes.

  13. Out vs. In • Downsides: • A bit slower than in house (bandwidth) • Help - contact another company rather than the tech around the corner • Upsides: • Campus outages not affected • Sys Admin focused ONLY on Moodle • They purchase and maintain/replace software/machines

  14. Open vs. Enterprise • Rich community of user forums, tutorials, resources, bug tracker • Less Cost - at all levels • Luminis Message Broker Digester - $0 • WebCTimport tool - $0 • Just as stable and more feature-rich • More social networking capability, Web 2.0 • Quicker to gain new features • More customizable • Did I mention cost?

  15. Timeline • March 2007 - Hostmonster account set up with multiple instances of Moodle for training development, experimentation, etc. ($75 /year splurge) • May 2007 - Course development server established • June 2007 - Initial training modules developed and delivered • July 2007 - Begin test Luminis Message Broker / Banner integration • Fall 2007 - initial courses developed for Spring 2008 production server • October 2007 - establish and test production server • Spring 2008 - offer Nursing BSN and Vet Tech courses on production server • Spring/Summer 2008 - additional training offered, Summer courses migrated • Summer 2008 - Fall courses migrated from WebCT/SLN • Fall 2008 - additional training and J-term/Spring course migration

  16. Faculty Members • Concerned about training: • Took much less time than WebCT to learn • Easier to use • More features • Exciting new possibilities • iPod training program • Concerned about converting courses: • We do that for them • Webctimport plugin from moodle.org

  17. Students • Love the new system: • Easier to navigate than WebCT • Like having images of fellow students • Easier to follow discussions

  18. Coordinator • Faculty are more self-sufficient • More fun to administer • More focus on training • Hosted in expert environment • High level of customization • More funds for faculty development

  19. Staff • More interested in using the LMS for training and staff development • See LMS as a way to reach students • Involved with Moodle Orientation for students • No noticable difference for registration, enrollments, etc.

  20. Administration • Left research and decision in our hands • Appreciate “international-ness” • Bottom line: • Furthering educational mission • $$$: The Pot of Gold

  21. The End • Questions? • Clark Shah-Nelson • nelsoncs@delhi.edu • www.delhi.edu - Confluence wiki documentation • http://blogs.nercomp.org/blogs/nac2008/ • 2-3-98 - Open Source Conferenceand Moodle Moot at SUNY Delhi June 19/20, 2008 www.delhi.edu/2-3-98/

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