Adopting an Open Source LMS: an Interpretive Case Study

1. Adopting an Open Source LMS: an Interpretive Case Study Leigh Jin San Francisco State University 6/18/2009

2. Outline • Introduction • Research Questions • Theoretical Framework • Methodology • Preliminary Findings • Discussions and Conclusions

3. Introduction • Open Source LMS – an attractive alternative: as institutions of higher education confronting budget cuts and financial crisis • NACUBA survey (2004) finds members perceive open source software as a viable alternative to commercial software due to: • open standards and interoperability with other application systems (61%) • Freedom to modify the code (58%) • Software designed by and for the industry (58%) • Lower cost of ownership (55%) NACUBA refers to National Association of College and University Business Officers

4. Research Gap • Majority of the IS research on OSS has focused on OSS development, due to two assumptions: • Developers are users with “itch to scratch” • OSS movement is unique solely because of the way software is being developed • Fitzgerald and Kenny (2003) calls for research on OSS implementation in organization settings, which has been lacking in IS literature. • Their study on OSS implementation in an Ireland hospital indicates: • OSS implementation leads to cost savings of €13 million over five years • Free access to source code is not the primary motivation for adoption

5. Research Questions • The motivation, benefits, and challenges associated with adopting open source LMS in the public education sector; • How Moodle is implemented at San Francisco State University; • How faculty and students perceive its impact? • The strategy and best practices that potentially help to facilitate the successful implementation of an open source LMS.

6. The Role of Modern Technology and Technological Frames • Giddens’ View of Modernity (1991) • Time Space Distanciation (enabled by modern technology) • “In premodern societies, space and place largely coincide, since the spatial dimensions of social life are…[mostly] dominated by ‘presence’ – by localized activities. The advent of modernity increasingly tears space away from place by fostering relations between ‘absent’ others.” • Disembedding • ‘Lifting out’ of social relations from local contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space” • Disembedding allows organizations to break free from many local restraints • Reembedding • To take advantage of time space distanciation, disembedded social elements must be appropriately integrated into local contexts • Giddens’ theory draws our attention to the time and space dimension of iLearn implementation

7. Time Space Dimension of iLearn Implementation

8. The Role of Modern Technology and Technological Frames • Orlikowski’s Technological Frames (1993) • People’s assumptions and knowledge about the purpose and role of technology will strongly influence the design and use of those technologies • While its form/function embody developers’ objectives and values, they may be interpreted and used differently by multiple social groups based on their interactions with it. • Technological frames direct our attention to different interpretations of iLearn implementation across developers, faculty, and student

9. Open Source Theoretical Framework - van Rooij, 2007

10. Methodology • Interpretive Case Study • Participant Observation • Interviews with • Academic Technology division administrators and staffs • Faculty • Focus Group study with 40 students (college of business)

11. Open Source LMS: Motivations and Benefits • Limitations of Commercial LMS • 10-12 years experience with Blackboard • Earliest adopters of version 6 on 2002 • Officially move to moodle on 2007, currently we have 26,000 (out of 30,000) students uses moodle in their classes. we ended up having blackouts, we had 13 hours outage during the finals week, where their sales person was here running scantronswith our large class instructors so it’s a lot of concern, and it was all semester long… we find that they are not on our timeline, when we said we had this problem, they said we would fix it in six months, when we release that new version. But for us, we need the answer now…

12. Open Source LMS: Motivations and Benefits • “Flexibility and ability to customize our own implementation is important, with the closed source code we were not able to do that.” • Usability and Accessibility • Technical innovation and rich features • Pedagogical innovation and sharing • “I have seen just as many contributions to the moodle community pedagogically derived, so people say this is how I am teaching math with this tool, nobody asks them to supply that, they just happy to share.” • Ideology and Value • Leadership role and Reputation

13. Challenges • Technical skills and know-how • Technical support related issues • Upgrades • Scalability (26,000 out of 30,000 students are using moodle) • Integration with other campus systems • User Training and Education • Unrealistic expectations from users Concerns people have are not only cost related issues, but the safety net, if something goes wrong, they want to yell at somebody else, now when something goes wrong, they yell at me…

14. Cost of Ownership • -Cost: Free licensing • +Cost: Pay for hosting and other costs associated with customization and support • -Cost: Engaging other local campus who are interested in adopting Moodle, establishing collaborative relationships • -Cost, +Revenue: developing expertise surrounding Moodle support, potential consulting and revenue generating opportunities

15. Actively Participating in Moodle Community • At developer level • Contributing and maintaining the “quickmail” block • Maintaining tools like “gradebook+” in the previous release • At system administrator level • “Because of our size, some of the things we were experiencing some other campus have not, we have been in communication with core teams a lot regarding scalability issues” • Training, support and documentation level

16. From Moodle to iLearn • Initially, upgrades following Moodle release cycle caused stability and scalability issues • Measures taken to solve the problem: • Carefully evaluate features of Moodle and customize it to meet needs of San Francisco State University • Establish testing environment, thoroughly test new build before releasing to the campus • Adjust the release cycle of iLearn on semester basis • Virtualization, instead of attempting to upgrade all courses across all semesters, isolating upgrades within each semester • More effective project management, focusing resources to stabilize and support the system • As the result, the current iLearn implementation has been quite stable, no major outages and disruptions

17. From iLearn to the Classroom – the Faculty Perspective • iLearn is very effective and easy to set up comparing to Blackboard • Faculty computer skills vary across the campus • Faculty don’t have time to attend training sessions • System stability is really important • Do we really need new upgrade every semester ? • Online course is a whole different beast to support: “my department benefit a lot when I get 1300 students in my online class, but AT people are not paid for supporting me. I think online course should be treated differently because in this case, the technology is the classroom”

18. From iLearn to Classroom: Students Perspective • iLearn is easy and intuitive to learn and use • How effective iLearn is really depends on how instructor engage and set up the course • Biggest complaint: instructors do not access students work on time • The instructor uses iLearn actively tend to be better instructors, students tend to perform better in the class • Students do expect instructor to be the problem solver when they encounter technical problems • If a feature is available in iLearn, students do expect instructors to use them • Feature Requests: • Deadline for instructor update grades? • Automatic notification and reminding emails before homework due • Who is logged in now feature, dynamically forming work groups

19. Policies and Guidelines • Service Level Agreements • Let campus know this is what we can provide now with our limited staff and what we can do , and then this is what we ask you to do to help us out. • Incentives for faculty to make effort in curriculum innovation • Providing venues for faculty to learn and share best practices of using technology effectively in the classroom • Providing effective and fair funding mechanism to support technology innovation

20. References • Fitzgerald, Brian and Tony Kenny, “Open Source Software in the Trenches: Lessons From a Large-Scale OSS Implementation.” 24th International Conference on Information Systems, 2003. • Van Rooij, S. W., “Perceptions of Open Source Versus Commercial Software: Is Higher Education Still on the Fence?” Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Vol. 39, No. 4. (2007), pp. 433-453.