Organizational Factors in Selecting and Supporting a VLE

1. Organizational Factors in Selecting and Supporting a VLE Roger Matthews Deputy Director of Information Services University of Wales Aberystwyth Patras 2003

2. Useful URLs www.inf.aber.ac.uk/vle alto.aber.ac.uk Patras 2003

3. Background - UWA • University of Wales, Aberystwyth (UWA) was founded in 1872; • The first university institution to be established in Wales; • Today, it has over 7,000 registered students, including over 1,100 postgraduates; • Eighteen academic departments. • There is a strong bilingual policy Patras 2003

4. Background – Information Services Formed in 1995 as a fully converged service covering – • Library Services; • Central Computer Services; • Microcomputer Services; • Management Information Services; • Learning Technology Services; • Media Services. Patras 2003

5. Background – Learning & Teaching Strategy Institutional report produced during 1999 by one of our Pro Vice Chancellors required departments- • To promote the use of learning technology….in respect of the delivery, administration and management of courses (Staff Development Office, Academic Affairs Committee, Information Services); • To review their means of assessment (Departmental Learning Committees / Deans / Academic Affairs Committee). Patras 2003

6. What happened next? Well this is a University isn’t it? We set up a Working Party comprising – • Learning and Teaching Champions; • Web Developers; • CAL Developers; • Central Administration (SDO/Marketing) • Information Services Support Staff (including Librarians). Patras 2003

7. Providing a Virtual Learning Environment? Advantages anticipated in 1999 • Enables good teaching to be “captured” and improved on and presented repeatedly; • Fitted with modern British student lifestyles where many have to work to support themselves; • Allows “Learner-centred” teaching. Patras 2003

8. Providing a Virtual Learning Environment? Disadvantages (User Survey 2003) • Some students feel that this is just a device to allow teachers to avoid lecturing and personal contact; • Some students feel that the VLE experience is condescending, devaluing the learning experience; • Some students and staff lack the IT skills to get the best from a VLE. Patras 2003

9. Choosing a VLE (1999) Write your own VLE? • Control of the design & interfaces; • But, you depend upon in-house expertise, resource issues & staff retention. Buy a VLE? • Out-of-box solution, easier inter-collegiate collaboration; • But, high capital cost & lack of control. Patras 2003

10. We decided to pilot a VLE • We decided to buy one; • Funded by Information Services (regrettably); • We chose, largely on price, WebCT running on a Windows NT server; • We started in Summer 2000 with a target of 20 modules being live by May 2001. Patras 2003

11. Conducting the Pilot Without institutional level support we needed to “cascade-train” others - • We targeted a small group of Academics; • Explained the principles behind a VLE; • Explained how to plan a course for a VLE; • Explained how to input the teaching materials; • Gave them individual & group training. Patras 2003

12. Outcomes – Pilot 1 (May 2001) • Target number of modules exceeded by a factor of 3; • High degree of satisfaction from Academics & Students; • Tutors didn’t like the two stage content uploading process; • We had concerns about content portability; • Emerging Welsh Higher Education Blackboard community. Patras 2003

13. Conclusions – Pilot 1 (May 2001) • We should offer a VLE; • But Blackboard seemed to offer a more attractive solution with a similar toolset; • CHEST deal had made Blackboard software affordable; • The Hardware from the Pilot was re-useable; • Our users agreed to change (reluctantly). Patras 2003

14. Pilot 2 (2001-Present) • We purchased Blackboard Level One (IS paid for it again); • We promoted it initially (but it took off on its own); • We provided staff effort to help Academics migrate their existing WebCT courses; • We provided training materials & training (so far more than 100 Academics have been trained in VLE and FrontPage). Patras 2003

15. Pilot 2 (2001-Present) • We had more than 200 active modules by July 2002 (initial target in 1999 had been 50 by then); • Today we have 379 active modules; • This figure grows almost every day; • We have 299 registered instructors; • Our Blackboard system has slightly less than 300,000 hits a month. Patras 2003

16. Pilot 2 (2001-Present) Two day’s usage 29/10/02 to 30/10/02 Patras 2003

17. Issues (1) – Project Ownership • To embed a VLE into a University’s Learning & Teaching, the project must be “owned” by the Institution; • It’s governance and funding must be at Institution level rather than at an IS (or Library) level; • The top level Teaching & Learning committee must be fully involved; • The VLE must be run as a central service. Patras 2003

18. Issues (2) - Level of Support Training & Retraining Support • Academic Staff – Training in teaching using Technology, IT skills training, assistance with design; • Administrators – Course management; • Library & IT Support Staff – Project concepts, Helpdesk training, accessing the VLE, liaison with Academic departments; • Students – IT Skills training (but often little more than an induction to the system). Patras 2003

19. Issues (2) - Level of Support Systems Support • Software – Keeping the server O/S and the VLE software up-to-date; • Hardware – You need servers which have high performance and reliability; • You need to run 24 x 7 availability; • Backup – You need to protect your users content, they have invested heavily. Patras 2003

20. Issues (2) - Level of Support Systems Support (2) • Systems Architecture – Your systems will be used in a time critical way, so you need to design in redundancy and automatic fail-over; • Supplier Relations – you need to set aside effort to liaise with your suppliers to handle planning and fault resolution. Patras 2003

21. Issues (3) - User Registration • Course Tutors at Aberystwyth were not prepared to handle user registration and demanded an automatic process; • We didn’t wish them to do this anyway; • We wanted to synchronize registration and authentication between the Blackboard system and the rest of our services; • Tutors often want freedom to make their courses available to others. Patras 2003

22. Issues (4) - Module Descriptors • Our Academic Registry “own” the module descriptors which are held in an authoritative database; • They insist that the module descriptors in Blackboard match their data exactly; • They do not have the resource to enter these data again; • And neither does Information Services. Patras 2003

23. Issues (5) - VLE Design Problems Example VLE Top Level Page Patras 2003

24. Issues (5) - VLE Design Problems Summary • VLE suppliers tend to want to provide a full range of communications tools but these are often inferior; • We want to provide “best-of-breed” tools in a seamless fashion; • We want to “pick-and-mix” facilities not buy wholesale from one supplier. Patras 2003

25. Conclusions (1) • VLEs are valuable tools to support Learning and Teaching; • To get best use of a VLE you must eventually embed it in an MLE; • Interoperability with your Library management and other MIS systems is crucial; • You must pilot your project to find out what factors are important to your organization; • If you want a bilingual system, you must select your VLE with this in mind. Patras 2003

26. Conclusions (2) • To allow access to the VLE environment with “best-of-breed” tools rather than inferior ones, some advise considering overlaying the system with a “Portal”; • It is claimed that this will give many benefits - seamless integration, personalization and customization; • However, a “Portal” is not, as yet very well-defined. Patras 2003

27. Conclusions (3) • Institutional backing is crucial to progress beyond a Pilot; • Support quickly becomes a resource issue; • The total cost of ownership is higher than you expect; • Whichever VLE you buy will be wrong; • So you must plan your development strategy. Patras 2003

28. So what of the future - Patras 2003

29. Aberystwyth – Next Steps (1) • We need to develop a fully integrated MLE; • But, we are considering stepping back from trying to base that MLE development on Blackboard due to restrictive licensing conditions; • But, we accept that we cannot do a step change again, so we will need to continue supporting our Blackboard system for now. Patras 2003

30. Aberystwyth – Next Steps (2) • As indicated earlier, e-assessment is an integral part of e-learning and we haven’t been able to address it; • A spin-off company from UWA has developed an e-assessment system which will serve this need; • It is being enhanced and extended to incorporate a VLE – which might meet a lot of our requirements. Patras 2003

31. Aberystwyth – Next Steps (3) • It might address most of the issues raised by our two pilots; • We will consider running it as a pilot alongside Blackboard from September 2003; • We hope that, if it is successful, most users will eventually migrate to it (with our encouragement); • Let’s hope! Patras 2003

32. Acknowledgements • Kate Wright (kaw@aber.ac.uk); • Andra Bloomfield (adb@aber.ac.uk); • Kerr Gardiner (akg@aber.ac.uk); • Roger Matthews (rfm@aber.ac.uk). Patras 2003

33. The End Patras 2003