LMS+Updates

Jolie led discussion.

WFU - Production server up this fall. Run Bb and Sakai in the Fall. Blackboard will be turned off in the Spring. Will still have access to it, but Faculty will not have access to the server. Sakai will have SIS integration in the fall but not for Blackboard.

Jolie created Blackboard survey. Realized that faculty weren't "married" to Blackboard. Comments were left as to "too many clicks". Feedback showed that the Faculty were open to other alternatives. WFU looked at piloted both Moodle and Sakai. Upon evaluating, found that many of WFU's peer institutions were using Sakai and felt that collaboration among the peer institutions would be ideal.

WFU knew that Sakai was section aware. Blackboard wasn't. SIS integration created a course shell for every section with Blackboard. got a lot of complaints from faculty teaching multiple sessions. Faculty will have more work up front with the SIS integration and Sakai, but they will be able to choose which classes they want a Sakai site for as well as what Tools they want to use. There will be a default tool set. Pitching the adoption of Sakai to faculty by letting then know they will have more control of their courses as far as tools, etc. WFU hasn't seen much faculty resistance to date.

Got a really strong, positive reaction to Sakai and recommendation was made to adopt Sakai to replace Blackboard v. 6.3.

Duke wants to have a community, looked at peer institutions, greater adoption of Sakai, among a broader community, greater adoption of Moodle.

NC State School of Education was running a Moodle server, no SIS integration, more of a training playground for their students. SOE maintains Moodle on their own. NC State stated that their next "update" will be a migration from Bb Vista. Whatever direction they choose will be something new because of where they are coming from (Bb Vista)

Discussion about putting all of the resources in one area even if they are located elsewhere. Discussed Sakai web content tool, NC State discussed Moodle Blog and Wiki tools and their disappointment with it.

There was also discussion about managing expectations from users using an "open source" product. What will they expect? Open source offers more ownership, but how do you answer requests for modifications? Open source platforms are still "monolithic" like enterprise platforms such as Blackboard.

UNCG asked about Sakai being a content system. Jolie shared that Sakai has a "My Workspace" area. Every user has a "My Workspace" area that is basically their personal storage. Faculty and staff can pull files from their "My Workspace" area into their course sites.

Duke - http://www.goingon.com for building social communities in education.