ITPC : CMS report

The ITPC membership includes:

• Welling Hall
• Greg Sandstrom
• Mark Stocksdale
• Ava Willis
• Janet Russell, convener
• Tom Steffes
• Wes Miller
• Tom Kirk

The Committee has given the majority of its attention this year to two items:  development of copyright policy and making a recommendation to Information Services on deployment of a course management system.

On the first matter the Committee has completed a draft of the policy and it was submitted to Len Clark and Doug Bennett for advice on the need for legal review.  As we understand it the Indiana University center for the study of copyright is being asked to review the draft.

It is our intend to distribute the draft for faculty comment after we have received feedback from Indiana University and have resolved any questions their review raises.

 

On the course management system the Committee reached consensus in the following minute:

In response to the course management minute, Information Services is developing plans to support Moodle and CHEF and to provide support for faculty who wish to use one of these two programs.  ITPC wants to emphasize that we continue an experimental approach at least for the next year until some of the uncertainties are cleared up.  As part of the use of Moodle and CHEF in the next year we will be actively seeking feedback from faculty and students in whatever courses the two systems are used.

For those unfamiliar with course management software here is a description:

Definition:

Course Management Software is a label for a wide variety of functionalities that are integrated into a package designed to provide students and faculty with ways of managing course activities.

Functions:

There are a whole host of functionalities not all of which are included in each package: Controlled access to documents, Discussion forums, File exchange, Internal email, Online journal/notes, Real-time chat, Whiteboard (common writing space), Self-assessment, Student portfolios, Quizzing and scoring, Online grading tools, Registration integration.

Options:

Blackboard and WebCT, while the most widely used systems and arguably providing the most advanced group of functionalities, are not being considered because they are expensive commercial packages.  ITPC has instead considered open source software:  CHEF (University of Michigan) and its next version which will be called SAKAI and is a consortial effort of M.I.T., Michigan, Indiana and Stanford supported by Mellon Foundation, and Moodle  (developed and supported by a wide range of institutions; commercial support is also available).

The Instructional Technology Policy Committee has deliberated about next steps in the implementation of course management software.

ITPC is mindful that making a decision now is very difficult because the futures of CHEF/SAKAI and Moodle are unfolding in ways that involve some uncertainties.  Furthermore bringing CHEF/SAKAI in-house or customizing Moodle will require additional ECS resources.  ITPC believes this proposal allows us to move forward as needs dictate while keeping alternatives open. This proposal will allow us to advance but within a “test mode.”  ITPC encourages frank and open discussion of the financial, technical and pedagogical issues that touch on choices. ITPC proposes that within the next year the Committee revisit the status of the use of course management software on campus as well as the status of CHEF/SAKAI and Moodle development.

The Proposal:

• IS proposes to implement Moodle course management software version 1.2 or later, on a local server and have it available for use by early summer.  The installation will be the “out of the box version” with little or no customization.
• An IS team will be convened to plan for support of Moodle.  This development will be subject to the priorities of Administrative Computing Projects List and will need to be accommodated in the workload of Computer Services Systems staff and Instructional Technology and Media staff. Our primary intent is to install and maintain an effective implementation of Moodle within ECS staff constraints.  A secondary intent is to modify Moodle to integrate it with the existing Earlham systems.  These modifications will be done understanding that the College is still in a testing mode
• In this implementation IS will provide training and support for faculty who wish to experiment with and use Moodle.
• In addition ITPC will continue to facilitate the use of CHEF by working with the Midwest Instructional Technology Centerto maintain access to their implementation.  ITPC will continue to be involved with MITC's development of course management software services for GLCA/ACM colleges.  ITPC understands from recent correspondence with Nancy Millichap, Executive Director of MITC, that within the larger Mellon family of projects MITC, and therefore Earlham, may be able to participate in shaping and developing CHEF/SAKAI.
• Further, ITPC expects that some faculty will continue to use course management systems provided by textbook publishers.
• It is ITPC’s intention to monitor the development of CHEF/SAKAI and Moodle and revisit the implementation of the two systems.  Furthermore ITPC intents to collect feedback from users both faculty and students on the usefulness of course management systems.