Librarian's Support of CMS

Course Management Systems (or CMS) are “software 'packages' designed to help educators create quality online courses”. So says Martin Dougiamas, the leader of the Moodle project. Another, perhaps more expansive, label would be Virtual Learning Environments or VLE, a term which is widely used in Europe.

A Virtual Learning Environment commonly possesses such elements as:

• a curriculum that can be 'chunked' into discrete parts that can be easily assessed and that can realise a well defined outcome for student achievement. The defining idea here is structuring a course so that the content can be easily posted online and progress evaluated.
• tracking of student achievement against curricular goals. Measuring whether outcomes are realised.
• support of online learning including learning resources, assessment and instructor guidance
• online support from instructor and/or tutors
• online peer group support
• general communications, including email & web access

[from Requirements for a Virtual Learning Environment]

So, what is the practical application of these principles? A VLE or CMS should have the following functionality:

• Course Management for instructors
  Password protected online domain where instructor and class can maintain a sense of privacy and class togetherness.
  Ease of manipulating student enrollment in course. Automatic population of course. Easy to remove student.
  Add electronic resources - documents, web URLs, streaming audio, streaming video
  Presenting homework and class assignments online in a logical manner related to the course chunks.
  E-mail to class facility
  Providing a framework for innovation online.
• Course Outline
  A CMS should provide the environment for making the outline of the course readily apparent. The student should be able to see in one place what topics will be covered, dates and overviews for classes, assignments, quizzes etc. Course content should be easily accessible.
  Makes the structure and content of the course readily apparent. A virtual syllabus.
• Assessment / Evaluation
  This takes three forms:
  1. Instructors should be able to grade assignments within the CMS and have them stored, collated and summarised. They should also be able to enter grades for other 'offline' assigments.
  2. Online quiz or exam capability with automatated grading or instructor grading.
  3. Students should be able to evaluate the success of the course (as its component parts or as a whole) so that faculty can assess whether course outcomes were achieved. This feedback process can help faculty make mid-course adjustments and improvements for the next time they teach it.
• Personal Information Managment tools
  Can students track their progress within the course? Are other on-line courses easily accessible? Can students add bookmarks or notes to record their academic progress?
  Can teachers record their impressions of what techniques worked and didn't work in the class.
  Will the system enable students to collate materials from different courses into a stand-alone digital portfolio?
• Peer-peer, student-teacher communication tools
  Discussion forums - threaded to assist in tracking responses. Right to post controllable by instructor. Gradable for assignment purposes.
  On-line chat
  One on one tutorial assistance
• Pedagogical Tools
  • discussion groups / forums. Can be used to provide “Just In Time” teaching: the instructor sets a question testing the student's comprehension of the topic to be completed just before the next class session. He looks at the responses online just before class starts and then he can address any issues during that class session.
  • peer assessment / grading. Students submit assignment and then grade each other's work. Faculty assesses both original work and the student's efforts at assessing others.
  • journaling. An online journal can be used to enable student's to reflect upon a topic and then develop their response over the length of the course. Egs include “listening logs” for music pieces, understandings of concepts in genetics.
  • collaborative space for group collaboration or writing on a topic. The wiki paradigm is normative for this kind of activity.
    
• Focal point online for course - CMS should be the center for student's academic web use - portal with email, webdb, cms components.

What functions would we expect to find on a CMS?

1. Choose the course I'm enrolled in.
   Students may be enrolled in multiple courses online and there needs to be an easy way to switch between them.
2. Announcements.
   A place or places where the teacher can make general class announcements that are retired with age.
3. Schedule or Calendar
   What's happening with the course and when?
4. Online resources.
   This constitutes the content for the course. Instructor needs to be able to add online resources in ther form of documents, presentations, spreadsheets, web URL, audio or video.
5. Assignments.
   Instructor should be able to have students submit writing assignments as a document file (uploaded) or other file (spreadsheet / presentation), or a web URL, or an inline response. There should be an easy way to set a due date. An enhancement would be the ability of the instructor to add comments and return the assignment document to the student.
6. Grading.
   Instructor should be able to grade individual assignments and other online activity and make grade available privately. An enhancement would be to have the grades summed up.
7. Discussion Groups / Forums
   Add discussion topics, respond, grade student's participation.

Login to Moodle @ earlham with your Earlham username. Join the “Intro to CMS for Librarians” course and enter the enrollment key that I'll give you (I will need to make you an instructor for the course to enable you to add activities). Browse around to see how the functionality described above maps onto the functions supplied by the CMS. As a separate exercise you can login to CHEF @ MITC with the test faculty account (username & password in email message).

Show how Brent Smith used Moodle in his Field Botany class and Monteze Snyder used CHEF in her Strategic Planning and Marketing class.

• How much publicity should we give to CMS given that it's still in a trial stage?
• What support can we give faculty and how much effort will it take?
• Reporting problems and addressing them. Communications with ITAM & ECS.
• Training and instruction with CMS. Examples of how CMS can be effectively used with a class.

Some of you will be using Moodle, some will be using CHEF. Login with the appropriate username and password provided and open the Using Moodle course (Moodle) or the INTD - 101 Pearson course (CHEF).

login as instructor

You are showing a faculty new to CMS how to do certain things on the system. In the box provided write down the steps you would show him/her to do the following :
(note that you may not be able to accomplish the function in the CMS you are using)

1. Make an announcement to the class, for example, inform the class of a new uploaded resource. Are there any special features worth noting?
   

    

2. Add a resource - a MS Word document and a web URL - to the course (look on your own H: drive for one). Special features?
   

    

3. Add an assignment. Change the due date. Any special features worth noting here?
   

    

4. Grade an assignment. Release the assignment grades to the class.
   

    

5. Track your recent activity to remind yourself of what you did last.
   

    

login as student user

You are showing a new freshman how to use the CMS of the course. Write down the steps you would show her/him how to do the following:
(bear in mind again that some of these may not be possible on the CMS you are using)

1. View the course outline to see what was scheduled and when.
   

    

2. Submit an answer to the assignment. Upload a MS Word document from your H: drive.
   

    

3. When is the assignment due? Where would you look?
   

    

4. Add a new discussion topic. Reply to someone else's.
   

    

5. Use Help to figure out how things work.