On Friday morning, May 16, I posted the following question to both the STLHE-L and POD lists.
At our institution we're looking at alternatives for an institutionally-supported courseware package. Our IT people think it might make things easier for faculty who want to, or might be tempted to, use things like Web sites, discussion boards, email lists, etc., in their teaching, if there were one package across the university, rather than, as is the case now, a few ad hoc assemblages of off-the-shelf programs put together by individuals, with help from the IT people.Responses started coming in almost immediately. I've made an attempt to digest the comments and responses to the most relevant to evaluation of the various programs. I've put responses to messages after the messages, to aid in coherence, edited out the social grease, salutations, dates, and email header and footer information, and, where it seems necessary, identified who is writing with initials. (I've also changed all email addresses in the text, substituting /at/ for |at| , so that automatic address harvesters for spammers won't find them.)Our problem is that most of the information we can get about these large scale programs -- e.g., WebCT, BlackBoard, FirstClass, etc. -- comes from people who are selling them. We've had on-campus demos, etc., but we have no confidence that we really know what the consequence of adoption would be.
Our IT people (and the reps from these various packages) all say, "tell us what you want and we'll provide it." The problem, of course, is that most of the people in a position to define their wants -- the people who are using IT in their teaching -- already have kludged together solutions, and the ones who aren't using IT don't, of course, know what they want.
We're interested in getting answers to questions like this from people who've experienced the introduction of specific packages: What were the consequences for teachers who had -- and hadn't -- previously been interested? How teacher centered is the package? How flexible? What benefits -- anticipated and unanticipated -- for individual teachers did the program exhibit? What difficulties did it pose?
I could go on with questions, but you probably get the idea. If you'll send any reflections you have on this, specific people we should ask, or resources we should know about, directly to me rather than to the whole list I'll assemble the results on a Web site and post a summary to the list.
It's well to bear in mind that these are all email texts, written rapidly
and without the leisure of extensive editing: further, they're all conversations
interrupted by other considerations, so some questions go unanswered (at
least so far).
.
We had introduced Virtual-U about four years ago (which was used by relatively few colleagues). Two years ago, after looking at all kinds of alternatives, we switched to WebCT. We now have 4,500 users - that's more than half of our enrolment - using WebCT in one form or another.
WebCT is extremely user-friendly. It is intuitive. I have experimented with many first-time users (both students and faculty) and they can find their way around. Naturally, cost is a factor as well. I believe that, dollar for dollar, WebCT will give you the best bang for your buck. Since its introduction, faculty use is impressive. We have twelve courses completely online, 24 telecourses with online support and over 120 faculty using it in mixed mode to support courses delivered on site.
We have had no problems with it whatever.
There are numerous Web sites that provide benchmark comparisons of learning management systems. Just do a Google search on "learning management systems" comparisons. That will provide you with the likes of:
http://firstclass.deakin.edu.au/~Ian_Smissen/OtherEvaluations.htm
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/ocotillo/courseware/compare.html
But, don't bother with requesting references from LMS developers. They will obviously only give you references of clients that are happy with them.....
Thanks. We'd been looking at edutools, which does this as well, and started thinking that the benchmark comparisons weren't helping us a lot because they usually seem to talk about generic capabilities (does it have online chat, etc.) rather than helping us get a sense of how they feel to users. But I didn't know these -- and hadn't googled with the LMS phrase -- so we'll try that, too.
At Ryerson, Wendy Freeman (hundreds of courses on WebCT) is switching these courses to Blackboard(?) would definitely be worth contacting wfreeman/at/ryerson.ca (416) 979-5220.
Univ of Guelph also uses WebCT and FirstClass, a good contact there is Aldo Caputo, 519-824-4120 X 2936 acaputo/at/uoguelph.ca
We use WebCT and FirstClass at McMaster, you could contact Laila Bastedo (WebCT) 27497 or bastedol/at/mcmaster.ca Carl Cuneo (FirstClass) X 24021 Carl.Cuneo/at/learnlink.mcmaster.ca (905) 525-9140
Check this link out for a comparison of course management systems.
http://www.edutools.info/course/index.jsp
At SFU WebCT was chosen although I think there may be a plan to re-evaluate as new editions come out. As an instructor I don't particularly like WebCT as I find it time consuming to use with many clicks to get the job done. I liked FirstClass (the predecessor) but I am told that WebCT is better for the administrative aspect of the courses that I don't see such as importing student data. I have seen Blackboard at conferences but have not used it extensively.
Comments follow. I recognize that the user's course design will affect his/her perception of the CMS. However I have seen research studies which suggest that the discussion tool is the most common tool used so I would think it would be more functional in WebCT.
At SFU WebCT was chosen although I think there may be a plan to re-evaluate as new editions come out.
RH: Does this have to do with costs as well? I keep hearing "bait and switch" stories about WebCT . .I can't comment on cost although I know that one reason to change from EMBANET FirstClass was to streamline the university's CMS. I suspect that our program likely saved money by going to the "approved" CMS.
BE: As an instructor I don't particularly like WebCT as I find it time consuming to use with many clicks to get the job done.I teach graduate students accounting. So I run a seminar online in essence. The discussion tool is the most important. You need html code to make the messages visually appealing, no spell checker and no easy tools like open all threads. In 3.8 they have made the number of clicks even more by suppressing who sent the message until you get down 1 more level and no message numbers are available in topic overview. Therefore no easy reference by name or number. Stats are also misleading as students may use the function "compile" to read messages but these do not count towards "messages read". You can not tell who has read a specific message which is handy to know in terms of student complaints about a team member or to see if everyone has seen important messages.RH: What do you mainly use it for? What are the principal tasks you use either WebCT or FirstClass for?
BE: I liked FirstClass (the predecessor) but I am told that WebCT is better for the administrative aspect of the courses that I don't see such as importing student data.
I must admit the last time I used FC was in early 2000. My hours to teach the same course went up 25% and have not decreased even with more use of WebCT. Granted there could be other factors but I held the course static in all aspects with the change over so I think the main hours were attributed to too many clicks in WebCT. Each click takes time. I liked the way you could cut & paste into a message without modification. In WebCT it always needs modifications to add space, make lists etc. Messages from one semester could be sent to the next semester so it saved time as it could be updated and then sent to the current class. It also allowed external emails. WebCT is internal mail only although you can have mail forwarded to an external address but you can't reply to it. The problem was that EBANET hosted it so they controlled the class list which was the main drawback from an instructor perspective. Also no organization of messages are allowed in WebCT. For instance, a team area can't have separate folders in WebCT that the user sets up like in FC. So a team area may have 500 messages that you wade through every time you access your team area. My stats show that most of my teams do not use WebCT for team discussion.RH: That's a criterion I wouldn't want us to use . . . on the other hand, I poked around with FirstClass a few years ago, about the time it first came out, and remember finding it inflexible. I haven't spent much time with it since.
After I sent the message I thought maybe I was too negative. I just love to teach and anything that detracts from my time to teach is frustrating personally. There are good features of WebCT which no doubt you have seen in the comparisons.
Here at Confederation College we had been using WebCT for many years but last fall purchased & implemented Blackboard, on a pilot project basis with faculty who wanted to get involved.
We have had an excellent response to Blackboard and the faculty that do use it love it. As a faculty who participated in the pilot project, I also found that my students loved it and immediately began putting pressure on for more professors to be using Blackboard because of the easy access. It is very user friendly and has many features. The only drawback I have found is that it is not linked with our Student Information System so we still need to enter our grades onto that system even though we can calculate them all in Blackboard. But that may just be a hitch with our particular system.
We have an IT department that has been spearheading the pilot that could provide a lot more information if you want some contact information.
Ruth Kastenmeyer <ruthk/at/future.judson.edu> at Alabama's Judson College is a huge fan of Educator by UCompass. I'm sure she'd be happy to talk with you.
We have used both Bb and WebCT products on our campus. The difference between the two is ease of use and depth of product. Bb is extremely user friendly, in that the majority of faculty members can quickly use the product to place content on the web for the students. However, WebCT's product has more depth - in that the feature set is more customizable, however the learning curve is much more steep.
In Bb the instructor has a basic layout already created and they simply add content. In WebCT, you start with a blank page - very intimidating for mid to novice users.
The decision is probably based on the level of skills your faculty possess, the amount of staff you have to support them, and the school's desire to "control" the environment.
A couple of clarifications (I may be back with more questions; you never know . . .).
In Bb the instructor has a basic layout already created and they simply add content. In WebCT, you start with a blank page - very intimidating for mid to novice users.I've been given to understand that WebCT can be customized by the local IT people so that it starts with a basic layout. Would this have made a lot of difference in your case, do you think?
And one other quick one: do you, or does anyone you know there, use the program extensively to enable students to publish their work to the Web, to collaborate on their work their, or to conduct online (not synchronous) discussions? How does it enable or hinder that sort of thing?
The University of Florida uses both WebCT and Blackboard. A committee is currently charged with making a recommendation for one or the other. The deliberation has taken about 6 months of hard work and discussions because faculty members want to stay with the software they are currently using. As I understand the discussion now, the major differences are ease of use versus richness of features. A decision is imminent. The person on our campus to contact for more details is Doug Johnson (wanderer/at/ufl.ed u), chair of the committee.
I have been the system administrator and trainer for our Online Courseware system which has been powered by Blackboard for the past 3 years. We were unhappy with our relationship and their new pricing structure and we are in the process of migrating all courses to WebCT over the next 2 semesters. You are asking all the right questions.
This is particularly interesting, because we've been hearing something similar (about "bait and switch" pricing) regarding WebCT.
You are asking all the right questions.I hope so . . . the hardest one to get answered, though, is what it looks like to a faculty member trying to get some specific thing done -- e.g., in my case, trying to get student writing up on the Web where it can be read by everyone and edited by the writer, or use the Web effectively as a basis for an ongoing (asynchronous) discussion. (Do you have a sense of how BB and WebCT compare on that basis?)
The Minnesota State Colleges & Universities system (MnSCU) is currently going through an RFP process for selecting an instructional management system. One resource we've found useful is the EduTools site (www.edutools.org). There you'll find reviews and can make comparisons among 40+ products/versions.
Our process should be completed in another month or two. The state of Wisconsin recently completed their RFP process, and I'm sure there are many more states/campuses that have gone through testing/evaluation of products. They may be able to provide information on evaluation criteria, etc.
Which product is best for a campus depends a great deal on how it is/will be used by the faculty and students. Are most of the users on or off campus? Will most use of the system be synchronous or asynchronous? Are most courses completely online, or is use primarily in support of classroom courses? How tech-savvy are the faculty? How well do they handle change? How robust is your campus infrastructure for handling large files and streaming media? What about ADA issues and delivery of content to alternative devices (e.g. wireless PDAs)? What training resources are available for users? What level of support can IT provide? How will all of this be funded? Your campus needs to have a process to bring stakeholders together to discuss such questions and develop answers, thereby creating evaluation criteria, and then review products accordingly.
Yes, we've been looking at Edutools, too, but it's difficult to get from that a sense of what the front end of the program looks and feels like as you try to use it, or how it affords (for instance) Web-based asynchronous discussion or student publication.
Our process should be completed in another month or two. The state of Wisconsin recently completed their RFP process, and I'm sure there are many more states/campuses that have gone through testing/evaluation of products. They may be able to provide information on evaluation criteria, etc.Yes, I've been hearing from other places where this process is ongoing. These are clearly central questions, and thank you for formulating them:
Which product is best for a campus depends a great deal on how it is/will be used by the faculty and students. Are most of the users on or off campus? Will most use of the system be synchronous or asynchronous? Are most courses completely online, or is use primarily in support of classroom courses?In our case, users are about half and half, virtually all use is asynch, and we have no online courses at all: we're talking entirely about hybrids. That makes a lot of difference, because many of the programs I know much about seem directed specifically at the opposite . . .
How robust is your campus infrastructure for handling large files and streaming media? What about ADA issues and delivery of content to alternative devices (e.g. wireless PDAs)? What training resources are available for users?This is a question I hadn't considered, and should. Thanks.
What level of support can IT provide? How will all of this be funded? Your campus needs to have a process to bring stakeholders together to discuss such questions and develop answers, thereby creating evaluation criteria, and then review products accordingly.That's what we're trying to do, but of course a standard problem is that most of the potential stakeholders aren't holding any stakes at the moment: we're trying to put a system in place that will make it easiest for them to get involved, while still providing infrastructure for the few who are already using the technology.
We have had large-scale adoption of Blackboard on our campus, and our faculty and students claim they are interacting frequently and easily with one another. Random samples of students have been polled since we implemented the course management system in Summer 2000. I'll point you to our MyGateway (aka., Blackboard) logon pages in order to see the latest evaluation study results, too. We have automated a couple basic processes that have positively influenced the adoption rate. Namely, course sites are automatically created for all our courses at the start of each semester and students enrolled in those courses are automatically added to the Blackboard course sites. I'd be happy to provide additional information. Go to our MyGateway home page now, http://mygateway.umsl.edu. Click on "About MyGateway." There you'll find reports of our evaluation studies as well as monthly statistics of use.
Can you direct me to one of the automatically generated course pages?
How widespread (and easy) in your system is it for students to publish their writing to the Web for others to read, and what kind of provision is there for them to conduct asynchronous Web- based discussions about it?
I'll have to refer one of your questions to the system administrator (re. enrolment management software), because I don't know. We have the enterprise version of Blackboard, which gives us additional capabilities as well as "permissions" to do the programming necessary for the systems to talk to one another!
You could preview a number of courses by clicking on "Preview", rather than logging in at the MyGateway home page. [MyGateway is our customized name for Blackboard]. Click on Course Catalog, then Preview tab on left side of page. Click on Summer 2003 to see a listing of current courses. A course I'm teaching is Adult Education, ADUED6404 Seminar: Organization Development. I wouldn't mind if you looked at it. You'll notice some areas are restricted. Start by clicking on http://mygateway.umsl.edu.
You asked about web publishing for students. We make UNIX accounts available for students; they request them via a web form. If one of their assignments is a web page, the students put the URL within a Blackboard discussion forum or email, so everyone can get to the web page. I'll get back to you regarding our enrolment management software, but you could ask the course management system vendors about customizing the system to automatically create course sites and enrol students.
I learned that the enrolment management program is actually a homegrown version from freeware of the mid-80's. Our University System provides the needed programming and support. It's called "CICS."
Here at the Univ. of Cincinnati, we developed our own, home-grown courseware system (ClassWare) a few years ago, implemented it, got a fair number of faculty involved, and then switched to Bb.
We had a faculty committee look over the various options -- at that time, really only Bb, WebCT, and ClassWare.
We've never regretted this switch. As we've moved forward with implementing Bb, we've developed a fairly good relationship with that company and now use other parts of their total package as well. In addition, other institutions in our region who have worked with WebCT have been switching to Bb in the past couple of years.
Because of our relationship with Bb, we have a bunch of different IT folks here who could give you more information on more specific parts of this whole business. Mainly, though, Bb has been a big hit with our faculty, transforming pedagogy for many different courses and students. One key has been a truly excellent Bb support staff, one that offers very prompt service. But Bb itself has been a very stable platform, which also helps.
I take it you've not run into suddenly increasing prices with Bb (I've had one report of that)?
We've never regretted this switch. As we've moved forward with implementing Bb, we've developed a fairly good relationship with that company and now use other parts of their total package as well. In addition, other institutions in our region who have worked with WebCT have been switching to Bb in the past couple of years.I've heard this, too, often having to do with (a) ease of use, or shallow learning curve, or (b) WebCT's price increases.
Mainly, though, Bb has been a big hit with our faculty, transforming pedagogy for many different courses and students.This is something we're particularly interested in (but in one way we're rather apprehensive, because much of the software we've looked has been pretty teacher-centric, assuming that information is generally moving in only one direction, and that when students write it's to/for the teacher. Many of our existing hybrid courses involve a lot of student writing being s hared among students, used and edited, and discussed on the Web. Do you find Blackboard works well for this?
I'm forwarding to the folks who deal with this issue the question about price increases. I know there've been some, but I have no idea on details.
RE your final point: I've found that Bb drastically increases my interaction with my students and also increases the student-student interaction. I use the electronic bulletin board a lot for online discussions (besides the email exchange and the announcement board). More recently, I've been setting up students within groups, and I have an ongoing collaborative assignment (actually, a linked set of assignments, each one building upon the earlier one) that they work on in groups. They can either use the group/collaborative structure really thoroughly (in which case they save themselves a lot of time), or they can use that structure really sparingly (in which case they need extra time for the assignment/project). They have their own electronic bulletin board for discussions just within that group. Bb really does keep the conversation going within much wider circles outside the classroom. It's good for text-on-a-page, as well, of course, but that's not nearly where it is at its best.
We've been working with BB or other packages for about 4 years now. First the bright side: it was explosively popular. When we began we discussed the potential use and thought 30-40 classes, maybe 2-3,000 students would use it. We have 13,000 accounts on the server and 2-300 courses using it from web-supported to totally on-line. Clearly it is a very easy user interface. Students learn quickly what to expect and those skills transfer across courses so each year it is easier to teach with it.
Now the downsides: Money and bandwidth and support. You need the money for a) buying the product and it gets more expensive each year and you can't customize it to your course very much (licensing rules) b) buying people to maintain and run the server. You'll need a very good backup procedure. We had a catastrophic double disk failure in a new server. (Dell apologized but that didn't help the faculty. ) plus the backup software was only doing 8GB-- we had about 24 GB in courses before we knew it. Nowhere in documentation did the backup package say only 8 GB either-- found out the hard way. You need a full time person to run it.
Our biggest complaint is support. We paid 50,000 and they don't help us. We have 5 outstanding support requests, 2 since 2001, that haven't been answered. Our tech contact is very disillusioned w/BB and our IT VP is about ready to sue. These are not minor things-- it started eating gradebooks with no apparent rhyme or reason and BB couldn't begin to help. Our tech guy was teaching their tech guy about databases. Please be aware that this is after staying always 1 version behind. The helplistservs are always full of crises w/the release of a new version. We prefer to wait until most patches are done-- thus we wait a year to buy the next.
So we are between a rock and a hard place-- our faculty love it. Our students love it. Our techies hate it. We're considering going with open source course management next time.
These are important issues. I take it this refers primarily to Bb?
it was explosively popular. When we began we discussed the potential use and thought 30-40 classes, maybe 2-3,000 students would use it. We have 13,000 accounts on the server and 2-300 courses using it from web-supported to totally on-line. Clearly it is a very easy user interface. Students learn quickly what to expect and those skills transfer across courses so each year it is easier to teach with it.And the downsides are worth thinking about, too. We think we've got a handle on t he stability, after some years of piloting with smaller-scale programs, usually designed by individual faculty. But this concerns us a lot:
it gets more expensive each year and you can't customize it to your course very much (licensing rules)Where do you mainly run into these limitations?
This is interesting, because one of the other messages I've received says they're wonderful.
Our biggest complaint is support. We paid 50,000 and they don't help us. We have 5 outstanding support requests, 2 since 2001, that haven't been answered. Our tech contact is very disillusioned w/BB and our IT VP is about ready to sue. These are not minor things-- it started eating gradebooks with no apparent rhyme or reason and BB couldn't begin to help. Our tech guy was teaching their tech guy about databases. Please be aware that this is after staying always 1 version behind. The helplistservs are always full of crises w/the release of a new version. We prefer to wait until most patches are done-- thus we wait a year to buy the next.We've been there, even with our local stuff -- but at least the folks responsible are local, and we can walk over to the IT offices and complain personally.
So we are between a rock and a hard place-- our faculty love it. Our students love it. Our techies hate it. We're considering going with open source course management next time."Next time"s are hard when you've got yourself committed to a structure. Part of the reason we're trying not to make a mistake . . .
Yes, BB, but some are licensing issues so would apply to anything. If you aren't allowed to write the patch or interface with your other systems, that creates headaches.
We're beginning to consider Angel which is open source.
Our institution (the University of Queensland) has been using WebCT for the past five years. When it first came out you were given a blank page and you had to learn how to put each of the tools on the page, use the colours etc. - it was a real challenge to set up. Now it comes ready done and all you have to do is hide/delete the things you want. It has its little foibles e.g. if you want to add a file you have to browse and choose and attach (one extra step) but overall it is worth persevering with. The issue of flexibility is not so much with the program as with the institution. When there were only a few of us using it we had great freedom and flexibility but once the University decided that everyone would use it - they began to make rules. You have to use approved banners and approved colours and approved icons etc.
Thanks. this is interesting. Certainly one of the complaints we're hearing
about WebCT is the daunting nature of that blank page. But I suppose once
you've got a ready-built page you've also got a lot more constraints on
what you can do with it.
Is the loss of flexibility something that affects how you're able to
teach? We have folks who are using the Web as a location for students to
post their work, read each other's, collaborate, and discuss the ideas,
and we're worried that WebCT might tend toward much more teacher-centered
courses. Is that fear well based, do you think?
The loss of flexibility is more to do with administration than teaching. You still have flexibility in how you use the site. My main objection to the restrictions are that previously all sites reflected the personality of the teacher in some way, so that if I had a course it looked different from my neighbours site. Students knew which course they were in just by the way it was set up. Now the course all look the same - they have no personality, must increase the boredom factor and students who have more than one course on WebCT quite often get confused about which one they are logged into.
This flexibility also allowed you to change things to grab the students' attention - they would log in, and by changing something you could attract students to an area that may not have visited before. So beware of the phrase "corporate branding" and fight it!!!
I was teaching at the University of Southern Queensland last year when WebCT was adopted. I think the introduction was a massive failure, but that was mainly down to the institution's management of the change (for example, since we did a lot of distance ed, we had relied heavily on asynchronous discussion lists that were administered as USENET newsgroups. These suddenly disappeared with WebCT and were replaced by a cumbersome and difficult system that completely ruined the online community that many of u s worked very hard to create. The transition could have been handled much better).
When I say cumbersome and difficult, what I mean is this: it went from a newsreader or web-text interface to a web interface that required intensive resources (RAM, download time, etc.), and that the navigation was not intuitive enough for my own liking (it wasn't obvious how to post new discussions or to read or reply to old ones - it did in fact require reading a training manual).
The added features of WebCT really came to very little as most of them were not available for the first year of its use (I suppose people could be using them now, but I don't know). At the same time we had the introduction of Peoplesoft's Gradebook (again a complicating factor), but I personally found that to be quite a useful logistical tool.
Yep, this is just the sort of thing that scares us.
I think the introduction was a massive failure, but that was mainly down to the institution's management of the change (for example, since we did a lot of distance ed, we had relied heavily on asynchronous discussion lists that were administered as USENET newsgroups. These suddenly disappeared with WebCT and were replaced by a cumbersome and difficult system that completely ruined the online community that many of us worked very hard to create. The transition could have been handled much better) .Those of use who are already using IT here rely on such groups, too (though we have no distance ed courses at all, our hybrid courses use a lot of asynch discussion). It take it it's your sense that WebCT is the main problem here, rather than that the administration didn't handle the transition well?
When I say cumbersome and difficult, what I mean is this: it went from a newsreader or web-text interface to a web interface that required intensive resources (RAM, download time, etc.), and that the navigation was not intuitive enough for my own liking (it wasn't obvious how to post new discussions or to read or reply to old ones - it did in fact require reading a training manual).On the part of the students, too?
The added features of WebCT really came to very little as most of them were not available for the first year of its useWhy was this? implementation, or contractual arrangements?
I think it was two problems feeding into one really. First, the administration gave us insufficient warning that this was taking place (less than one month), and took the old system offline immediately instead of using a semester to do a transition from one to the other (they certainly failed to stress the notion that the new system was replacing the old system). They also failed to properly train both students and staff in the use of the new system. For example, I found out about one week before the start of the semester that the change was occurring, and I couldn't get a tutorial organised (as there were very few sessions and no available spaces), so I had to get a copy of the manual and learn from that.
When I say cumbersome and difficult, what I mean is this: it went from a newsreader or web-text interface to a web interface that required intensive resources (RAM, download time, etc.), and that the navigation was not intuitive enough for my own liking (it wasn't obvious how to post new discussions or to read or reply to old ones - it did in fact require reading a training manual).The students complained more than we did! They were bitterly disappointed in the lack of functionality in the new system (asOn the part of the students, too?
The added features of WebCT really came to very little as most of them were not available for the first year of its useI couldn't comment on the latter, but my impression is that it was the former that was the main issue. A related problem was that one of the features (course notes) was used, but they were added centrally rather than by individual lecturers (lecturers had to apply to become editors of their content, rather than being granted editorial status automatically) which led to problems such as the use of outdated materials. This became an issue because of the distance ed processes at USQ -- all materials are held centrally for distribution, and there was a lack of communication between the folks implementing WebCT and materials distribution (possibly because the materials distribution people are flat out at the beginning of each semester).Why was this? implementation, or contractual arrangements?
At VCU we had Web Course in a Box for about five years, this was actually developed by two people here at VCU. Blackboard bought WCB as they did many other programs throughout the country and that is why there are only two or three big ones now. Anyway, Blackboard had minimal effect here until the university instituted a requirement that every freshman had to have a computer. Given that requirement it was felt that ALL faculty should be requiring their students to use the computers. This came to be defined as having an internet presence.
At first faculty are very slow to accept the new work. However, once the students expectations get to the point where they expect to see the syllabus and all the assignments on the web most faculty develop at least a very simple Web site. As CTE director I encourage them to do the most basic stuff first, (syllabus, assignments, information board etc.). After about two years we had an explosion of faculty using the BB when multiple sections of English lit and math went to it. This created all sorts of problems for BB because they (or we, I am not sure who was at fault) were not ready for the increased usage. Don't kid yourself, all these big programs claim they can handle anything, but the reality is they cannot and all sorts of problems happen when the usage actually starts reaching the levels you had hoped for.
We are now about five years into BB and I would say most faculty are happy with how easy it is to add a course and use some of the features. For instance, BB is integrated with registration so by selecting your section of the course you get an instant input of all the students who are attending the class. This allows you (theoretically) to email all the students in the class. It also creates a gradebook with all the students names. Faculty like all this. What they do not like about BB is that you cannot import a flat file, or spreadsheet of grades. For large classes this is a real problem that they are supposedly fixing in their next version. You can export the grades from BB to a spreadsheet.
One thing that is very easy to use and many faculty take advantage of it is the discussion boards. For large classes this is a must. You choose the topic and the class discusses the topic during the week. I require that only the first three students can post something and then everyone else must respond. Once faculty get use to this they see a lot of advantages (its kind of like the class has been discussing the topic before you get to class).
I guess in a nutshell I would say BB works well because if you want to just put up a minimal site it is easy. If you want to do a lot more you can and many do.
ON the other hand, we have had AT people who did not seem to understand once faculty became dependent on BB the system must not go down for ANY appreciable length of time. It took about two years to solve a lot of little problems but this year seems to be working much better. However, I would say you have to expect these problems no matter what they say.
Yep, this is the nightmare, isn't it . . .
Anyway, Blackboard had minimal effect here until the university instituted a requirement that every freshman had to have a computer. Given that requirement it was felt that ALL faculty should be requiring their students to use the computers. This came to be defined as having an internet presence.I don't think we're on our way here -- we've been warned off -- but there are certainly faculty who anticipate being pushed off the dock into the lake.
And this is alarming (though we're not very big: 2700 students total probably wouldn't overload most systems, no matter how many courses migrated on to the system):
After about two years we had an explosion of faculty using the BB when multiple sections of English lit and math went to it. This created all sorts of problems for BB because they (or we, I am not sure who was at fault) were not ready for the increased usage. Don't kid yourself, all these big programs claim they can handle anything, but the reality is they cannot and all sorts of problems happen when the usage actually starts reaching the levels you had hoped for.This is particularly interesting:
We are now about five years into BB and I would say most faculty are happy with how easy it is to add a course and use some of the features. For instance, BB is integrated with registration so by selecting your section of the course you get an instant input of all the students who are attending the class. This allows you (theoretically) to email all the students in the class. It also creates a gradebook with all the students names. Faculty like all this. What they do not like about BB is that you cannot import a flat file, or spreadsheet of grades. For large classes this is a real problem that they are supposedly fixing in their next version. You can export the grades from BB to a spreadsheet.I'm a little worried about that "(theoretically)" up there, though. Sounds like the voice of experience? What is your registration software? (We're concerned that whatever we install had better be able to talk with ours -- and of course all the salespeople swear that's no problem.)
We use some things parallel to this:
One thing that is very easy to use and many faculty take advantage of it is the discussion boards. For large classes this is a must. You choose the topic and the class discusses the topic during the week. I require that only the first three students can post something and then everyone else must respond. Once faculty get use to this they see a lot of advantages (its kind of like the class has been discussing the topic before you get to class).But I'm concerned about how the boards look, and what kind of reading they afford. I'm not quite sure what this means: "I require that only the first three students can post something and then everyone else must respond." How does that work? Is there are URL where I could have a look at an example?
ON the other hand, we have had AT people who did not seem to understand once faculty became dependent on BB the system must not go down for ANY appreciable length of time. It took about two years to solve a lot of little problems but this year seems to be working much better. However, I would say you have to expect these problems no matter what they say.Yep. I'm getting lots of horror stories. But of course we've already got our own, with servers going down at crisis points in courses, etc.
I said email your students (theoretically) because we have a problem with all students either getting an official email address or ever looking in their official (university) email box. The students seem to think that everyone knows they have a hotmail address or a yahoo address. In fact all the students have to do is have all their email forwarded from their university address to their hotmail, etc. address. But many of them take forever to realize that.
Our registration software is from SCT and is called SYS +. I have no idea what SCT is but I know it is a very big company. Interfacing between registration and these systems like Blackboard is always an ongoing challenge and very slow process for us but we are a university with 27,000 students so our problems are different from some of yours.
Your question regarding the Discussion boards is a good one. The BB discussion board leaves a lot to be desired. Most notably it does not show a true discussion thread. Instead each posting looks like an individual one. My problem was I would ask a question for the week. Students would go to the discussion board and write out an opinion. I would then get 30 individual opinions which all looked a lot alike. Clearly, they were not reading each others responses. Thus I said only the first three could post independent statements, while all the others would have to respond to someone. The result has been most of the students actually read each others posts and write something taking that into consideration. I cannot show it to you because you would have to have a VCU logon ID.
Your characterization of the Bb discussion boards is important to us, especially the way the messages appear to students, and the fact that they come without a position in a continuing discourse is pretty much a reason we wouldn't use Bb.
I'm surprised at the email problem, because after a couple of awful experiences with changing mail addresses I started to just tell students they're only going to get course mail at one address, their university one, and if they don't want to use it they need to log on and arrange it to forward their mail. The procedure's pretty straightforward, and as far as I know no one's ever failed to do it. As far as I know . . .
My problem was I would ask a question for the week. Students would go to the discussion board and write out an opinion. I would then get 30 individual opinions which all looked a lot alike. Clearly, they were not reading each others responses. Thus I said only the first three could post independent statements, while all the others would have to respond to someone. The result has been most of the students actually read each others posts and write something taking that into consideration. I cannot show it to you because you would have to have a VCU logon ID.I think I understand. And I certainly know the issue with students not reading each other's postings. We have discussion software I like a lot, but it's an orphan (developed at Illinois, but recently pretty much abandoned as far as support goes). I hate to recommend it, and we're currently looking for an alternative (one of the reasons I'm investigating courseware packages). But it's by far the best I know; it's called HyperNews, and it looks like this:
http://www.stu.ca/STUForum/get/occs2002.html
I sure wish I could find a supported alternative.
I have worked with IU's courseware package, Oncourse, since the beginning. I can speak to you about my experience implementing it from pilot to now having had 80% of out students login during the spring semester. My campus is an ~6700 (teaching, as opposed to research, driven) commuter campus.
Thanks. I'd heard something about Oncourse -- is it across all the IUI campuses?
I have worked with IU's courseware package, Oncourse, since the beginning. I can speak to you about my experience implementing it from pilot to now having had 80% of out students login during the spring semester. My campus is an ~6700 (teaching, as opposed to research, driven) commuter campus.I think the main things we're interested in (we're 2700, about 2/3 commuters, no distance ed) are how it affords students putting their writing on Web sites and sharing it, online asynchronous discussions, etc. We're concerned that many of the packages out there are very teacher-centric. What do you (& your students) mainly use it for?
Yes, Oncourse is across all the IU campuses. Our experience has bean that students love it. They love the 24 hour access and the gradebook function. We have many faculty who use "drop boxes" whereby student upload their assignments to Oncourse and the faculty can download the assignments, grade them, and either upload them back or use the course mail function to email the students. We are working on developing portfolio and plagiarism tools. We also have faculty who require students to paste their papers into the discussion forum and the students provide each other with peer feedback.
I don't know how your campus is, but in the IU system, all 90,000-100,000+ students are listed in one address book. It makes it very difficult for faculty to email their students as a class. Oncourse has an email system kept up to date by the registration system. One may very easily email the entire class. We find that students want to use the "in touch" functions-- course mail, chat and discussion forum-- whether or not the instructor is using Oncourse. An interesting side note is that when we work with faculty using Oncourse for the first time, we always check out the course statistics-- the faculty are generally quite surprised to see that students have logged into the class to check out the materials. This generally serves as a strong impetus for faculty to get things online since the students obviously are expecting it and apparently want it. The vast majority of faculty on my campus use Oncourse as a course supplement rather than an all online course delivery mechanism. The typical class will have a gradebook, some course announcements, and reading materials and/or solution sets uploaded for the students. Not all of our faculty test online nor do they all even use the gradebook functions-- some just upload their syllabus and nothing else.
I will be happy to give you access to one of our "dummy" courses is you find yourself wanting to check things out a bit more. I provide the pedagogical and technical support for faculty so I tend to get a good deal of both sides of the story. While I so think that Oncourse is teacher-centric, it is also user friendly and our students seem to like it.
I hope I have helped you out some... Let me know if you have any other questions or if you would like me to put you in contact with one of our faculty using it in her classes.
I wanted to jump in here and give you some insight from our University's experiences with both WebCT and Blackboard. First, some history...
The University of South Florida has been using Web Based Courseware for many years, beginning with a system that is not available anymore in about 1996 (?). The next step we took was to use WebCT. Many users and cutting edge faculty felt this was an excellent program. As we progressed, we also tried Blackboard which was less flexible, but more technically sustainable for a large population (according to our IT folks). Currently we are a Blackboard only University. As of this summer WebCT is no longer sup ported. Instead, we have a full portal implementation and support course shells for all our classes each semester using Blackboard. Course shells are automatically created and students loaded into them as they register whether a faculty member chooses to use it or not.
Now, here are a few things I would say about each system and some lessons learned.
First, faculty were forced on our campus to move to one product after they had spent a great deal of time and effort implementing the tools for their course. I would suggest that before you choose a system, be sure that you know what you want. The problem here lies with what the faculty need/want to teach effectively and what the IT people need/want to support the system the best way possible. Getting mutual consensus if very important! This is were our dilemma began.
Most faculty who were significant users of the early systems appreciated the flexibility and depth of tools provided by WebCT. As those with less technical prowess began to get interested, the easier interface of Blackboard seemed to become popular. In addition, our IT folks determined that for them support of Blackboard would be much easier. Therefore, they choose to provide more support and easier access to this system.
However, for those faculty who were truly using the tools available in WebCT as they were meant to be, Blackboard did not (and still does not even with 6.0) suffice. The recent stoppage of support for WebCT was a significant issue and we are currently recovering from the backlash that caused. In addition, in order for those faculty who spent a great deal of time to be encourage to continue using the technologies provided by the University, we are working toward converting their WebCT course to Blackboard for them. This adds a great deal to the support we need to provide both in actual work and in training for faculty.
My biggest suggestion is to know how the systems will be supported and what features are really necessary for your faculty to use the system to its potential. Make a list of important aspects from ALL parties and agree to it. Then, make one choice and support it WELL. If you would like specific information on any aspect of either of these products, I would be more than happy to assist as I am sure my colleagues here at USF would be as well. Please feel free to send me a note. Take care!
This reflects what I'm hearing from others about the WebCT/Blackboard experience.
The University of South Florida has been using Web Based Courseware for many years, beginning with a system that is not available anymore in about 1996 (?). The next step we took was to use WebCT. Many users and cutting edge faculty felt this was an excellent program. As we progressed, we also tried Blackboard which was less flexible, but more technically sustainable for a large population (according to our IT folks). Currently we are a Blackboard only University. As of this summer WebCT is no longer supported.Was this primarily a money-driven decision, or were there pedagogical reasons?
Instead, we have a full portal implementation and support course shells for all our classes each semester using Blackboard. Course shells are automatically created and students loaded into them as they register whether a faculty member chooses to use it or not.Yes, I've heard this experience as well. Is there one of those automatically created course pages we could look at?
Yep, this is just exactly what we're concerned about:
First, faculty were forced on our campus to move to one product after they had spent a great deal of time and effort implementing the tools for their course. I would suggest that before you choose a system, be sure that you know what you want. The problem here lies with what the faculty need/want to teach effectively and what the IT people need/want to support the system the best way possible. Getting mutual consensus if very important! This is were our dilemma began.Our situation' s a little different now, in that the more adventurous faculty have created their own packages, and are concerned that they'll not be supported when a campus-wide package comes in.
However, for those faculty who were truly using the tools available in WebCT as they were meant to be, Blackboard did not (and still does not even with 6.0) suffice. The recent stoppage of support for WebCT was a significant issue and we are currently recovering from the backlash that caused.I can imagine. Even leaving resistance aside, moving from one system to another is moving a graveyard. That's why we're trying hard not to make a mistake . . .
In addition, in order for those faculty who spent a great deal of time to be encourage to continue using the technologies provided by the University, we are working toward converting their WebCT course to Blackboard for them. This adds a great deal to the support we need to provide both in actual work and in training for faculty.What kinds of things specifically did the WebCT devotees find they no longer had support for? We're particularly concerned about access for students to publish work on the WEb, read each other's, engage in Web based discussion forums, and so forth, but have no real sense of what either of these programs really affords in those areas.
Here is some additional information in response to your questions
Currently we are a Blackboard only University. As of this summer WebCT is no longer supported.
This was primarily driven by technology support and money. The university personnel felt they were unable to support both at the proper levels. The pricing structures of both changed with the portal implementations and one choice was necessary for budgeting purposes. The choice of BB over WebCT was made by the technical support department.
Is there one of those automatically created course pages we could look at?I can give you guest access to one that you can look at, but it will be blank at this time. I will open it for a while and then close it again as I do not like to leave it open for guests. How about I leave it open from now until say next Friday (6/20/03). To access the course go to http://bb61.acomp.usf.edu
This is a BB 6 shell that currently has nothing in it. As a guest, there are some things you are not allowed to access, so you may get a few messages that say so.
I just finished reading your compiled comments and I must say it was quite interesting! I did notice one thing that I thought was missing that you may want to consider. That would be training for faculty.
I support the faculty in how they use the online systems (BB and WebCT).
In this process we offer many options for training that seem to help with
the pedagogical questions as well as the technological ones. We tend
to answer many questions such as "how can the students present material
online", "how can we collaborate effectively using this tool", "what is
the best way to utilize group areas for effective learning" and so on.
From what you have said, these are some of these questions that you really
want answers to before you make a decision. Although I am not sure
I can answer them all, for both WebCT and
Blackboard I can offer a perspective from the support/training side
as well as the instructor's side if you are interested. Please send me
some specific scenarios or questions if you would like some input.
Since it seems the attachment did not go through on the first try, I will try again.
Your message has been forwarded multiple times... I think it came to me because I am the project director for the Ohio State Course Management System evaluation. Ohio State has been using WebCT campus edition since 1998 and has recently been exploring the idea of moving to an "enterprise-level" system.
I'm not really sure how to answer your questions, so please feel free to respond with more questions or specifics. To give you some background: Ohio State University is huge (55,000 students) and has some very, very large classes (over 1,000 in intro biology, for example). Therefore, software that helps in the management of such courses is seen as necessary. In addition, professors in many smaller classes have become accustomed to using course management software to provide content, web links, discussion boards, ePortfolio space, and quizzes to their students.
At the moment, I would guess that most faculty know that there is such as thing as WebCT available on campus, but that the numbers who actually use it are comparatively small. We have about 400 active courses this quarter with about 15,000 students in one of those classes. We call the faculty who have started to use WebCT so far "early adopters." Five years after introduction, we are beginning to see some indications that adoption of the system is moving beyond the early adopters and out into the wider faculty base.
Since I am attached to the group that supports WebCT, I can't really give you a faculty perspective on how it has changed (or not changed) teaching, but I can probably connect you to a few faculty members.
On the other hand, if you'd like to know more about the individual packages, explore the edutools Web site (www.edutools.org) or take a look at the numerous articles about CMS's that have appeared in the ECAR bulletin. If you'd like to know more about what we're seeing in the four systems we're evaluating (Angel, blackboard, Desire2Learn, and WebCT's Vista), let me know.
In addition, professors in many smaller classes have become accustomed to using course management software to provide content, web links, discussion boards, ePortfolio space, and quizzes to their students.That list is useful. I don't see student publication sites there -- is that because WebCT doesn't afford that very well? It's of particular interest to some of us here.
At the moment, I would guess that most faculty know that there is such as thing as WebCT available on campus, but that the numbers who actually use it are comparatively small. We have about 400 active courses this quarter with about 15,000 students in one of those classes. We call the faculty who have started to use WebCT so far "early adopters." Five years after introduction, we are beginning to see some indications that adoption of the system is moving beyond the early adopters and out into the wider faculty base.Our "early adopters" have mostly constructed their own assemblages of software to do what they need, and we're concerned about whether adopting (for instance) WebCT would make their work more difficult.
Since I am attached to the group that supports WebCT, I can't really give you a faculty perspective on how it has changed (or not changed) teaching, but I can probably connect you to a few faculty members.I'd be happy to be so connected. It's really the chalkface experience that I think is of most interest to us right now.
On the other hand, if you'd like to know more about the individual packages, explore the edutools Web site (www.edutools.org) or take a look at the numerous articles about CMS's that have appeared in the ECAR bulletin.Edutools we know about (feature-for-feature comparison turns out to be not nearly as useful as experience with the front ends of these programs. ECAR, though, I hadn't thought of. Thanks.
If you'd like to know more about what we're seeing in the four systems we're evaluating (Angel, blackboard, Desire2Learn, and WebCT's Vista), let me know.Yes, I would (I don't think I've heard of Desire2Learn, by the way). I think we're especially interested in how well they afford students using the Web as a means of communication -- posting their own work, participating in written asynchronous forums, collaborating through Web sites, etc. We're sort of assuming that anything we'd adopt would need to have on-the-fly connection with our administrative software, for course enrolment lists, auto-generation of sites, and that sort of thing. It's really "front end feel" -- the sort of thing you can only know by working with a system -- that we're most concerned about. And have the least chance of finding out about, of course.
Sorry it has taken me so long to reply -- the last two weeks were really really busy.
To answer your questions:
1) WebCT does include a student presentation space, but I'm not sure how it works or whether all that many people use it.
2) Your early adopters may not NEED a course management system. It might make their lives slightly easier if it is integrated into the registrar's office (so that class rosters can be updated easily and grades posted from the course management system) and the library (so that students can link to readings on e-reserve without another set of authentications). Adopting a course management system could make the early adopters' lives more difficult, if they are used to setting up their own sites and find a course management system organization counter-intuitive or constraining. BUT, are you only worried about your early adopters?
3) Here are some faculty names and email addresses (they all use WebCT): [edited out]. As for what we're seeing, take a look at http://telr.osu.edu/cms/ for screen shots of each of the four products we're looking at. Each is pretty slick in its own way, in my view.
Blackboard and WebCT split about 90% of the academic market, with WebCT with a slightly higher market share. Angel is an outgrowth of Indiana University's OnCourse system and has been adopted by Penn State and Michigan State. Desire2Learn is a Canadian company and is in place at the University of Guelph, the Canadian VirtualHighSchool.com, and some other Canadian schools. It has just been chosen by the entire state of Wisconsin for its 27 campuses.
One further question, arising out of a meeting I just came from: is there a reason OSU is looking at WebCT Vista rather than Campus Edition? It's my understanding that Vista's built on a database rather than a flat file structure, and for that reason's more robust, but I suspect we'd be much more likely to go towards the Campus Edition, since a number of nearby schools have done so and there'd be technical resources available. Unless, of course, there were a strong reason to look at Vista.
The main reason OSU is looking at Vista is because of its size -- Vista is an "enterprise-level" product, built on a relational database. With 55,000 students, OSU needs a system that is fast and robust and can sustain huge peak-usage simultaneously. We currently run WebCT campus edition 3.8.2 and have been running it since 1998 -- there have been some scaling issues along the way, but we anticipate much greater growth in the next 1-3 years.
We have just done a cost/benefit analysis on whether it was worthwhile to upgrade to the latest version of our LMS (WebCT). Our study tried to find out how our faculty were using various aspects of our LMS. As it turns out, the teaching strategies they used in WebCT courses were very similar to what they used in face-to-face teaching. Full report at:
http://umanitoba.ca/uts/publications/research/shouldweupgrade.pdf
Answering your questions would take a book. However, we have to start somewhere.
I agree with your comments regarding vendors.
I think the first thing to say is that FirstClass is primarily a communications platform, and secondarily a web interface; in contrast, WEbCT is primarily a web platform for presenting information, and secondarily a communications medium.
Just to expand on this point, FirstClass has an extensive set of communications tools covering private and public email, folders, public and private course conferences, with excellent utilities for uploading and downloading files as stand alone documents or attached to messages. It also has an extensive address book capability (for individual and group lists), and a superb calendaring utility interfaced with Palm PDA. I think perhaps the greatest strength of FirstClass is its flexibility. Instructors can fashion and customize the look and feel of their course modules to no end. There is a powerful set of permissions that allow instructors to craft all sorts of receive, send, read, write, etc. permissions on all conferences (but not on folders).
What are the weaknesses of FirstClass? It does not have a set of web templates. However, you can create web sites on FirstClass in about four different ways. You can even customize any document to look like the web and to be read by browsers, without knowing a bit about html. However, I find many instructors use the simpler upload of either powerpoint and pdf files to get large amounts of information out to their students utilizing folders, conferences, and individual messages, rather than employing the web features of FirstClass.
There are two interfaces to FirstClass - client and web. Users can access their accounts and all material using a dedicated software client which has to be downloaded and installed (very easy), or accessing their accounts and all material via the web. In my opinion, the latter is a weaker interface than the client. It is cumbersome, slow, and lacks all the features that are in the client. So we encourage users to use the client as much as possible. This only becomes a problem if they are on a non-university public site or other machine that does not have the client.
FirstClass also does not have multiple choice testing tools. Some were introduced by ETC, which is an add on, including course templates and modules. But these need further refinement, in my opinion. Talk to Cameron Furlong about this.
WebCT. The strength is definitely the prepackaged web templates, icons, and online testing. A number of instructors want this comfort level. You just upload your prepared files via the templates. On the other hand, it is a straight jacket. So you have to accept the prepared look and feel for your course. You can do some minor adjustments, but not major ones. Its testing tools are one of the favourite by instructors teaching large classes. And you can track minimally which files are opened by students (FirstClass has an extensive set of logs, but you have to ask the administrator to ferret them out for your students). I think the two weakest points of WebCT is its complete dependence on the web (hence slow access, depending on your network and access), and its communication tools. Students have complained about these tools, but WebCT has over the years made some improvements.
One of our concerns is communication by students across courses. This is extremely easy in FirstClass, but much more difficult if not impossible in WebCT.
One of the issues is the support infrastructure required for FirstClass and WebCT. From everything I know, WebCT requires a greater support infrastructure than FirstClass. We can get into specifics, if you like.
On the other hand, WebCT has partnered with a number of publishing companies that allow the easy access and interface with course text books. This is attractive to a number of instructors. There is nothing in FirstClass like this.
At McMaster, we have a longer history using FirstClass than WebCT. We started WebCT about three years ago.
We do annual surveys of student using FirstClass. Because FirstClass and WebCT are used in different courses which the same students take, a number of students have experience using both systems. So we decided to ask them a few comparative questions. This was done initially last year, and we did so again this past year, but have not got the database in a condition where we can begin to do the analysis. I have attached a pdf file from last year based on these comparative questions. Wherever you see "Learn Link", read "FirstClass". I think the file is self explanatory.
One of the issues I am interested in is the relation between teaching style and selection of technology to use in the classroom. Of course there is some constraint by what the institution makes available. Given this qualification, my analysis (with Brian Campbell) of several campuses suggests (using the Grasha teaching style inventory) that faculty who have a more facilitative teaching style prefer communications software (like FirstClass) that allows students to engage in collaborative work and communicate with each other and the instructor, while faculty who have the "expert" (transmission) teaching style prefer software that allows them to present large amounts of information to their students (like WebCT and Blackboard), and to do computer-based testing. I did publish a paper under the Canadian Education Statistics Council and Council of the Ministers of Education Canada in their PCERA 2002 series; there is a section near the end of the paper on this. You can find it on their web site at: http://www.cmec.ca/stats/pcera/RSEvents02/research_en.htm
I have just completed a survey of McMaster faculty on these issues, and hope to have some new analyses ready soon.
I do have an online questionnaire for both WebCT and FirstClass if you want to look at them.
We have done much more extensive research on FirstClass and learning than on WebCT. However, we are moving in the direction of more comparative research, not so much between software programs, but with how they are used; so the issue of instructional design in practice.
I did present a paper on four years of student use of FirstClass to the American Education Research Association meetings in New Orleans last year. I revised it for a British journal, and have been asked to revise and resubmit. The version we submitted to the journal is attached.
The revisions are being done now. I have gone back and reanalyzed hundreds of survey items across four years, and have concluded that there are three modes of online learning. They are described in an attached ms word file (a set of email exchanges). I hope this is self explanatory too.
Thanks for the formulation of the basic contrast between FirstClass and WebCT; it matches my impression and formulates it neatly:
I think the first thing to say is that FirstClass is primarily a communications platform, and secondarily a web interface; in contrast, WEbCT is primarily a web platform for presenting information, and secondarily a communications medium.All that information about FirstClass is helpful; I found this particularly interesting, because it was my impression when I first looked at it some years ago:
There are two interfaces to FirstClass - client and web. Users can access their accounts and all material using a dedicated software client which has to be downloaded and installed (very easy), or accessing their accounts and all material via the web. In my opinion, the latter is a weaker interface than the client. It is cumbersome, slow, and lacks all the features that are in the client. So we encourage users to use the client as much as possible. This only becomes a problem if they are on a non-university public site or other machine that does not have the client.It's clear this is a problem they don't want to solve, or don't consider it a problem. I've been trying as far as possible to have my students use off-the-shelf or public software. I'm beginning to think that's a dead option, though, as programs become more proprietary anyway.
FirstClass also does not have multiple choice testing tools. Some were introduced by ETC, which is an add on, including course templates and modules. But these need further refinement, in my opinion. Talk to Cameron Furlong about this.I'll be raising this issue with our local folks. I don't know how much, at the beginning anyway, people are going to find testing a high priority.
WebCT. The strength is definitely the prepackaged web templates, icons, and online testing. A number of instructors want this comfort level. You just upload your prepared files via the templates. On the other hand, it is a straight jacket. So you have to accept the prepared look and feel for your course. You can do some minor adjustments, but not major ones.I'm just (today) starting to look at the new version (Campus edition 4, I think). Do you know whether it's similarly constrain ed? I haven't been able to see how to customize it, but then I've only spent a half hour with it . . .
I think the two weakest points of WebCT is its complete dependence on the web (hence slow access, depending on your network and access), and its communication tools. Students have complained about these tools, but WebCT has over the years made some improvements.I suppose this might be a consideration, but I'd have expected that for me (for instance) working at home on a 14.4 modem connection, I'd have trouble with FirstClass too? And I wonder whether the communication issue is improved in the new one? Certainly the discussion forum is a whole lot better. Or seems to be.
One of our concerns is communication by students across courses. This is extremely easy in FirstClass, but much more difficult if not impossible in WebCT.This would be a serious concern for me, I think . . . presumably students wind up with email outside of class and email inside? (Not that I'm all that happy with that situation: part of my commitment to openly available software is the issue of not allowing school to be hermetically sealed away from "real world" experience.)
One of the issues is the support infrastructure required for FirstClass and WebCT. From everything I know, WebCT requires a greater support infrastructure than FirstClass. We can get into specifics, if you like.You mean local personpower support, maintaining a server, tweaking interfaces, setting up course lists, etc.? Or Something more than that? I suspect on this front WebCT has the inside track here because of all the local experience with it at UNB and Mount Allison.
On the other hand, WebCT has partnered with a number of publishing companies that allow the easy access and interface with course text books. This is attractive to a number of instructors. There is nothing in FirstClass like this.There certainly is some interest in this here. Myself, I'm pretty scared of it: it's like the pharmaceutical folks getting into medical practice (IMHO).
At McMaster, we have a longer history using FirstClass than WebCT. We started WebCT about three years ago.I infer from this that you've found it possible to support both?
This seems to me very powerful . . .
One of the issues I am interested in is the relation between teaching style and selection of technology to use in the classroom. Of course there is some constraint by what the institution makes available. Given this qualification, my analysis (with Brian Campbell) of several campuses suggests (using the Grasha teaching style inventory) that faculty who have a more facilitative teaching style prefer communications software (like FirstClass) that allows students to engage in collaborative work and communicate with each other and the instructor, while faculty who have the "expert" (transmission) teaching style prefer software that allows them to present large amounts of information to their students (like WebCT and Blackboard), and to do computer-based testing.This has resonance for St. Thomas because, as you may know, Brian's survey at STU suggested that it is significantly tilted toward the "facilitative" and collaborative side. I expect, even so, that the lack of support for assessment, testing and record keeping in FirstClass would tend to make it less attractive to many users, especially entry-level ones.
positives
+ relatively user-friendly for faculty, popular
+ powerful with comprehensive toolset
+ have been able to achieve integration with other systems (e.g., student information system, LDAP directory)
negativesConsequences of Adoption
- increasing costs
- technical support unresponsive (has gotten better)
- tied to product updates
- occasional lapses in quality of releases (bugs)
- product permeated by WebCT logo and branding
- lack of flexibility: sometimes doesn't do everything you want, or in the way you want to do it; difficult to develop your own tools/extensions
- increase in the number of course websitesDifficulties
- novel uses include online course evaluations, discipline communities
- increase in good practices: quizzes for formative evaluation, gradebook for prompt feedback, richer content available to students outside the class, and more communication and collaboration going on outside of class
- improper use of content, "dumping" ineffective content or improper file formats onto webhope this helps,
- providing support for a wide range of IT aptitudes and experience (students and faculty)
- maintaining standards
- time required of faculty for learning/using software and developing materials
From: Russ Hunt <hunt |at| stu.ca>
The question shouldn't be what do you want based on current practices, but 'in a perfect world, what would you like to do." I see some of that in the list, for example, the grouping features, but I think the list could be richer if elements to support project based learning, experiential learning, etc. would be better reflected.I've never got any useful responses to the "perfect world" question -- most faculty pretty well want to do what they're