Presentation at the LTS

On December 5th, 2006, Laila Bastedo, Katrina Espanol-Miller and I presented our process framework for the LMS evaluation at the Learning Technology Symposium. It was a great opportunity to present why and how we needed to do this and to answer some questions posed by faculty.

Bart Strong

LMS Evaluation Announcement

We just formally announced our plans for the LMS evaluation and selection process. Almost immediately, we received 18 responses from faculty and teaching support staff. An overwhelming majority showed keen interest in our process as well as volunteering their time for the actual assessment and evaluation.

Bart Strong

Recovery: We forgot ePortfolios!

I feel so silly (that's the mild word). We covered so many major trends in our RFI such as blogs, wikis, single-sign-on and portal integration. How could we forget something like ePortfolios? Needless to say, I blame myself for not catching this one. After beating my head against the thin office walls (I'm sure I disturbed more than one individual), I have finally forgiven myself. All is not lost. The importance of ePortfolios to the user community can still be assessed. This assessment can still be applied to the RFI returns. Yes, it will mean a little bit more work, but nonetheless doable. Laila Bastedo

Egad! We forgot ePortfolios!

One of the vendors complimented us on our thorough RFI as the best he'd every seen. The representative from the vendor wondered however, why we had left out ePortfolios? Just goes to show you we are all human even though sometimes we like to think differently.

Bart Strong

Public Release of RFI

The RFI was posted yesterday as a public open call at the MERX site. It was also sent to various vendors such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Angel, eCollege, CAPA, ThinkingCap, Moodle, SAKAI, LearnFlex and WHO ELSE? We have received comments already that our document is the most comprehensive RFI that vendors have seen. Congratulations team on a job well done!

Bart Strong

RFI finally done!

Wow, it's finally done. After months of research and collaboration I think we've finally nailed this Request for Information (RFI). Over the months, we've managed to take all the current administrative, instructional and technical features available on WebCT 4.1 and more importantly we've added desired features into one 37 page document containing over 450 checkpoints. Many of the desired features from the instructional and administrative areas relied heavily not only on our past experiences but also on the feedback we received from faculty, teaching support staff and students over the years.

One thing's for sure: the only reason we have a robust RFI is because each and every one of us in the LMS Group (alpha: Laila Bastedo, Wayne Cai, Colin Czerneda, Katrina Espanol, Herman Poon) through the support of the director Bart Strong, brought our varying perspectives and strengths into this collaborative document. I am personally excited about this endeavour and in particular, eager to see the advances in LMS products especially in the areas of learner controlled and collaborative features. It will be be a tough ride over the next couple years, but well worth the effort.

Laila Bastedo