LearnLink Upgrade is finally complete!

In addition to leading the search for the perfect replacement LMS for WebCT, the LMS team has been working hard on upgrading the LearnLink system to the most current version. Last Friday, the system was successfully upgraded from v8.0 to v8.3.

While the new version offers many of the same features as the older one, v8.3 totes a new interface (MS Outlook users may experiences some déjà vu!) and several new tools and features.

The LearnLink website also has a new face. We're still working on updating the entire site, but we have the main pages sporting the new McMaster website look and feel.

For more details about the upgrade and the new system, please visit: http://www.learnlink.mcmaster.ca

- Katrina Espanol-Miller

Process update

We have hired a summer student to work with our LMS team. Her name is Tiffany Neal. Tiffany starts next week and will be doing low level support and course creation for WebCT/LearnLink as well as helping out with the LMS evaluation. She is a third year Life Sciences student and will be with us until the end of August. Welcome Tiffany!

WebCT summer course requests are still coming in and our staff have started to collate and compare the survey data as well as the RFI vendor data in preparation for a ranking of the RFI submissions according to the expressed needs of our LMS community. I have also started working on an RFP framework for the next stage of the selection process and have been meeting with Deans and dept. chairs in order to update them and get them involved in the process.

I would also like to introduce the newest member of the committee. He is an undergraduate student by the name of Po Ko. Po is a second year Social Sciences student pursing a combined honours in Political Science and Communications Studies. Welcome Po! I envision our next committee meeting to be in late June but that is flexible and contingent on our workload and ability to complete the data analysis and research necessary for you to make an informed decision regarding which products should continue in the process.

- Bart Strong

Lucky streak!

Herman is on a lucky streak! He went to a conference last week and won an iPod. Today, Wayne ran a script to randomly choose two people from all those that participated in the surveys. Herman had filled out the faculty/staff survey while wearing his instructor hat (he teaches for the B. Tech program). The script picked Herman's name! Of course, he isn't eligible for the $100 gift certificate, so the script was run again. However, we each fished out a tooney each and asked Herman to play the next Super 7 draw. Don't good things come in three's?

- Laila Bastedo

Student surveys are now closed

The student surveys are now closed. We are encouraged by the response from the community as we received. We received 206 responses to the faculty/staff survey and 1899 responses to the student survey. Now the hard part - going through all the data!

- Wayne Cai

Spending time at the drop-in sessions was worth it

We've hosted three all-day drop-in sessions for faculty and staff this month and had some very interesting discussions. One of the many interesting things that came out of the conversations was the increase in the use of wiki's in courses. There were some that had set up their own wiki's and others who were investigating it. Those that had found wiki's useful told us that the ability for a group of students to develop a piece of work collaboratively was very beneficial. The great thing about wiki's is that instead of students sharing a word document which involves attaching the latest version to an email, sending it off, having someone download the attachment, work on it, upload it again ... and so on -- wiki's allow the composition of a document in one spot. Wiki's are on our RFI and in our surveys. It will be interesting to see these results in the surveys.

- Katrina Espanol-Miller

Process framework presentations

Katrina and I presented the LMS selection process framework and our progress to date (pdf file) at the monthly LTAC meeting today. A number of us have conversed with various interested individuals and groups across campus in the past few weeks. The largest benefit to the group presentations is that invariably one or two people contact us at the end of the presentation wanting to set up some time to meet individually. It is truly encouraging that people are interested in talking to us about the process. More importantly, with every conversation, we learn more about the diverse needs on campus.

- Laila Bastedo

Faculty Information Session

We’ve had our first faculty information session regarding the LMS Evaluation process and the faculty survey has also been distributed. We have had numerous confirmations that the process is solid and the extra effort we are making to collaborate with our LMS users is greatly appreciated. This has kept me awake at night wondering about the perception of our clients and the effectiveness of our communication plan. To be sure, there have been glitches and there are people who have told us that no communications have ever reached them. All we can do is correct the problems as they arise and learn from the experience. The LMS staff have truly made this a team effort and have worked extremely hard on getting it right. The survey was released late on a Tuesday afternoon and I was very happy to see that over 50 faculty had responded to the survey overnight even though it was very long. This also confirms that our clients take this seriously and want to participate and be heard. So far so good!

- Bart Strong

Agenda for Evaluation Committee

I’ve just spent most of yesterday working on the agenda and handout material for the LMS Evaluation committee meeting on the 16th. It’s amazing how quickly things change in the world of technology. Half of my day was spent reading new vendor information and updating our research on what Ontario Universities are currently using as a centrally supported LMS. Last night I logged in to Second Life and visited a music store where I had a conversation with someone about the best blues harmonica to buy. I’ve invested a good part of last weekend learning about virtual worlds and why they are so appealing to young people. Could second life become the next Learning Management System? Not yet but perhaps someday. There definitely is potential for learning in a virtual environment but I also see some danger zones that need exploring. As in almost everything new that we encounter in life there are good, bad and ugly aspects.

Bart Strong

Campus Wide Survey Progress

From the beginning this selection and evaluation process was going to be needs driven: by faculty, support staff, students. It is cruicial to involve the user community - how could we choose a product that is used in every Faculty across campus without consulting the very people that use it? On top of that, we have technical and administrative challenges in that a new LMS must work with the University's infrastructure, procedures and policies. In addition to that is the challenge of finding an LMS that not only has the flexibility to cater to different learning styles, but one that can then be managed efficiently. We don't want to spend all of our time running an LMS and no time interacting with those who use the sytem.

We have now started the process of creating surveys for faculty, staff, students, administrators and technical staff. Each of the surveys draws on the extensive feature list in the RFI. Wayne is busy investigating the use of an open source software package so that we can deliver the surveys online. Development may be a bit slow since we are going to be working away at the LMS evaluation process on top of our regular responsibilities. Despite that, we have a very talented group - I think we'll manage nicely.

Laila Bastedo

Technical Surveys

This has been a long process. Sometimes I think that I will go crazy if anyone comes back with more changes to the surveys. However, each iteration does produce a better quality product, so fueling my patience.

The technical survey is almost ready for distribution. The survey for faculty, staff and students is still in progress.

Wayne Cai

WebCT Usage Continues to Climb

It seems that we haven't reached our plateau of WebCT course requests yet. Usage continues to grow for the system. The queue of course requests and other support requests has about a 2 week turnaround. Luckily we've hired a student who has turned out to be an invaluable help. As course usage continues to grow (we expect about 1000 for this academic year), the related support issues, training needs, and instructional design consultation grows.

I'm really looking forward to this LMS selection process. I think it is a good opportunity for us to re-evaluate our support structure, technical and administrative processes. Maybe there is opportunity in the new LMS to further automate many of the administrative tasks that are required so that we can spend more time on instructional design and training that the faculty want.

Colin Czerneda