Web Based Course Management Tools

-- Pilot Study Project Final Recommendations

 
Purpose Recommendations
1) Determine which course management system (WebCT or CourseInfo) would provide the most appropriate support for UC Davis courses.  WebCT.  UC Davis has recently invested many resources into the development of the MyUCDavis portal which will be available for faculty and students in Fall 2000.  MyUCDavis provides a basic template for the creation of a text-based, static course web page.  Of the two products considered, Blackboard's CourseInfo was generally characterized as easier to use but as having less flexibility and fewer customizable features.  WebCT, on the other hand, was characterized as slightly harder to use but having a wealth of features and options.  The obvious choice, in conjunction with the simple-to-use MyUCDavis template is the product which the faculty are not going to 'grow out of' within the first quarter of use.
2) Determine which course management system (WebCT or CourseInfo) is preferred by UC Davis faculty,  CourseInfo: One pilot faculty member found that many of the functions of CourseInfo did not work as expected, resulting in either lost time or extensive work arounds.  For example, having to request administrator downloads to compile and view bulletin board postings.  Though the product contributed value to the course web page, the features were not rated highly.
WebCT: Faculty comments included issues with learning the interface. 
... students Ease of use was identified as the highest priority. Davis Honors Challenge students investigated both options and concluded that WebCT was the best option.  These students identified that WebCT was not as easy to use as CourseInfo, however, they concluded that  "college students should have no problem learning to use WebCT."
... and technical support staff. 
3) Determine the support and infrastructures necessary to use these course management systems.  Faculty Support: Initial set up with either product will require some  training.  A possible model would be to have faculty participate in a workshop before they are given accounts. 
Student Support: The students will be predominantly supported by the faculty instructors.  Additional orientation may be required in the first few quarters.
Emergency Support: As this software will contain both sensitive material and information that woudl be considered critical for students, the server(s) should be housed where they are given 24x7 support.
Helpline: It is not anticipated that any students or faculty would need access to a help line.  The online documentation is extensive.  During the pilot study, other than when the server crashed, no contact was initiated from the faculty or students that required helpline support.
Administrator Support: Both companies provide assistance to system administrators.
4) Closely evaluate the underlying architectures of the course management systems.  WebCT could be used and managed in a department, for local use only.  This will be true until v 4.0 is released in Spring 2001.   CourseInfo could be centrally offered for Fall 2000.
5) Investigate the feasibility of implementing course management systems at the UCDavis campus, and interfacing these systems with other campus systems (e.g., Banner).  Linking the CMS to the existing systems is vital for a centrally administered system, particularly, linking the CMS to Banner for student registration data. WebCT has recently partnered with SCT (Banner).

Thoughts on other questions:

1. Should UC Davis implement a course management system (CMS)?

     · What is required in terms of faculty time, to develop a course using a course management system?
     · What are the resources and support structures needed for publishing information into a course management
     system, and for using the system?
     · What are the benefits of using a course management system?
     · What are the trade-offs in supporting do-it-yourself course web sites vs web-based CMS?

2. If a course management system is demonstrated to be of benefit, how should such a system be implemented?

Benefits of having a central installation:


3. If a course management system is developed or obtained, should it be an integrated solution or a
component-based system (individual tools either developed or purchased, and integrated with middleware)?

4. If an integrated course management system were purchased, which one should it be? Evaluation criteria include:

     · Functionality
     · Ease of publishing and use (student, faculty, and system/site administrator tool sets)
     · Reliability, Flexibility, Scalability, Extensibility
     · Distributed architecture
     · [e.g., server to server integration, campus-wide (student) viewpoint, interoperability (IMS conformance),
     integration/leveraging of existing campus infrastructure (authentication. Authorization, SIS, MyUCDavis), file
     import/export; database structure and ODBC compliance)
     · Effect on pedagogy (teaching and learning)
     · Company characteristics (market strength, size, age, etc.)
 

Other Comments
Both companies were informed that this was a pilot test.  Both companies were invited to set up a time to present information on campus.  WebCT visited campus twice, once to talk to faculty and once to talk to technical support staff.  CourseInfo left a phone message and did not respond to email about setting up a campus visit.  [Aside: The costs for the pilot license: WebCT cost a total of $420; CourseInfo cost a total of $5500]

When a problem arose:
BlackBoard CourseInfo: Problem reported to BB contact on 5/26/00.  Trouble shooting call set up: 6/2/00 (one week later).  Result of trouble shooting call: "you are doing it right and it is not working!"  Email sent to UCD giving technical support contact number: 6/6/00.  BB technical support took the information (6/6) and returned the call with a patch for this common bug on 6/8/00.  The patch was installed by UCD and did not fix the problem (6/9/00).  6/15/00 the same patch was sent to another UCD campus contact.

WebCT: No problem has gone unfixed for more than 24 hours.