Learning Management Systems Presentation Common Solutions Group 1999-10-04 I. Presenter Fred M. Beshears Assistant Director Instructional Technology Program U.C. Berkeley fmb@socrates.berkeley.edu http://www.itp.berkeley.edu 510-643-9923 II. A Typical Learning Management System (LMS) Feature Set A. Faculty Tool Set for Course Website Development and Management 1. Online grade book 2. Grade reporting tool (i.e. to allow students to view grades) 3. Quiz/Survey development tool 4. Course website backup, download, & upload facilities 5. Student account administration tools 6. Student group administration tools 7. Grader account administration tools 8. Student access tracking (i.e. how many news articles have they posted/read, which pages have they accessed) 9. Webpage access tracking (i.e. how many students have accessed a page, when did each student access the page) 10. Web-based file management 11. Page counters 12. Course website glossary building tool 13. Course website indexing system 14. Course announcements and calendar administration tool B. Students Tool Set 1. Student self-evaluations 2. Student accounts for webpage publishing 3. Group work areas for collaborative webpage publishing 4. Course content annotation facility and bookmarks 5. Web-based email and discussion groups 6. Real-time chat rooms 7. Real-time white boards 8. Individual grade and progress status reports 9. Grade distribution status report (i.e. how many students got 90 and above, etc.) C. Administrator Tool Set 1. Course website creation, duplication, and deletion 2. Course website backups 3. Course website downloading and uploading 4. Course website statistics a. number of students enrolled in a course b. file space used by a course website c. number of hits on a course website d. first and last access date 5. Course website student account administration a. Batch student account initialization and deletion b. Batch course rostering III. LMS Products and Vendors A. BlackBoard Inc. 1. Products: a. CourseInfo - an entry level LMS b. Campus - an industrial strength LMS 2. URL: http://company.blackboard.net/ 3. Cost a. CourseInfo - $5,000/year b. Campus - $250K/year list price (ask for 50% to 75% discount) - $80-$100K one time installation and integration fee B. WebCT/Universal Learning Technologies 1. Products: a. WebCT Learning Management System b. Bravo Content Server 2. URLs a. http://www.webct.com/ b. http://www.ult.net/ 3. Cost a. Unlimited single server license: $3,000/year b. They expect to make most of their money by forming partnerships with textbook publishers. C. IBM/Lotus 1. Products a. LearningSpace - LMS from Lotus b. Digital Library - Content Server from IBM c. Pathware - LMS acquired from Macromedia d. JCollaborate - middleware from Infocal to connect LearningSpace and Digital Library 2. URLs a. http://www.lotus.com/learningspace b. http://www.software.ibm.com/is/dig-lib/ c. http://www.infocal.com/ 3. Cost a. Learning Space: 1-4 cpu server $2,500 plus software subscription $950/year domino/notes $900 plus software subscription $250/year one time per user client access fee: $9/license b. Digital Library Base system $9,400 plus maintenance contract $1,650/year c. JCollaborate middleware $170K installation fee D. WBT Systems 1. Product: TopClass 2. URL: http://www.wbtsystems.com/ 3. Cost: $1,500/year for entry level 25 concurrent user license IV. Online educational delivery applications: a web tool for comparative analysis A. Organized by Dr. Bruce Landon of Douglas College B. http://www.ctt.bc.ca/landonline/ V. Problems and Issues A. Problems Scaling Up WebCT and CourseInfo are Perl/CGI based systems so the CGI driven parts of the system, such as online exams don't scale well on a single server. BlackBoard Campus is based on Java Servlet technology and can run on industrial strength database management systems such as oracle. Blackboard claims that Campus can scale to enrollments of 50K students. B. Security Issues 1. WebCT (v1.3.1) and CourseInfo (v2.1) both use Basic Authentication, which leaves users open to sniffer attacks 2. You can get SSL and Kerberos access by: a. customizing WebCT or b. buying Blackboard Campus C. Problems with a course-website-centric model 1. No Content Server Support WebCT (v1.3.1) and CourseInfo (v2.1) don't come with content server support, so there's no built-in mechanism for managing course material that needs to be shared across different course websites. Both companies have content servers under development. 2. Multiple Student Accounts WebCT (v1.3.1) creates multiple user accounts so faculty receive multiple "coursesite" designer accounts if the manage multiple course websites, and students receive a separate student account for each coursesite they access. WebCT is switching to a one user one account model. 3. No System Wide Portal WebCT (v1.3.1) and CourseInfo (v2.1) don't give students an integrated view of all their course information. For example, they have to visit each the coursesites for all the courses they're using to see all of the course calendars and announcements. BlackBoard Campus provides a central system wide "portal" that gives students an integrated view of calendar and announcement information from all the courses they're taking. 4. No built-in way to roster courses WebCT (v1.3.1) and CourseInfo (2.1) have minimal, non-standard tools for uploading student enrollment data. Both companies are working with IMS in general and PeopleSoft in particular to build XML Electronic Data Interchange formats and Application Program Interfaces to let Student Administrative Systems and Learning Management Systems exchange student/course data. D. Faculty Buy-in 1. Which faculty are we talking about? The Faculty Adoption Curve a. Innovators and Early Adopters (10%) b. Pragmatists (80%) c. Resistors (10%) 2. The Search for the Holy Grail a. Do students at R1 universities want in-depth course websites for some, most, or all of their courses? If the answer is yes to one or more of these options, then... b. How should support staff resources be allocated between the Early Adoptors and the Pragmatists? c. Is there a single, enterprise level Learning Management System that meets the needs of both the Early Adopters and the Pragmatists? - If they are working on their own with minimal training? - If they have ongoing help from students and support staff? - If a textbook publisher or a student note-taking service has created a "course pack" for their course? d. See the overview of the UCB Faculty Survey from 1998. E. One system or many? 1. Should a campus select a single enterprise level learning management system? 2. How can a multi-campus system support multiple Student Administration, Learning Management, and Content Server Systems? VI. Mergers, Acquisitions and Corporate Alliances A. 1998 BlackBoard acquired CourseInfo and creates two tier product strategy: entry level CourseInfo system and enterprise level BlackBoard Campus product. B. May 17, 1999 UNIVERSAL LEARNING TECHNOLOGY ACQUIRES WEBCT WebCT Universal Learning Technology TM (ULT) announced that it has acquired WebCT Educational Technologies Corporation. The combination of the two companies creates the largest installed base of more than two million seats at over 700 colleges and universities in 36 countries. ULT is committed to supporting WebCT's current products, enhancing WebCT development, and maintaining WebCT's aggressive pricing policies. C. July 17, 1999 PeopleSoft, ULT, and BlackBoard Integrate Campus and Web-Based Courses. The solution will allow campus administrators to leverage the PeopleSoft Student Administration application with educational content and technologies from partners Universal Learning Technology (ULT) and Blackboard. In PeopleSoft's integrated solution is based on the open standards for learning system interoperability being developed by the (EDUCAUSE IMS initiative). D. August 17, 1999 Macromedia and Lotus Provide New Online Learning Solution Macromedia and IBM's Lotus have agreed to create a comprehensive online teaching and learning solution. The agreement will join Lotus LearningSpace and Macromedia Pathware into a single platform. Lotus will purchase Macromedia's Pathware business. Lotus will also distribute other Macromedia Web authoring software such as Authorware and Dreamweaver, and license Shockwave and other technologies for use with Lotus and IBM products. For more information, visit http://www.lotus.com. VII. Topics we won't have time to discuss today. A. This is the Web-based learning environments and support strategies track for Syllabus2000, July 22-28, 2000, Santa Clara Convention Center B. Web based learning environments and support strategies. Many colleges and universities have implemented extensive web-based learning systems. This part of the presentation, which I don't have time for today, would deal with the implications of the development of a web-based learning industry and electronic markets for learning, standards such as IMS and XML, learning servers, learning infrastructure services such as e-commerce, access control, and repository services, etc. We will discuss how faculty and academic support have adapted their technical support services, faculty development programs, operational processes, and organizational structures to cope with the rapid advance of Web-based learning environments. C. Suggested topics: 1. What are the policy issues are involved in supporting course web sites and web-based learning management systems? 2. What resources are required to effectively support web-based learning environments? 3. How are web-based learning management systems managed? Are there good models for how responsibilities should be shared between faculty, graduate student assistants, and support staff? 4. How does an institution select a curriculum technology solution while reflecting departmental level interests and entrenched disparate technologies? What roles do faculty play in that decision? 5. What are the differences and similarities between supplemental Web based learning and total online distance learning? 6. What are the tradeoffs in supporting do-it-yourself course web sites versus web-based learning management systems such as WebCT, CourseInfo, LearningSpace, and TopClass? 7. How are web-based learning management systems being integrated with student registration systems, online class schedule and course catalog systems, grade databases, electronic reserves, and digital library content servers? 8. How are textbook publishers responding to the growing use of web-based learning management systems? 9. Security issues: what are the implications for security of the advent of widespread web-based learning and testing? 10 How can standards enable better support of web-based learning? Which are the relevant standards efforts?