martin making the moodle

Making the Moodle:First Year Case Studies Westmont CollegeNorthwest University: 

Making the Moodle: First Year Case Studies Westmont College Northwest University Presented by: John Rodkey, Westmont College Chris Martin, Northwest University

Why are we here?: 

Why are we here? To review the value of implementing Moodle, an open-source learning management system Following this session we hope you will: Have sufficient information to implement Moodle Understand moodle’s structure and its integration with your SIS/ERP system Know where to learn more

What is Moodle?: 

What is Moodle? Moodle stands for: (M)odular (O)bject (O)riented (D)istributed (L)earning (E)nvironment and was developed by Martin Dougiamas in 1999. http://www.moodle.org Currently installed on 9,237 registered sites with over 2.5 million users in 242, 342 courses. Open University One of the largest online schools in the world recently adopted Moodle for their back-end delivery vehicle. Runs on Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, Mac OS X Utilizes PHP, MySQL, and a web server (Apache/IIS) Cron Software: VisualCron (Windows)

Westmont: Project Background: 

Westmont: Project Background 1200 students, 80 faculty, modest IT budget Linux-centric infrastructure WebCT since 2002 Low WebCT Adoption andlt; 3% courses, andlt; 10% teachers:

Westmont: WebCT: 

Westmont: WebCT Problems with WebCT: Large Increasing Annual Fees No Integration with SIS/ERP ($20K add-on) No LDAP authentication ($10K add-on) Uncertain Future – Blackboard Buyout Difficulty adding courses, students Interface Complexity -andgt; Faculty Frustration Faculty Advocates Left, or on Sabbatical

Westmont: Implementation: 

Westmont: Implementation Implemented Summer, 2005 Branded it: 3 weeks, 2 people Developed scripts to create all courses each semester Wrote scripts to push SIS/ERP faculty andamp; student info into moodle Results: unmitigated success (almost) Less work than WebCT Fewer on-going problems (e.g. passwords)

Westmont: Support: 

Westmont: Support So what about support? Living dangerously? Encountered only one substantial software problem with moodle. It was Identified Aug 11, 7 p.m. Acknowledged Aug 12, 8 p.m. Fixed Aug 13, 1 a.m. Hard to beat that kind of support!

Westmont: Usage: 

Westmont: Usage Fall: 627 active students 38 of 366 (10%) active courses 18 active teachers ( andgt;2000 accesses) Spring: 856 active students 62 of 470 (12%) active courses 23 active teachers

Westmont: Faculty Survey: 

Westmont: Faculty Survey Numbers in Yellow are actual – vs. reported – users.

Westmont: Faculty Survey: 

Westmont: Faculty Survey * 1=very infrequently used, 5 = very frequently used

Westmont: Faculty Survey: 

Westmont: Faculty Survey * 1=terrible, 5 = wonderful

Westmont: Faculty Survey: 

Westmont: Faculty Survey Why Didn’t You Use Moodle? 43% - No Perceived Need 32% - Too Much Work 15% - Interface is Too Complex 5% - Philosophically opposed to its use

Westmont: Server detail: 

Westmont: Server detail Hardware: Generic 2U Rackmount Single P4 850Mhz 1 GB RAM 36GB Storage Single NIC Software SuSE Linux 9.1 OS apache2-2.0.49-23 mysql-4.0.18-32 php4-4.3.4-26 Performance is OK, but replacing with a 2.8GHz P4 running SuSE Linux 10.

Westmont Demo: 

Westmont Demo https://eureka.westmont.edu/

Westmont: Hare-brained schemes/Plans: 

Westmont: Hare-brained schemes/Plans Course evaluations Automated plagiarism detection Portal-like integration (Grades, events) Calendar integration

Northwest University Project Background: Why did we look?: 

Northwest University Project Background: Why did we look? Northwest University used Blackboard Basic for 5 years with approximately 26% voluntary faculty participation Our costs kept rising while the product development curve was pretty flat We are a Windows OS institution and our comfort/training for staff is on the Microsoft platforms SCT PowerCampus implementation in 2005.

Key Points to our installation: 

Key Points to our installation Utilized our skill set strengths without extra training Windows 2003 Server, PHP, MySQL Extension of the IQWeb space IQWeb is our administrative portal, Moodle became our campus instructional delivery portal. Branding: Discovery Instead of using Moodle as the title, branding helped us 'sell' this implementation Training: Brought the faculty up to speed very early in the process

Northwest First Year Statistics: 

Northwest First Year Statistics Fall semester 'voluntary' participation 63% from 26% All but two Blackboard instructors moved to Discovery immediately Student Instructional Resource forum had 120 posts before school started with students asking questions, giving feedback Christian Thought course had over 260 threads by the end of the semester with well over 4000 posts.

Spring Semester Changes : 

Spring Semester Changes Spring Semester 100% of catalog had a Discovery course created as mandated by Provost Posting of syllabus only requirement No course listservs are created as this functionality is available in Moodle Course picture roster available via class site Student demand for content, functionality helped drive faculty involvement Over 600 daily logins by students/faculty/staff (FTE count 1130)

Northwest Server detail: 

Northwest Server detail Compaq DL380 G3 Dual P4 3.0Ghz 3 GB RAM 500GB Raid 5 for data Dual NIC VisualCron software PHP5, MySQL, Windows 2003 server

Administrative Design and Other Uses: 

Administrative Design and Other Uses Enrollment/Un-enrollment script Course Creation Script Chapel Attendance course Faculty Training Plans for: Final Grade submission Course Evaluations Attendance Math Placement course

Northwest Demo: http://discovery.northwestu.edu: 

Northwest Demo: http://discovery.northwestu.edu

Summary: 

Summary Moodle is highly cost-effective Utilizes common hardware/software packages Common support skills set Php, MySQL etc…. Works well with the SQL ERP structure With more institutional adoption we will see more ERP-specific modules/blocks that assist us in supporting different functions.

Questions & Answers: 

Questions andamp; Answers

Thank You!: 

Thank You! John Rodkey and Chris Martin rodkey@westmont.edu Chris.martin@northwestu.edu