By: Patrick Lyons
For the last year, the Educational Development Centre (EDC) and Computing and Communication Services (CCS) have been collaborating to transition the university from WebCT (actually Blackboard Campus Edition 8) to cuLearn (actually Moodle). We are now in the final couple of months of our transition and Carleton’s long history with WebCT (beginning in 1997) is coming to an end in just a few weeks.
After May 10, our WebCT license expires and we will lose our ability to directly access content and information stored in it. A large part of our initiative to move to the new system has been the efforts to extract all the content and grade information stored inside of WebCT and convert it into a format that cuLearn can use. Thanks to the cuLearn migration team, we are almost done extracting all this material.
As we get closer and closer to May 10, it is important that we think about our next steps for cuLearn. How should we improve it? Are there tools that we should integrate to make it more helpful for teaching and learning? When should we upgrade to a newer version of Moodle (we are currently using Moodle 2.1; Moodle 2.5 is about to be released)? Can we better integrate cuLearn into existing Carleton systems (i.e., e-grades)?
A key part of the decision to select Moodle as Carleton’s LMS was the ability to customize it for our teaching and learning needs and to extend and grow with it. The first steps to improve cuLearn will begin on April 25, 2013 with the kickoff of the LMS Advisory Meeting. This group has been formed with representation from all five teaching faculties, undergraduate students, teaching assistants, staff and senior management.
The group will meet throughout the summer to identify and prioritize our roadmap for the LMS. Some priorities have already been identified: integrate cuLearn’s gradebook with e-grades to improve the workflow for final grade reporting, improve the performance and upgrade to a newer version (but which version 2.4? Or 2.5?). Should we add a plugin that would facilitate online marking of assignments (Assignment: PDF)? What about ways to improve how the list of courses is displayed in the course menu page? It’s these types of questions that this group will help answer.
Would you like to provide input to direction of cuLearn? Please do not hesitate to contact the committee at edc@carleton.ca or contact one of the committee members.
Meet the committee:
Andrew Barrett – Assistant Director, Educational Development Centre
Scott Bennett – Faculty Member, Political Science, Faculty of Public Affairs
Brian Cousens – Faculty Member, Earth Sciences, Faculty of Science
Devin Fraser – 1st Year Undergraduate Student, Accounting
Ryan Katz-Rosene – Teaching Assistant, PhD Candidate, Geography
Denis Levesque –Chief Information Officer, CCS,
John Logan – Faculty Member, Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Patrick Lyons – Director, Teaching and Learning, OAVPTL – Committee Chair
Pat Moore – Associate University Librarian, MacOdrum Library
Osman Naqvi – 1st Year Undergraduate Student, Criminology
Cheryl Schramm – Faculty Member, Systems and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Design
Vacant – Faculty Member, Sprott School of Business