I couldn’t end the day without a quick goodbye to WebCT. After 9 years of reliable service to LSE, WebCT is finally being switched off – well the licence expires at some point over the weekend. See our short account of the move on our website. All postgrad courses were migrated to Moodle last summer and now all of the undergrad courses have been migrated ready for the 2008-09 academic year.
Anyway, cheers to WebCT (well – versions 3.6 through 4.2 anyway!).
Kris.
Over the summer all remaining courses using WebCT will be moved to the LSE’s new virtual learning environment (VLE) Moodle. There are full details of this project and specific instructions for the remaining WebCT users on our website.
For staff already using Moodle there is also detailed information on the Moodle ‘rollover’ from 2007/8 to 2008/9. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact us
Following a year of evaluation, LSE has decided to adopt Moodle as its Virtual Learning Environment.
We believe Moodle has many advantages for both staff and students and these were clearly flagged up during our pilots. They include:
A key advantage of Moodle, is that as it is an open source system, it can be developed and customised in ways in which the School wants. Completely new tools and features can be added and we can share features developed elsewhere. The Open University for example, since its adoption of Moodle has developed a number of important new features and these are made freely available to the rest of the Moodle community.
The results of the 2005/2006 WebCT student survey are now available. The complete report is here, and a summary follows.
A total of 1356 responses were received.
Overall, the results reflect well on the state of WebCT courses at LSE. The student satisfaction level is high, and students say that they feel encouraged to use WebCT, that they think it is well-integrated with the course teaching, that it is a valuable supplement to traditional modes of teaching, and that they would like to see it used on more of their courses.
The WebCT features deemed most useful by students are those that we would consider fairly basic: lecture contents, reading lists, e-packs, and external links. The assignments tool is also well appreciated. However, discussions, which are used by 80% of respondents, are seen as more non-useful than they are useful.
The most requested WebCT feature is “example essays”, and there is also some desire to see the use of TV/Radio programmes, audio/video lectures, quizzes, student presentations and past exam papers.
Only a small proportion of students take advantage of WebCT training. When asked what they think training should include, there are very few concrete suggestions. It is possible that there is a publicity problem with regard to training, but it might well be the case that most students simply do not require training.
Finally, the results also reveal some problems with the survey itself, and certain questions may need to be redesigned for next time.
The Reviews took place on 6 and 13 June 2006 and were attended by 45 people in total, mostly academic and administrative staff. The Reviews serve two purposes: to allow WebCT users to meet and exchange ideas, and to allow CLT staff to report on the use of WebCT over the past year, and look forward to next year.
Participants convened in groups and discussed issues arising from their use of WebCT over the past year. Detailed feedback from these groups is available in the Full Report, but the key points arising were as follows:
After the review, all participants were asked to complete an evaluation survey about the review. The results of the survey, completed by 88% of attendees, were extremely positive, with all participants rating the reviews as either ‘Excellent’ or ‘Good’. Furthermore, all participants agreed that they had learned something from the review and that it was pitched at the right level.
Respondents identified the key benefits of the review as being the chance to exchange ideas with other WebCT users and getting updates on new developments in learning technology.
Suggestions for improvements to the reviews included: allowing more time for demonstrations of new tools, getting a greater number of academics to attend, and demonstrations of good practice by other WebCT users.
These results are greatly encouraging and indicate that the reviews are worthwhile exercise. We will consider implementing the suggestions for improvement in next year’s reviews.
Please see the full report for further details.
Brief descriptions and screenshots:
http://webct.uni.edu/information/whatsnewCE6.htm from The University of Northern Iowa
Further to my earlier comments on the WebCT Portfolio tool in this blog yesterday I joined an online Seminar by WebCT run thru Horizon Live Classroom. [Seminar Archive]
I found it a little dull, partly because I’d seen the tool before at Coventry but also because I find Powerpoint / Audio presentations difficult to stay with for an hour… so i should have gone to real life presentation with Kris 😉
The main question I wanted to ask was about the possibility of a pilot / trial licence as the rather hefty 5-figure sum we have been quoted by WebCT for the Portfolio is a non-starter. I asked my question but it was rephrased as: is it possible to ‘review and test’ WebCT Portfolio? The answer to that is yes – work with your account manager and it will be possible to evaluate the environment. It came across as a ways of us being able to test the system rather than a way of us piloting over an academic year / term. We need to check but I doubt we can do that without buying.
I have to say there was some very positive response from other 70+ participants and only two or three visible ‘raised eyebrows’ when I mentioned the significant 5-figure cost!
This screencast is by Andy Syson at Coventry. It’s for Designers and is to explain their rollover procedure:
The University of Houston and University of Houston-Victoria came up with a testing schedule/script to ensure their installation of Vista worked with various browsers, operating systems and java versions. I doubt we’ll have the time/inclination to test every possible environment, but it could be a good checklist for testing the student & staff builds, at a minimum.
Looks like WebCT are adding another tool to WebCT 6. Things seem to be moving quite quickly!
This from the latest WebCT newsletter.
Get ready for the WebCT Portfolio!
Moving to WebCT Campus Edition 6 will also pave the way for you to start using the WebCT Portfolio. Targeted for release in the first half of 2006, the WebCT Portfolio is a personal portfolio solution that will make portfolio initiatives easy for institutions to manage and for students and instructors to learn.
Doesn’t say whether this is an optional extra or whether it is going to be included in the basic CE licence.
Kris.
