adventures in open source
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Adventures in Open Source - Moodle, Mahara, Drupal et. al. at
Purchase CollegeKeith Landa
SUNY Wizard Conference18 November 2010
http://www.slideshare.net/keith.landa
StudentInformation
System
LibraryInformation
Systems
AcademicAnalytics
CampusRepository
The View from 30,000 Feet
Why @ Purchase?
http://moodle.org
Criteria-Functionality-Support-Architecture/integration-Total cost of ownership-Risk management
Background – Purchase – 2008
ERes electronic reserves
Liberal Arts and Sciences plus Arts Conservatories
~4200 FTE
Web enhancement of F2F coursesOnline programs in the works
What is Moodle?The world’s most widely used open source LMS
•49,000 Registered Moodle Sites•35,000,000 Registered Users
http://www.moodle.org/stats
Faculty Blackboard uses
1. Distribute materials2. Library services3. Integration with SIS4. Course communications5. Links to external web sites6. One stop shopping for students7. Discussion forum8. Gradebook9. New media (blogs, wikis, podcasts)10. Drop boxes11. Student collaboration tools12. Course reports13. Self-directed lessons14. Online quizzing15. Real-time tools (chat, etc)16. Clickers
LMS desired features
No “killer app” tying us to Blackboard
Stud
ent S
urve
y Re
spon
ses
Implementation – course migration
• Blackboard - ~1000 courses; ERes – substantially more
• ERes – document download, upload to Moodle• Blackboard – Moodle can import Blackboard course
archives (zip files), but…. (problems with the Bb archives)
• Temp services staff - ~300 hours from May to Aug 2009, primarily ERes migration
• Bb course migration on request during 2009/2010 year
Implementation – faculty development
• Spring 2009 workshops: hour long sessions, various topics; early adopters; 28 faculty
• 2009 Summer Faculty Workshop Series: new programming, not just Moodle; half- and full-day workshops; stipends; 36 faculty at Moodle sessions
• Fall 2009: Moodle Kickoff workshops; Getting Started, Gradebook, Learning Activity; 98 faculty
Cost comparisonsBlackboard Moodle
Licensing $40K $0K
Server VM VM
Staff Fraction FTE server admin1 FTE instructional tech
Fraction FTE server admin1 FTE instructional tech
Course migration NA $3K onetime (ERes, mostly)
Faculty development ?? $3.6K summer 2009
Switch to Moodle saves us over $50K each year(Blackboard and ERes licensing costs)
Risk management: -dislocations in the commercial space-self-host vs vendor host: http://goo.gl/tQ5uX
Community contributed modules
Community Modules and Plugins pagehttp://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009
Map activity
Lightbox Gallery resource
Bringing the cloud into the course
StudentInformation
System
LibraryInformation
Systems
AcademicAnalytics
CampusRepository
Enrollment automation
Open advantages
Library integration-Reserve requests-Electronic resources
Senior projects
Focus on teaching & learning- Robust set of activities & resources- Add-on modules from the community- Moodle development pathway
Costs- No licensing costs- Similar support costs
Integration- Other systems- Web 2.0 world
Flexible open architecture
Why @ Purchase?
Risk management- Risks of open source- Commercial products have different risks
Campus lessons - Moodle
• LMS focus should be learning– Faculty AND student perspectives
• Change is hard, and exhilarating• Stewardship of campus resources• Choose the risk you’re comfortable with• Importance of community critical mass for
open source apps• Clear roadmap for product development
“Mahoodle”-Single sign-on-Mahara assignment in Moodle
Adoption process for Mahara
Why e-portfolios?-Tool to showcase student/faculty work?-Tool to support student learning?-Tool to collect institutional data?
http://mahara.org
Mahara overview“Collect, select, reflect” and share (access control)
Resume building Social networking
Building and sharing a portfolio
• Assembling artifactso File uploadso Blog reflectionso External materials (web video, RSS feeds, etc)
• Creating a viewo Determining the layouto Assembling and arranging portfolio components
• Determining access controlso Share with individual user (e.g., instructor)o Make public, generate unique URLo Share with group (e.g., course group)o Submit to a course group (freezes portfolio view)o Creating templates
Campus lessons - Mahara
• Adoption slower than with Moodle– Less faculty interest– Stealth adoption
• Stronger tie to Moodle 2.0– Repositories
• Focus on tool for student learning– Constraints on student showcase uses– Constraints on harvesting institutional data
CampusRepository
Importance of video at Purchase College-Film and media studies; cinema studies; journalism-Class projects-Student organizations-Training materials
Existing use of cloud video-Journalism & YouTube-TLTC Vimeo channel
- http://vimeo.com/channels/97810- Five Minute Moodling
-Need for a campus solution?Kaltura open source video-kaltura.com vs kaltura.org-Use by serious players-Plugins already available
Campus lessons - Kaltura
• Too early to tell, hopeful• SaaS and community source model is
interesting• Developer community appears vibrant• Baseline integrations with apps on campus
WordPress, Drupal, OpenScholar
WordPress-Implemented on campus before Moodle-http://blogs.purchase.edu-Some active individual blogs-Departmental use instead of homegrown CMS-e.g.: http://tltc.blogs.purchase.edu
Drupal-Replacement for our home-grown CMS?-CampusEAI portal – includes CMS-Drupal for special projects-http://drupalsites.purchase.edu
OpenScholar-Faculty scholarly web pages-Customized Drupal application
Why were we so interested?-Legacy faculty web page service-Faculty desire for self-service-Information reuse possibilities-External faculty profile pages
Ease of faculty updates-Editing existing content-Adding new items-Default layouts, widgets
Faculty choice of-features-themes/appearanceAbility to add othersCentral content access
However….
Campus lessons - OpenScholar
• Make sure application is ready for primetime– Default authentication, site creation– Server constraints
• Be prepared for community growing pains• Persistence
Recent progress
WordPress
Drupal
Campus lessons – WordPress, Drupal
• WordPress – plug-in proliferation– Plug-in and version upgrades
• Initial decisions can be critical – WP config• WordPress is easy for most users• Drupal is powerful, can be daunting
– Need for turn-key Drupal set-ups
StudentInformation
System
LibraryInformation
Systems
AcademicAnalytics
CampusRepository
The View from 30,000 Feet
Questions?
Keith LandaPurchase College [email protected]