101 uses for moodle at the university

101 Uses for Moodle at the University

Thomas Gillespie - Instructional TechnologistChris Lewis - Information Systems Manager

About NMU• 9,400 Students

• 300 Faculty

• One of the largest notebook computer campuses in U.S.

• Largest educational WiMAX network

• ~1200 course sections/ semester utilizing EduCat (Moodle)

History and Decisions• Began Using Moodle during the 2008

school year• Became the primary LMS in 2010• Prior to our selection of Moodle we

decided to refer to it as EduCat o In the event we change to another LMS

in the future, we can still refer to it as EduCat

o We knew we would want to use Moodle for other purposes, and could avoid confusion by having different names.

Why Have Separate Installations for Different Uses?

• Support from Different Areaso Current Courses and Archives - Center for

Instructional Technology in Educationo Share server - Information Services

• Different time frames for updates/ maintenance

• Support for non-NMU users

Current Servers for Courses (EduCat)• Production - Current courses in session• Test - Exact Duplicate of Production for

testing upgrades, security patches, plugins, theme changes, code that has been reviewed on Dev

• Development - testing ground for all new code

• Archive - Read only versions of previous semesters with student data (submissions, posts, grades)

Other Current Moodle Servers• Share - collaboration site for faculty/staff

committees, student groups and organizations not necessarily tied to semesters or courses

• Online Orientation - New student orientation for those who can’t attend an on campus session

• Math Placement and Chemistry Readiness Testing - Removes holds and inserts scores into Banner for course prerequisites

Usage Stats by Server• Share

o 381 Groups (courses)o 9580 Users

• Online Orientationo 4 Sessionso 780 Users (Freshman)

• Math Placement and Chemistry Readiness Testingo Just a pilot right now

Share Server DetailsFaculty/ Staff CommitteesStudent OrganizationsAccreditationDepartment SitesCampus Wide DiscussionsGrant Writing/Projects/ReportingBoard of TrusteesCurriculum Change DocumentsTraining

Top 20 Share Groups in Cloud Form

Top 50 Share Groups (based on views over a three day period)

Unintended Benefits of Multiple Uses• Notice something that was missed in

testing on non-mission critical “Share” server before it impacts “EduCat” server

• Non credit courses can be offered on a machine that will not impact credit earning courses.

• We can offer collaboration with off-site vendors (building and trades, Johnson Controls)

• Possibility to Virtualize smaller instances• More streamlined servers (Oracle, etc…)

Challenges, Issues, Limitations• Read-Only instance of Moodle can be

trickyo Exporting Gradebook (writing temp files)o Hiding items after the semester

backup/archive• Support for non-NMU users• Support for new first-time freshman

who are not familiar with Moodle.• Updating• Increasing # of courses outside the

usual semester dates

Potential Future Servers• HR/Safety Training• Continuing Education• Online course training• Internal Department Training

What are your non-course uses of Moodle?

Freshman AdvisingNursing Practicum (Feedback from clinical sites)

Pre-test for Nursing MajorsNew Employee TrainingCourse Material - from previous courses for new faculty

Contact Information

Thomas GillespieInstructional Technologist

Northern Michigan Universitytgillesp@nmu.edu

Chris LewisInformation Systems ManagerNorthern Michigan University

clewis@nmu.edu

http://goo.gl/UZhDh2