Blending Open and Closed Learning Management Systems

in a Liberal Studies Programme

Sean Dowling and Mark Rossiter

Sharjah Higher Colleges of Technology

Abstract

Online learning at third-level institutions has traditionally been delivered using learning

management systems (LMS) such as WebCT, Blackboard and Moodle. However, despite

these LMS having some advantages such as allowing faculty to manage students’ online

learning and to quickly publish course content, there are also some disadvantages. The main

disadvantage is that traditional LMS-based courses are closed in nature, being both time

bound and walled off. One solution to this problem is to use web-based blogs to deliver online

courses, but this solution also has some associated problems such as privacy issues,

intellectual property concerns and assessment. A way to address the above problems is to

combine open, web-based components and closed, traditional LMS-based components in a

blended LMS. One such blended LMS, used in the Liberal Studies programme at the Sharjah

Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates, is featured in this paper. The

paper describes in detail how the blended LMS has been created by using a locally-hosted,

WordPress multi-site blog to deliver the open, web-based component and a traditional LMS,

Blackboard 9, to deliver the closed component. The benefits of this system are discussed, as

well as the problems encountered during the design and implementation stages.

Keywords: LMS, Blended LMS, open learning systems, liberal studies

Introduction

Since the mid-1990s, the use of enterprise-level learning management systems (LMS), such

as Blackboard, WebCT and Moodle, by educational institutions, particularly tertiary-level,

has been increasing steadily. Not only have the number of LMS installations increased, but

the number of tools provided by LMS vendors and third parties have also increased. These

tools allow faculty to manage their students’ learning and to quickly publish course content.

However, the provision of all these tools is not without some drawbacks. First, the sheer size

of current LMS can be daunting to novice users; therefore, they tend to use only the most

basic tools. In addition, it has resulted in the cost of LMS increasing dramatically. To justify

the costs, institutions expect their faculty to use LMS as much as possible. Another limitation

of current, well-established LMS is the difficulty of integrating emerging, web-based

technologies into the LMS. This, together with limited use of existing LMS tools, has

resulted in LMS-based courses with similar look and functionality and limited creativity.

Finally, learning using current LMS is closed in nature: LMS-based courses are both time-

bound and walled-off.

However, with advances in web-based technology and blogging applications, it is now

possible to design web-based, open LMS that are cost-effective, relatively easy to use and

open up learning. These web-based, open LMS allow content to be shared, greater

collaboration between teachers and students, and for students to become producers, rather

than just consumers, of content. But the fact that web-based LMS are open does cause some

concerns in regard to privacy for all stakeholders, be they institutions, faculty or students.

In this article, an example of a blended learning management system (LMS) that uses both

web-based (open) and traditional (closed) LMS components to deliver a liberal studies

programme is featured. First, the benefits and limitations of traditional and web-based LMS

are outlined. Next, a LMS that blends the best features is discussed. Then, there is a detailed

discussion on how such one blended LMS has been used to deliver a liberal studies

programme in a third-level educational institution. Finally, the benefits of the system, and

some potential problem areas, are discussed.

Current LMS and their benefits/limitations

In the 1990s, universities and colleges were faced with a variety of new challenges such as

rising costs, reduced budgets, different student demographics and increased accountability

(Brown 1998). The introduction of LMS in the early to mid-1990s seemed to be an answer to

these challenges. The main benefit of these LMS was that the standardized interfaces and

tools provided allowed flexible online delivery of learning materials and student support

which “could be centrally managed, resourced and monitored” (Brown, 2010, pg 2). The

result was that by the mid-2000s, LMS were ubiquitous on college campuses in both the US

and the UK (Molenda and Bichelmayer, 2005; Brown, 2010).

However, this rapid introduction of LMS was perhaps driven more by administrative needs

than by pedagogical needs, and, according to Mott (2010, n.p.), “several reports confirm that

instructors overwhelmingly use content distribution and administrative tools in the LMS

while using interactive tools only sparingly”. Consequently, having had time to view LMS

more critically, educators have expressed concerns over limitations in performance and

design features of current LMS (Ionnou and Hanafin, 2008), particularly as emerging web-

based technologies are forcing them to reconsider how learning and technology are

combined.

But what are these limitations? Mott (2010) lists three. First, courses delivered using LMS are

time-bound; once a course is finished, students are locked out, thereby limiting opportunities

for lifelong learning. Second, courses are walled off from other courses and the wider web;

therefore, students cannot share and collaborate with others outside their course, negating the

learning potential resulting from the network effect [i.e. the greater the number of users in a

network, the more possible connections exist, resulting in greater opportunities for learning

(Bush and Mott 2009)]. Finally, LMS-based courses are very teacher-centric; material is

uploaded by the teacher and students’ contributions are restricted to uploading assignments,

doing quizzes and perhaps posting to discussion forums (Dowling, 2011b). Lane (2009)

writes that these limitations are caused by the inherent pedagogies of LMS. She believes that

LMS were originally designed based on the traditional approach of presentation and

assessment. The core or default tools that educators encounter are those that allow them to

present content, assess learning and create discussion forums. Once these tools are mastered,

educators, particularly those with limited IT skills, are often content with their use of LMS

and fail to experiment with the more collaborative learning tools that are now being provided

by LMS vendors and third parties. When used in this limited way, Arvan (2009, n.p.) believes

that

“the LMS serves as an affirming technology of traditional teaching. The

instructor doesn’t challenge the LMS very much, and, in turn, the LMS doesn’t

challenge the instructor. The student gets the convenience benefit from

electronic distribution of documents [and grades] but little more.”

So despite having the benefit of allowing faculty to manage their students’ learning and to

quickly publish course content, courses delivered on traditional LMS are very often closed in

nature and enhance teacher-centric pedagogies. Current LMS vendors are attempting to

address these limitations, but another alternative is to use web-based, open learning

management systems.

Web-based LMS and their benefits/limitations

Traditional websites can be designed to function as a LMS. However, designing and

maintaining a website-based LMS requires a range of technical skills, something beyond the

average educator. However, the use of blogs, or weblogs, is a simple alternative. Blogs have

developed considerably over the last few years. In its most basic form, a blog is used to post

information to the Web on a regular basis, with the latest “posts” being on top. Readers of

these posts can also add comments; thereby, making a blog an interactive entity. Current

blogging platforms, for example WordPress, are a lot more sophisticated. Pages can be added

for additional information and widgets (tools) can be added to sidebars that add a lot of

functionality and personalization (see figure 1 below).

Figure 1. Blog with post, extra pages and widgets.

Blogs can be hosted on servers anywhere on the World Wide Web (WWW). This is fine for

individual users or educational institutions with limited resources. However, some

educational institutions may require hosting learning platforms on local servers to allow for

customization and to ensure that important learning resources are not lost. WordPress.org

solves this problem by allowing the blogging system to be downloaded and hosted on a local

web server. In addition, WordPress.org has added a multi-site feature to its blogging

platform. Underneath the root blog, an unlimited number of blogs can be added. The network

administrator can control these blogs, automatically updating all blogs with new releases,

themes and plugins. This ensures consistency across all the blogs in the system, a very

desirable feature in an organization, as well as savings in development and maintenance time.

Whether blogs are hosted on external or local servers, they can be combined into a learning

system, managed individually by faculty and as a group by a network administrator. As the

blogs are web-based, they can be accessed by anyone at any time. In addition, an unlimited

amount of blogs can be added to the system for faculty, students and administrators.

Therefore, as Dowling (2011b) writes, it is possible to create a huge educational digital

learning space, or “open participatory learning ecosystem” (Seely Brown and Adler, 2008,

n.p.). In this learning space, there is potential for teachers to become learners and for learners

to become tutors and mentors (Banyard and Underwood, 2008). Moreover, as the learning

space expands, the number of connections among members and between members and

content also expands, thereby increasing the number of learning opportunities.

However, use of web-based LMS is not without problems. One major challenge is addressing

issues of privacy, both at an institutional level and a personal level. Institutions may not be

comfortable with content being open to public viewing (Dowling, 2011a); they may have

concerns about losing a competitive edge. Similarly, faculty may have concerns about

intellectual property copyright. Furthermore, Light (2011) writes that some learners may be

very reluctant to publish to a public viewing space, particularly before it has gone through a

drafting process and been vetted by a teacher. Another challenge is that of assessment

management, one of the major strengths of traditional LMS.

A Blended LMS Solution

One solution to the specific limitations of traditional and web-based LMS is to combine the

best features of both. For example, course content could be delivered via a web-based blog.

This ensures that it can be accessed by anyone, regardless of whether they are enrolled in the

course or not. However, content that needs to be kept private, such as assessments,

assignments, student-generated content and grade books, could be accessed via a traditional

LMS. Figure 2 below shows a model of such a blended LMS solution.

Figure 2. A blended LMS solution.

One important thing to note about the above model is the communication patterns with the

World Wide Web (WWW). Using a web-based LMS, communication is two way. The course

content can be accessed by anyone using the WWW; similarly, these users can interact with

the course content by adding comments to the blog hosting the content. However, using a

traditional LMS, the communication flow is one way; links to web-based resources (e.g.

course content) can be put in traditional LMS, but content in the traditional LMS is not

available to WWW users.

In the remainder of this paper, the authors will discuss how a blended LMS, combining an

open, web-based LMS (WordPress blogging platform) and a closed, traditional LMS

(Blackboard 9) has been designed, developed and implemented for a liberal studies

programme at a third-level educational institution.

Introducing a Blended LMS to a Liberal Studies Programme

The research setting

The research featured in this article has been done at the Sharjah Higher Colleges of

Technology (SHCT). SHCT is divided into two campuses, one male and one female, with

861 and 2,366 students respectively. SHCT is part of the federal HCT system, a community

of more than 19,000 students (Emirati nationals) and almost 2,000 staff (multinational) based

at seventeen campuses throughout the United Arab Emirates. HCT has traditionally provided

two and three-year diploma level courses but these are now being phased out by full

Bachelor-level courses (started 2011). As part of the degree programme, students must take a

certain number of liberal studies courses for each year of their studies. The online delivery of

these liberal studies courses is the focus of this paper.

The Liberal Studies programme

The liberal studies programme started in the 2011/2012 academic year. Perhaps the main

reason for introducing for the programme was to develop students’ critical thinking, reading

and writing skills. According to the Hechinger Report (2011, n.p.),

“Students who majored in the traditional liberal arts — including the social sciences,

humanities, natural sciences and mathematics — showed significantly greater gains

over time than other students in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing

skills.”

Currently, there are four courses: Introduction to Literature, Creative Writing, Critical

Thinking, and Health and Wellness. First-year students are expected to take two of these

courses each semester. Each course consists of four hours of classes per week over an

eighteen-week semester. In the first year of the programme, there were 1,908 student

enrollments, 536 male and 1,372 female (note: the actual number of students was 189 male

and 464 female; most students were enrolled in four courses). A total of 20 teachers taught on

the programme. Table 1 below shows details of student course enrollment and number of

faculty teaching each course.

Table 1 Enrollment in the liberal studies programme and courses Course Semester 1 Semester 2 Male Female Teachers Male Female Teachers Introduction to Literature

79 149 5 73 206 6

Creative Writing 42 150 4 87 222 9 Critical Thinking 0 203 6 125 219 6 Health and Wellness 106 117 4 24 106 3

As the first cohort of Bachelor students progress through the programme, more liberal studies

courses will be developed. Since the programme was being built from scratch, it gave the

course designers opportunities for experimenting with the course delivery, both in the

traditional classroom and online.

Current online course delivery and the sharing problem

At the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT), online courses have traditionally been

delivered using the Blackboard Vista (BBV) learning management system. BBV courses for

the respective academic courses are created at the start of the semester and teachers, students

and any existing course material are uploaded to these courses. At the end of the semester, the

course is archived. At this point, only specific teachers (the course designers) can access the

course; students and other teachers are locked out. According to Dowling (2012), this

“locking out” is the main reason for the lack of materials being shared between faculty

members and between campuses. Unless manually added, only faculty teaching specific

courses can access the BBV courses and only during the official academic term.

This inability to view and access other courses results in a number of problems. First,

students cannot access material from previous courses and they cannot look ahead to courses

that they would potentially like to study. Second, without requesting special access, faculty

(and students) cannot access useful materials that their colleagues in other campuses are

developing, leading to duplication of resources. Conversely, despite courses having the same

outlines and final assessments, not being able to see the online offerings at other campuses

may result in major differences in content. Therefore, to make learning and learning

resources more open, other ways of delivering online content needed to be considered.

Using a web-based LMS for online delivery of the Liberal Studies courses

To solve the above sharing problem, it was decided to deliver the liberal studies courses via a

WordPress.org multi-site blog. The software was downloaded from WordPress.org and the

system was installed on a local server at Sharjah HCT. This ensured that the hct.ac.ae domain

name was included in the web address (url), a requirement for web-based learning materials

within the HCT system. In addition, by using WordPress multi-site blogs, a network of

individual course blogs could be built under the main liberal studies blog (see figure 3

below); this network could then be managed centrally by the network administrator, ensuring

consistency across all blogs. Most importantly, as the network of blogs was web-based, it

could be shared across the HCT system of colleges. Without the need to gain special

permissions, faculty teaching the same students but different courses could now see what

their students were learning in other courses. Similarly, faculty teaching similar courses

across the HCT system could now access content from the Sharjah liberal studies courses.

There was also a major benefit for students: they would now be able to access resources from

courses that they had previously studied or would study in the future. (Note: The liberal

studies portal can be accessed at http://shc-edtech.hct.ac.ae/liberal_studies/).

Figure 3. The Liberal Studies programme WordPress site.

Another advantage of using the WordPress blog system over Blackboard Vista (BBV) for

course delivery was the level of design flexibility. As shown in figure 3 above, a menu was

added to allow students easy access to their courses. Furthermore, widgets could be added to

give information about faculty, select certain news categories, learning links and year 1

courses (as the programme develops, links to courses in years 2 to 4 will be added). Selecting

these course links gives access to the individual courses (see figure 4 below), which in turn

has links to specific learning modules (see figure 5 below) and other important links. Thus,

an “educational digital learning space” (Dowling, 2011b, n.p.) or “open participatory learning

ecosystem” (Seely Brown and Adler, 2008, n.p.) has been created, something that would have

been very difficult to do using BBV.

Figure 4. The Critical Thinking course site.

Figure 5. A learning module in the Critical Thinking course.

Despite the benefit of a more open learning environment resulting from using WordPress

blogs, there were still some major limitations. The first limitation was in regard to the

delivery of assessments and assignments. All the liberal studies courses required using certain

assessment tools, something which a WordPress blog doesn’t have. The second limitation

concerned issues of privacy. While the blogs could be used as both a content-delivery tool

and as a forum for viewers to add comments, there were concerns about student content being

made available for public viewing. Even though comments could be moderated and male

students probably wouldn’t object to their comments being made public, because of the

cultural sensitivities in the UAE, it would have been difficult to publish the comments of

female students. Therefore, it was necessary to use a traditional LMS to address the issues of

assessment and privacy.

Using a traditional LMS for assessments and student-generated content

As the Higher Colleges of Technology were in the process of piloting a new LMS,

Blackboard 9 (BB9), it was decided to use this to deliver assessments, or tests in BB9

terminology (see figure 6 below).

Figure 6. Assessments on BB9.

In addition, BB9 had the added advantage over the previous LMS, Blackboard Vista (BBV),

of rich interactive tools such as discussion forums, blogs and wikis. Even though the LMS

environment is closed, using these tools would create a more open learning environment,

giving students more learning opportunities in the process. Table 1 below shows the BB9

discussion boards for the Critical Thinking course. Each section of students had their own

discussion board, which contained a number of forums and threads within these forums (see

figures 7 and 8 below).

Table 1 Discussion Boards on in the Critical Thinking BB9 course

Figure 7. Example of an individual section discussion board.

Figure 8: Example of a discussion thread.

However, it’s important to note that the WordPress blog and the corresponding BB9 course

were not mutually exclusive; for those with login credentials (i.e. students and teachers

enrolled in specific courses), the BB9 assessments and online discussions could be accessed

via the blog (see figure 9 below). Similarly, the content delivered via the blog could be

accessed by BB9 weblinks (see figure 10 below).

Figure 9. Links in the WordPress blog to BB9 assessments and discussion.

Figure 10. BB9 weblinks to learning modules on the WordPress blog.

Both the WordPress blogs and the BB9 courses were part of World Wide Web (WWW), the

only difference being that the blogs could be accessed by anyone whereas BB9 course access

was restricted to registered users. Figure 11 below illustrates the interactions between the

WordPress blogs, BB9 courses and the WWW.

Figure 11. Liberal Studies Programme blended LMS.

Discussion

The Survey

Mid-way through the second semester, a short survey was sent to the twenty faculty teaching

in the liberal studies programme. The survey consisted of fourteen questions using a four-

point Likert scale, one open-ended question and a space for additional comments. Sixteen

faculty, whose responses were anonymous, completed the survey and their responses are

shown in the Appendix. Perhaps the most striking result from the survey was that all

respondents either agreed or agreed strongly that the concept of blending open and closed

components to deliver online materials, both in general and for the liberal studies programme,

is good. In addition, the majority of the respondents felt that for future liberal studies course

development, using a blended LMS consisting of open WordPress blogs and closed BB9

components was favourable to that of just using BB9. The results from this survey indicated

that faculty saw benefits to using more open learning materials.

The Benefits of using an open, Web-based LMS

There were some clear benefits to using a web-based LMS. First, as most course content was

open, liberal studies students and teachers, irrespective of the courses in which they were

enrolled, could access a wide range of learning materials. In fact, any web user, be they HCT

students or faculty from other campuses or external parties, could now access, and comment

on, the liberal studies courses. This has another potential benefit: the wider audience, and

subsequent closer scrutiny of courses and learning material, may encourage course designers

to be more careful with their course design, be it for the want of praise or the fear of ridicule.

From an educational technology perspective, it is hoped that by showing alternative methods

of content delivery to faculty, they will be encouraged to experiment with ways to make their

content more accessible, and shareable, to others. In addition, as the authors felt that both

students and faculty were becoming bored with extensive use of the Blackboard LMS, using

alternative ways to deliver learning materials would perhaps freshen up the teaching and

learning experience. Finally, using WordPress multi-site blogs as the web-based LMS opened

up other interesting possibilities. As an unlimited amount of sites can be created, there is the

possibility to provide sites to both teachers and students so that they can develop ePortfolios,

personal websites or communities of practice, creating a large, open learning network in the

process.

However, observations from the implementation of the blended LMS, and the results from

the survey, also indicated that there were a number of problem areas to be addressed.

The Problems of using a Blended LMS for Liberal Studies Programme

The initial problem with using the blended LMS, specifically the web-based, open

component, was persuading faculty to make their materials available to all. In the initial

meetings with the four course designers, three of them had no objection to their content being

made public, but one was hesitant, citing instances of materials being misappropriated in the

past. The survey also revealed that 56% of the respondents were reluctant for their learning

materials to be made openly available on the internet (despite the fact that they all agreed to

the concept of blending open and closed LMS components). One reason for this was concerns

about intellectual property. Despite the fact that it is illegal to take something from the Web

and make it your own, in reality, it’s a very easy thing to do. Persuading faculty of the

benefits of Open Educational Resources and Creative Commons licenses may convince some

faculty to be more comfortable about sharing materials on the Web. In addition, there were

concerns about materials being criticised because of incorrect use and the fact that they were

still works in progress. The hurried nature of the liberal studies programme development was

perhaps responsible for this: materials were being developed as the courses were being

taught. Ideally, the courses should have been developed, piloted, corrected and then made

openly available.

Once the initial problem of persuading the course designers to open up their content was

overcome, the next problem was to persuade them to use a WordPress blog for content

delivery. Faculty had become comfortable using shared network drives and the Blackboard

LMS to deliver content. Using the blog meant adding another layer of technology, and

learning how to use it, to faculty members’ already busy schedules. While adding content to

WordPress blogs is a relatively straightforward process and something that the selected

courses designers mastered without too much difficulty, it still required an investment of time

and effort on their part to acquire the necessary skill set. One particular area of difficulty was

uploading materials to a web folder. Initially, this was done using Adobe Dreamweaver and

later using a simpler, Windows-based solution. However, after initially creating the content

pages, it was noted that after changes were made to materials, the updated materials were not

uploaded to the web folder (see figure 12 below). This was reflected in the survey results:

access of the learning materials by both faculty and students was done predominantly via a

network drive as it was easier to put new or updated material there. To solve this problem, it

would be necessary to make access to the web folder the same as working with a normal

network folder. Once the initial link has been set up in the blog, any changes made to the

content would automatically be reflected in the blog. Also, one faculty mentioned in the

survey that it was difficult to customize the blogs because they didn’t have access. This was

done deliberately so as to keep the blogs organized; however, it indicates that there is a need

for faculty to have their own WordPress blogs. They could then use these blogs to customize

the teaching of their courses and make additional materials available for their students rather

than relying on the network drive.

Figure 12. Note from course designer about location of updated versions.

Another problem that needed to be overcome was the concern that students (and teachers)

might be confused with having content split between the WordPress blog and the equivalent

BB9 course. This was made even more confusing by the fact that they had to access the

network drive for updated versions of content (see figure 12 above) and additional learning

materials. Having all content within the BB9 courses would have been less confusing for

everyone. The solution to this was to provide weblinks within the BB9 courses to the learning

modules on the blogs. However, this option was rarely used: the survey indicated that the

network (G) drive was by far the most common way for both students and faculty to access

the learning materials.

The survey also indicated that faculty were unhappy with BB9 due to technical problems. In

the first semester, when use of BB9 was still in the pilot stage, there were problems with

online assessments which resulted in some faculty switching back to paper-based

assessments. While this problem was not the result of using a blended LMS, it did create

some negativity towards using a blended LMS for online delivery. In hindsight, it would have

perhaps been better to have used BB Vista, our older, and more reliable, LMS in conjunction

with the WordPress blogs. Faculty would have then only had to get used to one new system.

Another problem, from the perspective of the educational technology department, was

supporting both the web-based and traditional LMS. This involved extra time and effort in

setting up the systems and training and supporting faculty. There is no doubt that continuing

to use Blackboard, in particular BBV, as our main tool to deliver online courses would have

required fewer resources.

A final problem was the lack of a driving force behind the uptake and continued development

of the blended LMS solution. One of the authors, as educational technology coordinator, set

us the system and trained the course designer, but had very little developmental input after

that. The other author, as the programme supervisor, had hoped to spend additional time on

making the WordPress blogs more dynamic and an integral part of the programme. However,

due to work constraints, this was not possible. It is hoped that he will have the opportunity to

do this in the next academic year, thereby making the blended LMS a more effective

teaching/communication tool.

Conclusion

The 2011/2012 academic year was an important one for the Higher Colleges of Technology;

it was the beginning of the move to a full Bachelor-level programme. As part of this move, a

compulsory liberal studies programme was introduced; students would be required to take

liberal studies courses for each semester of their four-year Bachelor’s programme. Sharjah

Higher Colleges of Technology introduced four new liberal studies courses as part of

students’ first-year programme. The learning materials for these courses were made available

to students using a blended LMS approach. Most content was delivered via a web-based,

open WordPress multi-site blog. Content that needed to be kept private, for example

assessments and student-generated content, was delivered by a traditional, closed LMS

(Blackboard 9).

Despite the benefits, such as open access and the potential to create more learning

opportunities, of using the blended LMS, there were a number of problem areas to be

overcome. These problems include the reluctance of faculty to share learning resources, the

extra time and effort required to master new technologies, and confusion resulting from

multiple sources of content deliver. While there is no doubt that blended LMS have the

potential to create a richer learning environment and that faculty are generally enthusiastic

about using them, without addressing the above problems, faculty may be reluctant to move

away from using traditional, closed methods of delivering online content to those that are

more open.

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Appendix: Survey Results

3. If you answered “Agree Strongly” or “Agree” to question 2, please give your reasons.

• Some are context specific and may be misconstrued

• It's my intellectual property and it's of high quality. The internet materials are 90%

substandard in many ways.

• Majority would be fine but not everything

• I think it is good to have the material "out there" from the point of view of sharing with

other colleges. Also, this hasn't been done yet, but the idea that the overarching Liberal

Studies site could become a forum for all sorts of things and help create a dept identity.

However we need the BB Learn component as it will provide the security we need for

student output in this culture (especially female). Also the obvious advantage of automatic

marking.

• I am happy to share with a sharing group but not just give materials to anyone who may

not use them in the correct way, and then the author can look very 'stupid" - voice of

experience here!

• My only concern about my materials being made open to everyone is that they are always

works in progress. I often change parts of my materials to fit the needs of a particular class

or improve sections I think did not work as well as I would have liked. If one version of

the materials becomes 'the course', then I think those materials are a misrepresentation of

what actually happens in my classes.

• I don't use the materials exactly as laid out - I don't think any teacher does. I like to be able

to customise them for each class's needs

• If I spend hours developing lessons, I do not want people in competing institutions to be

able to just grab them and go into their classes with them. It's an issue of intellectual

property.

• I feel they need to be checked very well and some times that is very difficult.

8. Other Comments

• Online delivery of liberal studies courses is very convenient for students and for teachers as

well. I’m a new faculty and I’m still learning the various ways of online delivery of courses

and I’m strongly in favour of it. Thanks.

• It would be very useful to have some data on how often technical glitches interfered with

lesson/assessment delivery; how well students coped with this type of delivery; how

effective it was in terms of students' learning. Which specific features make it useful not

just from the administrative perspective as a repository for materials and assessment

tool.And the most important question - as learners do we learn i.e. process and retain

information faster because we use faster devices???

• I have not used bb9 yet, sorry

• The contents and the teaching methodology may need to be changed. However there may

also be issues with internet problems online.

• The problem with the WordPress site is that it is not possible (or perhaps possible but not

easy) to customize materials. My preference was to deliver in OneNote because of the

ability to write notes on it, and have students write on it too. Also to insert links to any

other material I was going to use, and to do so in an impromptu way. You can't do this if

you are asking students to download from the WP site rather than the G drive. However, it

is good to have the WP site there as a reference and a backup, and we should also try to

make it into a department news site/forum.

• BB9 changes too much and has the logic the designers - not the shop floor. I do not find it

attractive, nor easy nor.... Blogs have more feedback and local team input - colour,

interactive components etc- or are a gateway. And they are free!

• I did not answer the questions that did not apply to me.

• TBH I have not used the WordPress blogs. My students have enough problems coping with

finding the G:\ drive. It's easier to keep things in one place and the G:\ drive allows me to

customise.

• The main problem for us was that BB9 was not stable and using it for assessments was

very stressful. We opted for pen and paper tests to avoid the chaos of a BB9 quiz not

working properly.

• I did not use word press, other faculty loaded up content, I am sure once I use it , it would

be good.

• The mixture of WordPress and BB9 gave the best of both worlds. The WordPress meant

students really had open access to independent learning materials without the more

cumbersome entry into a blackboard system and some technical issues students had off

campus with BBV. The BB9 site gave the security needed to run assessments and closed

discussions.