If you didn't get a chance to attend the live webinar, you can view it on-demand, here.
Over the next week, we'll be providing more answers to your questions for presenter Blake Haggerty, Assistant Director of Instructional Design for the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Stay tuned!
Q: How many course sections did you migrate?
- Clark: "We initially migrated approximately 100 courses from our previous system."
Q: Have you customized the Moodle core application?
- Clark: "We have not."
Q: What would the speakers do differently if you could plan your migration all over again?
- Clark: "I would have gotten a core group of key LMS users to be a part of the discovery process earlier. Also, the migration tool we used was still somewhat new, and there were several items which I would have preferred to be imported in a different way than they were. For example, WebCT assignments came in as "single file upload" assignments instead of "Advanced Uploading of Files" assignments. We ended up having to change most of them to Advanced Uploading... because of the desired functionality. The WebCT web pages also came in as htm files, rather than web page resources, which meant a lot of work manually converting them as well. I'd say it's a great idea to test out your content migration tool asap, and then revise it accordingly so that you get the best and easiest conversion that requires the least amount of extra manual labor."
Q: Where do you see Moodle's functionality beyond just classroom shells? For example, how can Moodle be used to create forums/build community for online students?
- Clark: "Our RN to BSN program is using Moodle extensively - for many uses such as: Student Forum, Faculty Forum/Lounge, Student and Faculty Orientations, Advising, student leadership and governance, resource sites, preceptor sites, etc."
Did you develop templates for faculty to help them get started?
- Clark: "We did. The templates have some of the basics we figure most courses would want to have. They also show new instructors how a course can be set up, and then they can customize to suit their needs."
Q: "How did you manage student records/transcripts while running two systems?"
- Clark: "Our instructors still put the final grades into the Student Information System - so it didn't matter which LMS had the course in it."
Q: Was all of your content home grown? Any courses, eBooks or other learning materials purchased from vendors?
- Clark: "Some faculty use vendor or textbook company produced materials, but only a handful did so."
Q: What tool do you use for course evaluation, i.e., questionnaire, feedback, etc?
- Clark: "We've primarily been using SurveyMonkey."
Q: Which tool did you use to implement course fees and payment?
- Clark: "This is part of the Banner SIS."
Q: How did you handle the setup of the pre-requisites for the courses through Moodle?
- Clark: "Pre-requisites are handled by the SIS, not Moodle in our case."
Q: For your theme, did you use Moodlerooms or an independent developer? Any issue regarding improvements or enhancements going forward?
- Clark: "We used a standard theme - Autumn at first. After a few years we changed to using the MR customized theme builder and built one that matches our web site - but used part of the same Autumn banner in the new one. The result is that it had continuity but ended up matching the other Delhi branded sites."
How do you handle cross-listed courses? Is it managed by Moodlerooms? How much of Moodlerooms’ feature set is your institution utilizing and to what extent?
- Clark: "Banner handles cross-listed courses - and the Luminis Message Broker digester. We also allow faculty to request new course shells and primarily use that for requesting META courses. We use MR's "Power" platform (not joule), but I'd say we use 50% or slightly more of the features. There are tons of blocks and activities, but not all are used in many cases."
Is an active user considered someone who actually logs in or is it all registered students who are in Banner?
- Clark: "Someone who has a Moodle login."
Q: What tools have you used to develop content? Any issue with format issues during the conversion?
- Clark: "Primarily just the HTML toobar and/or Word/Powerpoint to develop content. One issue was that WebCT web pages were imported as .htm files in the files area of Moodle, rather than as web page resources. The result is that faculty members who wanted to update a web page would have to know and edit in raw HTML. To remedy this, we developed a short video showing them how to copy the HTML and paste it into a new web page resource for easy editing, but it did wind up making a lot of work for those who had many HTML pages in WebCT. Ideally the migration tool can be customized to prevent this before it is imported."
Q: Do you deliver any courses live online? (Wimba? Eluminate?) Are they integrated in Moodle?
- Clark: "We don't. Some instructors do interviews or presentations live - and we have used DimDim, or now, Wiziq for those."
Since migrating, have you seen a big change in course evaluations from your students?
- Clark: "We started using Survey Monkey after the migration, so I don't have any data from before."
Q: How do Moodlerooms’ upgrade schedules work? What version of 1.9 are you currently operating on?
- Clark: "We are on the latest release, 1.9.11+. Generally Moodlerooms just handles important security patches as they come out, and then for more major releases, we are scheduled for an upgrade. With 2.0 we are able to call when we will upgrade, and haven't yet started that process as we are still looking at how to proceed internally."
Thanks for reading
- Brad
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