Faculty committee looking into possible blackboard replacement

The Academic Technology Advisory Committee is currently looking into a new course-management system to replace Blackboard. ATAC has been considering the move since spring 2006. The committee presented the faculty with a survey to find out how Blackboard was being used. Harry Brown, chair of ATAC during fall 2006, explained that the results warranted research into other course-management systems.

"While there are faculty who are greatly invested in Blackboard who would oppose this, the results of that survey showed that faculty are demanding certain functions that Blackboard doesn't provide," Brown said. "This initiative, in great part, comes from the faculty themselves."

Carol Smith, Associate CIO for Instructional and Learning Services, said the push for a new system stems from the need to integrate Blackboard with the University's online systems. Smith has been working with the Faculty Information Technology Support (FITS) team and ATAC to best assess problems with Blackboard. The current version of Blackboard that DePauw is using is the basic version, which prevents integration with online systems.

Based on ATAC's research, the University can upgrade Blackboard for $50,000 to $60,000 more a year, or it can switch to an open-source course-management system. Smith said the committee decided to do additional research to explore all options before making the costly upgrade.

"We could go ahead and purchase the next level up, and that would enable us to have the integration ability. That's an option," Smith said. "But rather than jump in and do that, we said, 'Well, let's step back and see what others are doing and what other options are out there.' We haven't really made a decision until we've fully assessed everything."

ATAC has looked at several different options but is currently exploring Moodle, an open-source course-management system. Jeff Hansen, the current chair of ATAC, said the system solves some of the issues faculty currently have with Blackboard.

"As we've looked at some of the options for course management systems, [Moodle] kind of stood out to us," Hansen said. "It doesn't mean that it's the only one, but it's what we're looking at right now."

After looking at another open-source system called Sakai, Brown and the committee decided Moodle would work best for the University.

"We considered the kind of university that we are, and it turns out that Moodle is more useful to a small liberal arts school," Brown said. "Moodle has been adapted more successfully by smaller schools, while Sakai has been adapted more successfully by larger schools."

ATAC currently has several faculty members who are testing Moodle to determine the functionality the system would provide. Though ATAC will not make its recommendation about Moodle or the Blackboard upgrade until March 30, faculty and staff can get an idea of how the process is moving along this Thursday when FITS will be holding a meeting in the Roy O. West Library's media classroom.

Smith said the meeting will consist of five faculty members talking about their objectives for using a course-management system and reflecting on the pros and cons of their personal use of Moodle.

"It's a good opportunity to hear from them what their initial thoughts are about the system," Smith said. "There will be opportunity as well for people who want to just sit down in the lab and see what Moodle is like.