Moodle at Brandeis University The LATTE Experience at

Moodle at Brandeis University: The LATTE Experience at Brandeis after One Year Adam Lipkin Academic Systems Administrator & Darwin F. Scott Assistant Director for Research and Instruction, Creative Arts & Humanities Library and Technology Services Brandeis University ACRL NEC LOCI Panel Discussion: Course Management Alternatives Tufts University March 14, 2008

Moodle at Brandeis = LATTE Learning and Teaching Technology Environment LATTE marketed as a learning and teaching environment not just a course management system

Course Management Systems at Brandeis • Course management systems in use by the Brandeis community for nearly a decade. • Web. CT Campus Edition, the first online course management system at Brandeis, introduced in fall 1997. • In spring and summer 2005, Library and Technology Services (LTS—the newly merged organization of the Brandeis University Libraries and Information Technology Services) began the transition to Web. CT Vista, an updated version of Web. CT’s course management system.

Why Replace the Web. CT Vista Course Management System at Brandeis? • Because of Web. CT Vista’s system architecture, heavy ongoing use by faculty and students made the Web. CT database grow by 1 to 2 gigabytes each day. • This rapid growth produced incidents of system downtime, and future downtime was certain. • We could not guarantee recovery of course materials or content if Web. CT Vista were to fail. • Web. CT’s growth also prevented regular backups of course content—files inadvertently deleted from a Web. CT course might be impossible to recover.

Why Replace the Web. CT Vista Course Management System at Brandeis? (cont. ) • Even with successful file recovery, faculty and students might be forced to recreate some of the work completed before the file loss. • Since Web. CT’s acquisition by Blackboard in 2006, LTS staff experienced poor vendor support for the Web. CT Vista system at Brandeis. • Without adequate vendor support, LTS often cannot quickly resolve technical issues faced by faculty and students.

The Deciding Moment When did LTS first recognize the risk associated with continued use of Web. CT Vista? • Fall 2006 was the first semester during which faculty exclusively used Web. CT Vista for their courses— 550 Brandeis courses were now dependent on Web. CT Vista. • Throughout that semester, LTS staff monitored the Vista database and became increasingly alarmed when incidents of system downtime were caused by the database’s rapid growth and ballooning size.

LATTE Project Time Line • LATTE website launched April 18, 2007 • Faculty workshops begin April 25, 2007 A Summer of Total LATTE Immersion involving ca. 75% of the LTS staff of 102 • LATTE sandbox provided for faculty May 1, 2007 • Course content migration from Web. CT begins May 9, 2007 • Course template completed June 15, 2007 • Launch LATTE Help Web site July 20, 2007 • Launch LATTE learning environment for community use August 1, 2007

LATTE Project Teams for the 2007 Development and Implementation • Project Administration • Communications & Marketing • Functionality • Course Content Migration • Training • Technology Infrastructure • Support • User Acceptance Testing

The Result: Total Moodle at Brandeis & a Successful Transition and Implementation

The Brandeis Web. CT Look

The Brandeis LATTE (Moodle) Look

LATTE Technical Facts • Brandeis presently using Moodle 1. 8 • In August, will upgrade to Moodle 1. 8. 4 – Presently testing compatibility with present boltons, new features, etc. behind the scenes • LATTE upgrades – Major upgrade (LATTE 1. 2) in January 2008 – Another major upgrade scheduled in May 2008 – 3 rd major upgrade in 2008 will be in August with the upgrade to Moodle 1. 8. 4

LATTE / Moodle Technical Environment • We use Development, Test, and Production servers. • No changes are made to Production until carefully examined on Development and Test. • Virtualized environment using Xen allows us to increase space on the fly. • LATTE production management staff: – 3 FTEs on back end of project. – Work in close tandem with staff of Research and Instruction Services (front end) as well as the technical team overseeing the technology infrastructure.

LATTE Statistics • 587 out of 987 potential courses across Brandeis are using LATTE as of spring 2008. • Only 27 out of 987 are using Web. CT. – Confined mostly to the distance education courses in the Division of Graduate Professional Studies). – All will transfer to LATTE in summer 2008. • 508 courses use the syllabus tool. • Runs 24/7, with only 1. 5 hours of downtime (a single outage) in 7. 5 months of service.

LATTE Support at Brandeis

LATTE Home Page

LATTE Staff Support (The Front Lines) • 13 Research and Instruction Services staff members – 10 reference / subject specialist librarians – 2 instructional technologist – 1 multimedia specialist • 18 students • LATTE Support overseen by one Assistant Director for Research and Instruction Services (interacting with Director and second Assistant Director). • Support offered in person, by phone, and online (via a report ticketing queue). • LATTE workshops offered by staff throughout each semester.

Faculty Resource Center • The LATTE Support Center • Located adjacent the Information Commons • Hours: – Monday–Thursday: 9: 00 a. m. – midnight – Friday: 9: 00 a. m. – 8 p. m. (with phone and online service until 10 to cover distance learning programs) – Saturday: 10: 00 a. m. – 8 p. m. – Sunday: 10: 00 a. m. – midnight • RIS staff member on duty 9– 9 Monday–Thursday, 9– 5 Friday, 1 – 5 Saturday, 1– 9 Sunday. • In addition, two student staff members work in the FRC during all open hours.