conducting a smooth sakai transition: planning, acting & maintaining the momentum
DESCRIPTION
In this co-joint presentation session, Marist College and Virginia Tech highlight their experiences of successes and lessons learned during their transition to Sakai, including: * Why the change was needed, * How change is good, * Which Actions support the transition, * How Training sustains the transition, * How to Maintain transition momentum, and * Lessons learned. Virginia Tech and Marist College have both successfully transitioned to Sakai. Reba-Anna Lee (Marist College) will talk about their three-step process to success: Planning, Acting, and Maintaining progress. As Marist College found, a successful transition includes planning communication, meeting the needs for data transfer, providing training and support, and when completed, maintaining user interest in Sakai. Amber D. Evans (Virginia Tech), will talk in detail about how part of VT's successful transition was through effectively addressing Faculty, Staff, and Student concerns using aspects of the Concerns-Based Approach Model to assess the audience and resources; at VT this information was used to map optimal lines of communication and to define support structures to successfully implement Sakai. (This is a reprisal and follow-up to Virginia Tech's 2009 Boston Conference session: "Concerning Their Concerns: Using CBAM to Map Support for a Transition.") Overall, this session highlights what both colleges anticipated, what they did not, and ultimately what both Marist and VT successfully did regarding planning (communication), action (training and support), and maintenance (momentum and interest). Recommendations, suggestions, and some "best practices" regarding the above will be provided.TRANSCRIPT
Conducting a Smooth Sakai Transition: Planning, Acting, &
Maintaining MomentumReba-Anna Lee, Academic Technology & eLearning
Assistant Director, Marist CollegeAmber D. Evans-Marcu, Ph.D. Candidate, Virgina Tech
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Three Steps
• Three step process to success• Plan• Act• Maintain
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Plan
• Information is key• What do people need to know• When do they need to know it
• Buy-in is crucial• You must be the loudest voice• Enlist the help of “cheerleaders” before anything
actually changes• Strategic Integration• High profile projects: reaccreditation, research,
committees, courses, & ePortfolio• Training & Resources
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Communicating a PlanSilence is not golden
Silence is not golden• Have a clear communication strategy/plan • Be aware of negatives and be prepared for
“bad times”• Change is best in small doses• Marist has a multi phased roll-out plan • VT had a multi-phased 18-month roll-out plan.
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PlanShare the good news
• College leadership briefings by the Marist Director started in Fall 2006• Deans Council, President’s Cabinet
• Grassroots word-of-mouth effort with official campus announcements (VT).
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PlanShare the good news (cont’d)
• Faculty communication• Scholar Advisory Board (VT)• Faculty “Sakai Luncheons” (Marist) & “Brown
Bag” sessions (VT)• Attended faculty school meetings (Marist)
and dept. meetings (VT).• Conducted systematic college/dept.-wide
training sessions (VT).• Regular faculty updates via e-mail & web
pages (Marist & VT).
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PlanShare the good news (cont’d)
• Official Channels• VP of Academic Affairs announced transition
in Spring 2008 (Marist)• Provost and VP for IT announced support in
Spring 2009 to adopt Scholar as the New Learning Collaborative Environment (VT).• Learning Technologies dept. announced in
Spring 2009 Scholar would replace Blackboard by December 2010 (VT).
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Reasons why Marist was ready for change
• Increase in institutional requirements and strength
• A strategic assessment of the Educator eLearning System found…• User Interface Deficiencies• Functionality Deficiencies• Technical Deficiencies• Potential instability of Ucompass Company
• We want to change on our timeline, not someone else's…
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Reasons why VT was ready for change
• Significant outage of Blackboard in January 2005 showed need for alternative.• High impact clearly showed the need to have much more control over
software platforms and services.• VT established internal goal to provide an integrated
LMS/Portfolio/Collaboration system.• Filled strategic tool gap without initially competing with
Blackboard.• Sakai as platform for consolidated workspace starts to gain mindshare.
• Supported high profile projects• SACS & NCAA reaccrediation, research, committees.
• Blackboard license to expire in December 2010.
From Sakai 2009 Boston “Virginia Tech’s Transition to Sakai”
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Why Change is Good
• Sakai = iLearn (Marist); Scholar (VT)• Piloted for over a year before “big transition”
(Marist, VT)• Gap Analysis showed all critical capabilities of
Educator are available (Marist)• Overall,• Richer functionality, supports more uses• Supports ad hoc collaboration• Scalability and sustainability
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Act
• Summer 2008 (Marist) / Spring 2009 (VT)• Data transfer• Course Migrations• Training
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ActData transfer
• Tools• Export from Educator (Marist)• Bitkinex is an SFTP and WebDAV client for Windows
(Marist)• UNC’s bFree & Respondus (VT)
• Benefits• Reduced data transfer time (hours > minutes)
• Pitfalls• Graduate Student Staff log in as an administrator (Marist)• Manual transfer of Tests & Quizzes required hire of staff (VT)
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Course Migration GuidesMaristGeneral Export and Import TipsAnnouncement Syllabus Assignments Starting a Forum◦ Starting a Topic
Packets Examinations/Quizzes
VT’s “Moving from Blackboard to Scholar” Guide: http://www.olcs.lt.vt.edu/scholar/handouts/quickstarts/quickStartMovingFromBBToScholar.pdf
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Marist Training—The First Wave
• Offered 13 Summer Institutes over the summer.
• Best attended were two-part half-day sessions.• Offered a Graduate
Student worker for assistance.
• Offered incentives (gift bags and an “iTeach” T-shirt, mouse pads, etc)
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VT Training—Overview
Spring, Summer, & Spring after the announcement = most attended:
Announcement (Spring 2009)• 485 participants (Spring 09)• 1263 participants (Summer 09)• 411 participants (Spring 2010)
Summer 2008
Fall 2008 Spring 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2009 Spring 2010
Summer 2010
0
500
1000
1500
Number of Participants from 2008 to 2010
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Maintain (Ongoing …)
• How to keep interest and excitement for Sakai• Highlight “new” features• Email, Portal Messages, Announcements, Fliers• Communicate updates and changes via Monthly Code
Updates (VT).• Highlight great faculty ideas• Wikis (Marist)• Exemplary Scholar Sites, Faculty Panels (VT)
• Voluntary Mandatory (Marist)• Mandatory Deadline (VT)
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Maintaining Interest via Models @ VT
Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (macro)Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM)’s Stages of Concerns (micro)
Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory
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Maintaining Interest via Models @ VTIntro./Overview• 2008 (48%)• 2009 (20%)• 2010 (17%)Task-based focus• 2008 (24%)• 2009 (48%)• 2010 (68%)Pedagogy focus• 2008 (28%)• 2009 (32%)• 2010 (16%)
Laggards
Late Majority
Early Majority
Early Adopters
Innovators
UnawareAwarenessInformationTask ManagementConsequenceCollaborationRefocusing
Juxtaposition of Roger's adoption (early adopters, early majority, major majority, late majority,
laggards) vs. Stages of Concern/Levels of Use.
NOTE: With time and experience, the percentage of Pegagogy-focused training should increase.
Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations vs. Stages of Concerns in 2009
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VT’s Continuing Plans
• Look at workshop feedback to determine where training needs exist.
• Look at our help desk questions to determine where training needs exist.
• Continue to go to departments that request directed training.
• Hope that our Advisory Board will continue to give input as to focus areas for our development work.
• These help shape how we train our faculty to use and improve Sakai.
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Lessons learned
• Timing is everything.• Research is important.• Communication is paramount.• Understand that people will change in their
own time & with effective and timely interventions.
Always remember our REAL clients– the Students
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Contact Information
Reba-Anna Lee [email protected]: rebaanna2
Amber D. Evans-Marcu
[email protected] Twitter: AmsDiane4Tech
Contxt: Text “AmsDiane” to 50500Blog: http://amsdiane.blogspot.com/ Portfolio: http://tinyurl.com/AmsDianePortfolioLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/adevans/
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Program & Concentra InformationCentra Link: https://www.concentra-cms.com/program/Sakai/2011-sakai-conference/607.htmlSession Wiki Page: https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/B4yCB
Title: Conducting a Smooth Sakai Transition: Planning, Acting & Maintaining the MomentumSession: Conference Track Session (60 minutes)Date: 06/14/2011Time: 3:45 PM - 4:45 PMRoom: Palos VerdesPresenter(s): • Reba-Anna Lee (Marist College)
[email protected] • Amber D. Evans-Marcu (Virginia Tech)
[email protected], 530-426-2372
Overview: In this co-joint presentation session, Marist College and Virginia Tech highlight their experiences of successes and lessons learned during their transition to Sakai, including:• Why the change was needed, • How change is good,• Which Actions support the transition, • How Training sustains the transition,• How to Maintain transition
momentum, and • Lessons learned.• Keywords: transition, migration,
training, innovation adoption