Many Hands Makes Light Work

Kathy Fernandes, Director, System-wide LMSS Project, CSU Office of the Chancellor

Andrew Roderick, CIG Chair and Manager of Technology Development, San Francisco State University

John Whitmer, Associate Director, System-wide LMSS Project, CSU Office of the Chancellor

Outline

1. Moodle in the CSU System

2. Strategic Campus Coordination

3. Services Created / Delivered

4. CSU Shared Code Base

5. What’s next …

MOODLE IN THE CSU SYSTEM

The California State University

23 campuses 427,000 students systemwide 44,000 faculty and staff systemwide LMSS efforts coordinated since 1997, within

decentralized academic technology leadership Moodle coordination started with “Moodle

Consortium”, transitioned to formal Moodle Governance in 2010

LMS Applications @ Cal State Campuses

Moodle Campuses & Adoption Date

1. San Francisco State – 20072. Humboldt State – 20073. CSU Monterey Bay – 20094. CSU Maritime – 20095. CSU Northridge – 20106. CSU San Marcos – 20107. Sonoma State – 20118. Cal Poly SLO – 20129. CSU Fullerton – 201210.CSU LA - 2012

Diversity of CSU Campuses

(1,000 FTES)– Focused on Maritime trades/careers– take Moodle “on the boat” with them

each summer– one staff member for Moodle tech support

(25,000 FTES)– diverse metropolitan university– 1,000+ simultaneous quiz attempts in a single

course– 3 development staff for open source app

development

CSU Budget Crisis

2011-2012 will reduce budget by at least $650M (reduction to $2.1B), 23% single year cut

2009-2010 cut $625M (partially restored in 2010-2011)

Increased tuition, reduced enrollments, doing less with more is status-quo

Synergies, cost-savings, cost-avoidance all major motivators

Author: CSU Chancellor’s OfficeSource: http://goo.gl/GQt2E

STRATEGIC CAMPUS COORDINATION

Strategic Goals for Collaboration

1. Leverage CSU scale to reduce costs for AT services and educational content

2. Facilitate cooperation between campuses to deliver shared services that reduce costs and increase levels of service

3. Incubate transformative services that will enable easier adoption of innovations that reduce costs and improve services

LMSS Environment LMSS = Learning Management Systems and Services

System-wide LMSS Strategy

1. LMS Futures Group (Provosts, CIOs, Faculty) prepared 4 documents:– LMS Critical Elements– External Scan of Market & Higher Ed Systems– CSU System-wide Recommendations– LMS Governance Recommendations

2. Organize stakeholders to implement recommendations, starting with Moodle

LMS Futures Recommendations

Recommendation #1: Provide an “opt-in” services approach to supporting the LMS with the baseline services being a collection of bext practices vs. minimal services

Recommendation #2: Provide a centrally hosted “safety-net” LMS for campuses that are at risk. A system or consortium LMS service can result in significant cost savings, especially for small campuses currently using proprietary systems such as Blackboard

– We recommend having a limited production available by July 2010. During spring 2010 we will need to determine the specific services available for this first production.

– Moodle is the first LMS application that would be provided, followed by Blackboard

LMSS Governance Key Elements

1. Standards & Practices Group

2. Common Interest Group

3. Chancellor’s Office Staff

Stages of CSU Moodle collaboration

• Competitive

• Cooperative

• Collaborative

SERVICES CREATED & DELIVERED

Community Building is like Watercolor

Moodle Common Interest Group (CIG)

Open membership - any interested CSU staff 25-30 attendees per meeting Includes Programmers, Sys Admins, Instructional

Designers, Faculty Support Campus updates, technically focused topics,

Q & A

CIG Websitehttp://moodle.calstate.edu

QuickGuides – Shared Documentationhttp://quickguides.calstate.edu

Lynda.com system-wide access

Array of 1.9.x and 2.x learning materials For faculty Often accentuates local training

resources Very important for newly

adopting/migrating campuses Single sign-on access

CSU Moodle CIG Webinars

Three sessions per season (semester) Nationally and internationally attended Topics focused on CSU CIG needs but usually

are broadly relevant Mix presenters btw CSU and National Moodlers Usually about 100 attendees and archives

available

Webinar Sessions

2011 CSU Moodle Webinar Series Moodle Administration (held on 02/15/11; SFSU, Cal Poly SLO, CSU San

Marcos) Moodle Architecture and Performance Tuning (3/17/2011; SFSU) The Road to Moodle 2.0 (05/17/2011; CLAMP, UCLA, Cal Poly SLO)

2012 CSU Moodle Webinar Series Migrating to Moodle 2.x - Passing Through the Fire (2/28/12; UCSF, NCSU) Bringing the Library Into Moodle (3/29/12) (CSU, CSU Northridge) Moodle 2.0 File System Issues and Considerations (4/25/12) (Netspot,

UCSB, Cal Poly SLO)

Support for Newly Adopting Campuses

A powerful outcome of the CIG has been supporting campuses coming in to Moodle. Shared WebCT migration tool (CSUSM to

Sonoma and others) Migration pilot and communication planning Strategies for course migration Shared support docs (QG’s and Lynda) as

startup enhancement

Working Groups/Projects

CSU Collaborative Documentation (revise QuickGuides)

Quality Online Learning and Teaching (QOLT) Moodle Usage Reporting CSU Moodle Website Accessibility Product Template for 2.x

Outcomes mixed!

Collaboration Challenges

Management – participants have separate management who lack visibility, buy-in

Workload – participants have significant local workload

Timing – different campuses have different timing for workloads

Project Management – lack of PM discipline Culture – campus independence

What’s Next?

2.x Migration knowledge sharing Examine greater connections with

UC counter-parts Promote webinars as Moodle-community wide

contribution (still bound in CSU needs) Promote campus-to-campus collaboration (and

use CIG to create visibility)

CSU MOODLE SHARED CODE BASE

Collaboration Can Be Hard

Shared Code Base Goals

Early on, CSU campuses wanted to be on a similar version to more consistently share knowledge; desired SFSU customizations Share innovation, customizations Reduce redundancy of effort Extend other collaborations (support, training) Share in a software infrastructure

CSU Moodle Features

Built on 1.9.x Remote Import – import courses across instances Course Life Cycle – access to archive instances Gradebook Customization Analytics Block

– First iteration– Still more features to add

User-level Files Area (de-dupe, access across courses) CK Editor – switched out native editor For more documentation on each feature,

visit http://moodle.calstate.edu/sharedcodebase

Project Details

SCB released in Fall 2011 Three campuses in production, a few tested Used GitHub for development Continued security patches, general

maintenance until Spring 2013

What Happened?

Moodle 2.0 Newly joining campuses opted to start on 2.x Dead-ending of 1.9 opened investment questions Questions of when existing campuses would

move to 2.x

Campus Differences Mature vs. New Moodle deployments Small vs. Large campuses Formal vs. Informal IT and other approaches Customization vs. Plain Vanilla

Project Management Communication issues Local campus communication Who’s in charge?/Decision-making Strategy: Goal was for facilitating 100% usable

development solution for all campuses

Value in Collaboration Was there value? Which campuses were in or out Capabilities vs. willingness to contribute Enlightened Self-Interest

Bottom Line Value was not there Required more formalization and commitment

than was possible Common interest happens at a more granular

level (at least in the CSU) Local work is usually required (100% solution)

What’s Next Focus on migration to 2.x across campuses

(focus not on new development) Campus-to-campus sharing (enlightened self-

interest) Campuses responsible for the last mile

Questions & Contact Information

Kathy Fernandes (kfernandes@csuchico.edu)Director of System-Wide LMS Initiatives

Andrew Roderick (roderick@sfsu.edu)CIG Chair, Technology Development Manager at San Francisco State University

John Whitmer (jwhitmer@csuchico.edu)Associate Director of System-Wide LMS Initiatives