beyond blackboard

I've heard that Blackboard may be going away. What's the story?

Fall 2007-Spring 2008

We are still using Blackboard this academic year as our main course system. If you have been using it for your courses in the past, please plan on continuing to use it this Fall and Spring as usual.

The Search for a Blackboard Replacement

Yes, we have been evaluating other Learning Managment Systems (LMS) to replace Blackboard. In January of 2007, testing and evaluation of Moodle began by a select group of faculty appointed by LMIS.

Who is doing this evaluation ?

LMIS, the technology advisory committee of the Faculty Senate, has appointed a subcommittee to do the evaluation. The current (Spring 2007) Members of the Committee are:

• Randy Thornton, Instructional Technology
• Randy Bentson, Faculty
• Renee De Voursney, Student
• Elizabeth Knight, Library
• Patrick O'Neil, Faculty
• Lotus Perry, Faculty
• Dan Sherman, Faculty

To find out more, please feel free to contact any of the committee members.

Are they looking at other products?

Due to technical and cost reasons, the list of potential LMS products we are actively evaluating has been reduced to two. We are currently performing a live test evaluation of Moodle, and are also looking at Sakai. Both of the products are open source programs that have been designed by educators and are in wide spread use. Click on the links to find out more about each of these products.

• Moodle
• Sakai

What is the timeframe for this?

Currently, members of the committee are testing Moodle live with courses. We hope to have a decision this Fall about whether to go forward with Moodle, or look more at other products.