Early notice to DL Advisory Committee

Today I presented the initial time line for the LMS migration to the Distance Learning Advisory Committee in an attempt to get the word out, and to get initial reaction. I also solicited feedback and information on what involvement the DL Advisory thought faculty would want to have in both product selection and piloting.

Response was more favorable than I expected since it seems like we just finished doing this for CE6. I received the following bits of feedback, all excellent:

• Involve faculty who are not DL
• Campus users
• non-users who may take the opportunity to start using the LMS
• Define a vision for the LMS for the next 5-10 years. DE staff should start with this and present it to faculty.
• Let faculty as a whole know soon. It may affect
• Timing of textbook adoption
• Timing of content updates
• Consider specific systems geared towards specific departments (i.e. one LMS for Math/Sciences, different for Language, etc.)
• Consider the viability of products for the next 5-10 years
• Once products have been identified and finalists selected, give stakeholders access to counterparts at institutions who have already migrated or are already using that product
• Get an idea of what worked
• What skeletons are in the closets
• Involve stakeholders in intensive examination and use of potential products
• Consider using charrette sessions for collaborative planning and decision making

For clarification, the following have been identified as major stakeholders:

• Distance Education staff
• Faculty
• Students
• TSS

Peter has provided an excellent public participation planning guide which the Portland Development Commission adopted for planning projects. We will be using it to identify and include interested parties in this process.

CMS replacement project approved by OTAC

John and I presented the CMS/LMS replacement project to OTAC this morning, who approved the project and has asked me to create a scope document outlining the project in greater detail. I was also asked to include more operational details, such as communication with faculty, communication with the Deans of Instruction, ad cooperation with PSU since we have a 70% student transfer rate to them.

We discussed the options of putting out a RFI prior to, or instead of RFP to involve products and options that are immediately obvious.

Several members of OTAC were interested in how we will consider non-DL students since we also serve roughly 250-300 sections of campus-based courses a term. There's the possibility that our project will intersect with an ongoing campus contingency/continuity plan.

The next step is to start information gathering, and to work with TSS and a few other project leads who will be developing scope documents for assistance with the process.

All that being said, we're cleared for takeoff.