Email announcement for faculty

Adopting and Transitioning to a New Course Management System

PCC distance learning first adopted Web CT for online and hybrid classes in 1998. Three years ago we transitioned our courses from Web CT 4 to Web CT 6, which had been renamed Blackboard CE, reflecting the acquisition of Web CT by Blackboard. We converted all of our courses to Blackboard CE during that year, and for some it was a rocky experience. In the next several years Blackboard will be transitioning all of its customers to a new CMS platform that is supposed to combine the best of all of its LMS platforms and represent the future of online learning. In other words, this is a time for PCC to re-examine its needs and requirements, and the CMS market to select a product that will serve us for at least as long as Web CT has.

There are two major phases to this project: Phase 1 is selecting and adopting a new CMS; Phase 2 is the transition of all of our existing courses from Blackboard CE 8 to the new CMS. We have established a steering committee and a project committee to guide these efforts.

What does this mean for you?

• We will work with faculty, students and other interested staff to envision what the next generation CMS should be, to identify essential criteria, and to evaluate the CMS that best meets our needs for the future. We will provide opportunities for all stakeholders to provide input and help shape the decision.
• Once the decision is made there will be a transition period where we will stop all training and development in Blackboard CE (our current system) and focus on moving all existing courses to the new platform.
• Faculty teaching online may need to undergo additional training in the new CMS
  

Opportunities for input

Originally when we began this process we planned to do a traditional RFP based on criteria we developed with your input, selecting the CMS that most closely filled our needs from among several competitors. Over the past few months the landscape has changed significantly with the acquisition of Angel Learning by Blackboard. This means that there may not be two comparable Course Management Systems to provide comparative bids. Therefore we are revising the process.

There will be several opportunities for faculty, staff and student involvement and input. We will hold some focus groups early this year to identify key characteristics of the CMS of the future. We also will ask faculty and staff to identify key criteria for a Course Management System. Finally, we will provide opportunities for faculty to try and evaluate the products we are considering. This feedback will be used to shape our selection process, prioritize our selection criteria, and select a new CMS. We are still developing our timelines for these events, and will communicate with you about upcoming events.

We will send out periodic updates regarding the progress of this project via e-mail and post updates to the CMS replacement blog (http://spot.pcc.edu/cms)

CMS Steering Committee

Larry Clausen, Division Dean; Art Schneider, CAS Faculty; Angie Berdahl, Language and Literature Faculty; Dawn Davis, Community Education Coordinator; Jeff Edwards, Business Faculty; Rebecca Robinson, Management and Supervisory Development Faculty; Chris Hughes , Math Faculty; Joe Fischer, Associate Dean Student Services; Tammy Billick, TSS Manager.



John Sneed
Director of Distance Education
Portland Community College

Steering Committee for August

The steering committee met on August 13th, 2009.

John Sneed, Jeff Edwards, Joe Wright, Larry Clausen, Tammy Billick, Rebecca Robinson, Chris Hughes, Dawn Davis, Andy Freed and Angie Berdahl were in attendance.

The committee examined the functional criteria that the project team has been collecting over the last few weeks. Ultimately, these will be used as a grading rubric when evaluating products.

The committee wants e-mail communication to faculty to occur soon so that faculty can be aware of the coming change, the process, and start to consider how the transition will fit with other changes, such as text book adoptions, program development, and training.

The steering committee would like to take a different direction in the selection of a new CMS. Rather than start with an RFI, we see two likely options. One is to stay with Blackboard and use their next generation of product. The other is to move to a hosted Moodle platform. Prior to selecting one of these options, we will want to work with stakeholder groups to identify a vision for online learning 5-10 years from now. From this vision, we will distill a set of criteria on which to judge any selection.

Prior to selecting a product, it will be necessary to pilot any system to see if it works in our environment, and if it fits within our institution's vision for our course management system.

The steering committee also discussed the issue of compensation for faculty. Migrating and training can be very time intensive, and some content may need revised. There are additional differences for compensation for full time and part time faculty. This issue is still open and will be continued at future meetings.

The next steering committee meeting is on September 17th.