Assignment 1: Platform Evaluation – Bronzegate College*
Amanda Green, Chris Helsby, Craig Murrell, Reg Surette
ETEC 565A: 66B
University of British Columbia
Organizational Overview
Bronzegate College is an urban community college in the Greater Toronto Area. It currently enrolls 20,000 full-time and 20,000 part-time students. Its core diploma programs include business, trades, nursing, and engineering technology. The student population is diverse and includes mature students, international and English as a Second Language (ESL) students, and recent high school graduates. The student population also comprises a range of technological experiences, and therefore requires adopted educational technologies and media to be simple and user-friendly.
Examining Bronzegate’s strategic master plan and learning strategy documents provide insight into the institution’s key goals. They aim to:
- strengthen networks among students, faculty and staff
- provide accessible and challenging learning environments
- employ the most effective pedagogical practices
- engage students with a focus on utilizing e-learning as a transformative tool
- ensure that every in-class course has an online course management component
- improve access – specifically how e-learning can transform student and teacher learning experiences as well as access “target clienteles” by providing an inclusive environment for students with disabilities (Guri-Rosenblit, 2005).
To satisfy Bronzegate’s goals, a centralized system for in-class, blended, and online courses is required, that includes course content and functionality synonymous with online course management. This must include bulk course creation, a gradebook to track student progress, communication tools, and integration with the registrar’s office that allows for students to be linked to their registered Learning Management System (LMS) courses. Funding is limited for digital infrastructure improvements. Any LMS chosen must be affordable, flexible, customizable, and able to evolve to keep the technology relevant without requiring continuous, costly, updates.
Bronzegate College has undergone the process of selecting an LMS that will satisfy these needs and function across all departments and campuses as a centralized course repository, providing an online complement to in-class courses and platform for blended and online delivery.
Platform Analysis: Synopsis
The LMS evaluation team utilized the SECTIONS framework (Bates, 2015) to evaluate the various LMS’ platform affordances, using the institutional goals and requirements discussed above as guiding criteria. Through utilizing Bates’s inductive reasoning method (Bates, 2015), we determined that EdX Edge, Eliamedy, and Quizwork-LMS were not robust enough to support the needs of a growing college with large enrollment numbers. Blackboard was a legitimate consideration; however, it is costly, with consistent price increases and poor support for reliant institutions. The evaluating team, therefore, determined that Moodle is the best fit. Moodle is free and open source software, and its features best align to Bronzegate’s goal of education technology supporting transformative learning, and pedagogical focus on social constructivism. Moodle is designed to produce web-based courses, websites, and portals, released under the GNU General Public License. In addition, it supports the popular SCORM (“Sharable Content Object Reference Model”) standards for LMSs and e-learning platforms. It has been translated into over 70 languages and has a dedicated community of global testers and contributors (Douguiamas, 2007).
As an open source application, Moodle documentation is collaboratively written by a global community of developers, and is constantly evolving. This approach can produce numerous advantages over proprietary solutions, as Noyes (2010) describe. They include:
- Security. Software vulnerabilities are often noticed and corrected faster.
- Quality and customizability. Users develop products that cater to their needs.
- Freedom and flexibility. The cycle of upgrading/updating constantly is no longer a concern for maintaining support options and functionality.
- Interoperability. Open-source products usually better adhere to open standards.
- Support Options. Many open-source platforms have an extensive online community with thorough documentation, forums, wikis, newsgroups, etc.
- Try Before You Buy. An institution can install and evaluate a platform without financial commitment.
Students
When evaluating students’ requirements for adopting technology, we must consider demographics, access to technology, and differing learning styles (Bates, 2015). Moodle provides a range of accessibility options, including mobile apps, and social media integration, as well as diverse methods of delivering content, including videos and quizzes. These varying media features and lesson styles may enhance student learning (Unal, Bodur & Unal, 2012; Farley et al., 2015). Moodle meets both institutional goals and Bates’ recommendations for student engagement.
Ease of Use
Due to Bronzegate’s diverse users, Moodle’s simple interface meets institutional requirements, and aligns with Bates’ recommendations of first-time users being able to study within 20 minutes of logging in (Bates, 2015). Several studies have directly compared Blackboard to Moodle for ease of use. In aggregate, student surveys suggest that students prefer their experience with Moodle to Blackboard, giving Moodle higher usability ratings and higher ratings of communication functions and course organization (Bremner & Bryant, 2005; Machado & Tao, 2007; Unal & Unal, 2011).
Studies of faculty experiences suggest that an administration’s support and training can play a key role in improving both faculty satisfaction and use of a new LMS (Al-Busaidi & Al-Shihi, 2012; Varnell, 2016). Beyond satisfaction surveys, researchers have also attempted to score and rank aspects of open source LMS systems, and Moodle has received some of the highest ratings for its communication tools (Cavus & Zabadi, 2014), and adaptability (Graff & List, 2005). Due to Moodle’s open source nature, it will not only serve student requirements, but continuously improve with the available platform support and/or in house development. The same ease of use improvements for Moodle have been reported as dwindling user satisfaction ratings for one of its top competitors, BlackBoard (Walsh, 2010). Thus, Moodle appears to align with Bronzegate’s goals of student engagement in a technologically accessible format.
Cost
Moodle, as free open-source software, seems the obvious LMS choice. Any user can adapt, extend, or modify Moodle, with the exception of some upgradable cost-features (Noyes, 2010; Thomas, 2014). Moodle is sometimes considered more administratively complex, as aspects of hosting, IT services, migration time, customization and upgrades are not part of a bundled license, as with proprietary software such as Blackboard (Thomas, 2014). Despite this, a recent University of Alberta report suggests Moodle may still be an overall cost-saving option, though it requires significant upfront investment to develop (Matil, 2011). These cost-savings are in line with Bronzegate’s emphasis on an affordable LMS. No-cost licensing at least partially offsets institutional financial considerations, and Bronzegate has a local ISD team, who can customize and design a large portion of the content.
Teaching Functions / Pedagogy and Interaction
LMS adoption encourages increased access and interactivity with school staff and support services, as well as opportunities for global social constructivism (Moodle, 2017). Fostering student-centered interactions of learner-materials, learner-learner, and learner-instructor described throughout this LMS evaluation, Moodle aligns to Bronzegate’s e-learning Strategy of learning via collaborative engagement. With these integrated interaction features, timely feedback, and moderated communication, Moodle will improve the learner experience.
Bates and Sangara (2011) state the pedagogy required by the department is the most important factor for determining the choice of tools used for e-learning; that is, what is the Teaching Function of the tool. Bronzegate College is committed to using the most effective pedagogical practices to help engage students through harnessing e-learning as a transformative tool, and strengthening networks. Platform-based e-learning allows the employment of interactive strategies and media that may help improve student learning and strengthen interactions, such as integrated online quizzes, peer assessments, Communities of Practice through discussion boards, and customization to accommodate mobile learning (mLearning) (Green, Farchione, Hughes, & Chan, 2014; Martín-Blas & Serrano-Fernández, 2009; Wei, Peng, & Chou,2015; Yu & Jo, 2014). Such features are a significant advantage of Moodle over its competitors, as they support social constructivist pedagogy and student learning (Moodle, 2017).
Another important part of Bates’ Teaching Functions for LMS’ is the use of evidence-based practices (2015). Moodle’s open-source nature provides a potential for scalability and customizability to learner/course needs, such as modularized course/lesson editing, as described by Baraniuk (2008). It also offers data tracking, to gauge learner performance and determine if any areas of the course require refinement.
Research indicates that students felt Moodle promoted familiarity by providing a consistent structure for application features useful in completing tasks (Wilson, 2010). Instructors have also found Moodle’s flexibility to be critical in maintaining interest and stimulating discussion with students in their classes (Wilson, 2010).
Organizational Issues
Bronzegate’s existing IT support staff and Instructional Systems Design (ISD) team will be engaged to spearhead the platform rollout. As the institution has been increasingly adopting technology and tech-enabled learning for over a decade, minimal departmental reorganization is required. There will be a requirement to provide Moodle-specific training to support staff, as well as to employ a media specialist as well as a Moodle platform and ISD expert to lead the LMS customization requirements.
The Moodle LMS provides 24/7 support, scalability, accessibility, and guaranteed server reliability (Moodle, 2017). It has over 90 million users, and has been proven to support large enterprise operations such as university student enrollments (Moodle, 2017). Given its features and successful implementation at similar academic institutions, Moodle has the capability to support Bronzegate’s organizational requirements.
Networking
Moodle has a distinct advantage over other leading LMS platforms with regard to networking and social media integration. It has a default mobile-compatible interface for learning anytime, anywhere (Moodle, 2017). Integrated blogs, wikis, etc. encourage and minimize barriers for student-student and student-instructor interactions all from a centralized learning environment.
Security
Overall, Moodle is considered a secure LMS, and as open source, can respond quickly with patches/upgrades, rather than waiting for new version releases. Despite this, a critical security issue was recently reported that could compromise privacy for all student information hosted on a server (Brook, 2017). Moodle has some security issues related to hosting, technician set up, and others related to the organization’s IT team (Costinela-Luminiţa & Nicoleta-Magdalena, 2012; Kumar & Kamlesh, 2011). However, if support staff are in place, the risks are similar to other platforms, and Moodle remains a viable choice (Costinela-Luminita & Nicoleta-Magdalena, 2012). Moodle states they are “Committed to safeguarding data security and user privacy, security controls are constantly being updated and implemented in Moodle development processes and software to protect against unauthorised access, data loss and misuse. Moodle can be easily deployed on a private secure cloud or server for complete control” (Moodle, 2017).
LMS Sustainability
John Norman (2007) defines “sustainability” as:
“…a critical mass of awareness and adoption creates a sustaining community that provides feature requests, bug fixes and mutual support, and the range and intensity of all this activity makes the code more robust.” p. 58
Further, Geoffrey Moore’s technology adoption model (Figure 1), addresses sustainability by classifying potential users by their willingness to adopt new technology. Software products that do not “cross the chasm” will not have sufficient users to be sustained.
Figure 1 – Geoffrey Moore’s Technology Adoption Model (Farmer, 2007) (CC BY-SA 2.0 UK)
According to Farmer (2007), Moodle is an open source project successfully crossing the chasm, as the foundation and partners work together to support rapid growth and software development. The worldwide network of partner companies that provide Moodle-based client services are a key platform strength (Douguiamas, 2007). Their efforts maintain, adapt and extend the functionality and serviceability of Moodle beyond the capabilities of in-house development teams in many proprietary software companies. This community and partner-driven collaboration makes Moodle an excellent choice when considering sustainability.
Internal sustainability of Moodle within Bronzegate was also evaluated. Merkel et al. (2005) stress that “Promoting sustainability involves finding ways of encouraging technology learning and planning in community groups” (p. 1). Implementing any sustainable LMS system requires policy and institutional upgrades to support instructors as they adopt Moodle in their classes. One way to encourage technology learning and planning in community groups might be to have departments select early adopters to lead training and support teams, backed up by the IT staff of the university (Bates, 2000). This ensures that departments have a vision in the implementation, improving the internal sustainability of the adoption.
Finally, Wilson (2010) found that practices that promote in-school use of an LMS may help the development of sustainable practices. By “transforming” the classroom through Moodle tools and practices, Bronzegate can build a community of engaged users who help to ensure internal sustainability of the Moodle platform.
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