Learning Management System Online Course Site Proposal
Prepared By Ritwa Smith
Purpose of Proposal
The Education Department is responsible for facilitating compulsory courses for all students who are enrolled at the institution. As the student population of the college increases, it follows that the number of students the department will instruct will also increase. Hence as a department there is need to identify strategies that will help to make the teaching and learning experience effective and efficient. Also, as the institution transitions from offering a three year diploma programme to a four year degree programme, it is important that provisions be made to being equipped with relevant tools to enhance the teaching and learning experience and also to be more marketable. The suggestion is therefore to facilitate courses using a Learning Management System which the department has never offered and refused to make such an offering on the request of a colleague. Encouragement to make such an offer is provided by Chickering and Ehramann (1996) as they suggest that in using a Learning Management System, facilitators will be able to have frequent student-faculty contact in and out of class.
Product Description
A Learning Management System is defined (commonly abbreviated as LMS) as a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content. The LMS selected from evaluating two others is Moodle. This is a Course Management System (CMS), a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities … You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a 40,000-student university. Moodle has a large and diverse user community with over 50,000 users registered on this site alone, speaking 60 languages in 120 countries.” Moodle is the leading open source LMS (or CMS) software package used by North American and European universities (Itmazi & Megias, 2005; Munoz & Van Duzer, 2005, as cited in Beatty & Ulasewicz, 2006).
Evaluation of Different LMS
In evaluating the appropriate Learning Management System for the department, three LMS were selected, BlackBoard, Moodle and Desire2Learn. They were all evaluated by focusing on important components. These were:
- Ease of Use
- Communication Tools
- Constructive Teaching and Learning Opportunities
- Costs
- Security
- Student Record Management
- System Requirements
- Tools for Assessment
Bates and Poole’s (2003) SECTIONS model and implications of Chickering & Ehrmann’s (1996) principles of good teaching practices in undergraduate education were also used as a means of ensuring parity in selecting the correct Learning Management System. In using the SECTIONS model the findings were:
Students – An assortment of learning activities using different media that would enable interaction with the course material from various locations.
Ease of Use – Moodle can be organized in different sections thus enabling users to access information easily.
Costs – As Moodle is an open source product, there are no licensing costs, but there are other costs one has to think about. This is related to hosting and hardware needed.
Teaching and Learning – Moodle has webpage capability, blogs, wikis, real time chat and forums.
Interactivity – Animation can be interactive and links can be provided outside or inside of Moodle.
Organizational Issues – Many institutions worldwide use Moodle.
Novelty – Moodle has been around for quite some time and provides opportunities for the use of constructivism and collaboration.
Speed – The speed is dependent on the server.
In using Chickering & Ehrmann’s (1996) principles of good teaching practices in undergraduate education:
- Encourages contacts between students and faculty – The various features of Moodle would enable the student and faculty to communicate frequently.
- Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students – Based on the design of the LMS students will have to cooperate and participate.
- Uses active learning techniques – The nature of the LMS allows for interactive learning.
- Gives prompt feedback – The facilitator would be required to provide feedback in a timely basis as a means of helping the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses.
- Emphasizes time on task– It allows the facilitator to determine and set the due dates and times for assignments.
- Communicates high expectations – Enables the facilitator to place the expectations of the students.
- Respects diverse talents and ways of learning – It allows the facilitator to design the LMS to cater for varied learning styles.
From the evaluation it proved that Moodle would be the best selection based on its features and the needs of the department.
Rationale for Moodle Server
A Moodle Server is needed to host data related to Moodle as presently the servers that the institution uses do not have the capacity to host the Learning Management System. It would be better therefore to purchase a new server and dedicate it solely for the purpose of Moodle. This would also be useful as over time based on the effectiveness of using Moodle in the department, other departments will become interested hence they could also share the space on the server.
Resources Needed for Moodle Server online Including Budget
In order to effectively implement the Moodle Server, there are a number of things that are needed. These items are:
Hardware
- Disk space: 160MB free (min). You will require more free space to store your teaching materials.
- Memory: 256MB (min), 1GB (recommended). The general rule of thumb is that Moodle can support 50 concurrent users for every 1GB of RAM, but this will vary depending on your specific hardware and software combination.
- This includes hosting limits of PHP or MySQL on a hosting service.
- The capacity can limit the number of users your Moodle site can handle.
Software
Moodle requires a web server environment and will run in Apache and IIS easily. Moodle should run in any server environment that supports PHP. (http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Installing_Moodle#Requirements)
There are is also need for:
- Internet Access
- Training for Staff
- Help Desk
- Students
For the entire project a cost of JA$1,000,000.00 has been estimated.
References
Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: A Framework for Selecting and Using
Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.
Beatty, B., & Ulasewicz, C. (2006). Faculty Perspectives on Moving from Blackboard to the
Moodle Learning Management System. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 50(4), 36-45. doi:10.1007/s11528-006-0036-y
Chickering, A.W. and Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), p. 3 – 7.
Installing Moodle, available at http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Installing_Moodle
Kelly, O. (2007). Moving to blended delivery in a polytechnic: Shifting the mindset of faculty and institutions. In M. Bullen and D.P. Janes (Eds.), Making the Transition to E-Learning: Strategies and Issues (pp. 33-46). Hershey: Information Science Publishing.
Learning Management System, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system
Moodle Myths, available at http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Moodle_myths#The_Total_Cost_of_Ownership_is_actually_higher_for_Moodle_than_it_would_be_with_a_wholly_commercial_platform
Stewart, B., Briton, D., Gismondi, M., Heller, B., Kennepohl, D., McGreal, R., & Nelson, C..
(2007). Choosing MOODLE: An Evaluation of Learning Management Systems at Athabasca University. International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 5(3), 1-7. Retrieved June 10, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1529116611).