WebCT%20at%20Keele

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WebCT at Keele

• Dr Jonathan KnightSystems GroupFinance and
  Information Technology DirectorateUniversity of
  Keele

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Keele

• We have around 10,000 students
• 7,300 FTE's
• 1,300 staff
• Primarily joint honours

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WebCT History

• Hosted pilot project on Vista 3 in 2005
• Pilot of Vista 4 from January 2006
• Full Vista 4 service from September 2006
• All courses on WebCT
• All students and staff on WebCT
• No data sent into student records system

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WebCT History

• Production server running 4.0.3Standalone on
  T2000/V490
• 400 concurrent users (90 minute timeout)
• Pilot of portfolios on 4.1.0
• Planning to go to 4.1.1 after Christmas

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General

• Turnitin plugin installed (mostly working)
• E-grade plus installed and working
• ECDL epack not working
• Horizon Wimba on the horizon

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Learning Context Hierarchy

• Keele 2006
• Faculties
• Schools and Research Institutes
• Directorates
• Departments

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Learning Context Hierarchy
Faculty ofNatural Science
Faculties
Division
Schools/RI's
School ofLife Sciences
Group
LSC-00005 A guide to sex andsurvival
Modules
Course
LSC-00005 20067SEM2 A
Occurrences
Section
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Learning Context Hierarchy

• Occurrence is unique identifier for a cohort
• Administration is devolved
• Module authors are designers/instructors

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Learning Context Hierarchy

• Additional course level areas for subjectse.g.
  Biochemistry
• Section is called Noticeboard
• All students in all years allocated to thesame
  section
• Communication possible withCohort (choose a
  compulsory module)School/Faculty (use
  announcements)Subjects (use Noticeboard section)

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Student Record System

• Modules are imported
• Students and imported and deleted
• Student enrollments are imported
• Staff are added from a different database
• Need to devise a plan for deleting modules
• Data extracted every morning
• Designers/Instructors can enrol

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Backups

• What a nightmare!
• Full backup now takes 2½ days
• We used to perform a full backup daily
• Now use a perl script to detect activity
• Can't backup portfolios
• Need a better approach

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Future Plans

• Portfolios planned for production server
• Horizon Wimba powerlink
• Find a better solution for backups
• Integrate more module data from student records
  systemReading ListsModule descriptions

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Problems

• Support from Blackboard is poor
• No backups in Portfolios
• No API for Portfolios
• Quota's not working
• WebCT log has inaccurate data
• Migrating portfolios not possible
• Uploading applet crashing
• Bugs

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Things that work

• Course Genie
• Basic instructions for studentsInstall firefox
  from mozilla.comInstall Java from sun.com/getjava

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• j.knight_at_kis.keele.ac.ukhttp//staff.keele.ac.uk/