Title: Migrating for the winter: moving to Blackboard from another institutional VLE
1Migrating for the winter moving to Blackboard
from another institutional VLE
Mike Green E-learning Co-ordinator SOAS (School
of Oriental and African Studies), University of
London
2Me a potted biog
- Background in languages and
- education in the UK and overseas
- Worked in e-learning for over 5 years, in both
the public and private sectors - As a language teacher, teacher trainer, materials
writer and learning technologist - Currently System Administrator for Blackboard at
SOAS
3Agenda for todays session
- The CeDEP distance learning programme
- The problem they faced
- The Bloomsbury Learning Environment (BLE)
- Moving CeDEP to the BLE migration process
- Challenges and solutions
- Lessons learned and recommendations
4 CeDEP - The Centre for Development, Environment
and Policy
- Undertakes research and postgraduate teaching in
the fields of appliedeconomics, environment and
biodiversity, and sustainability and
development. - Originally part of Wye College gt Merged with
Imperial College - Adopted by SOAS in 2007 and rebranded as CeDEP
with degrees awarded by University of London - Currently has more than 1100 postgraduate
students and 25 tutors active on around 40
distance learning modules across 8 degree
programmes - Students are drawn from 125 countries across the
major continents (44 in Europe, 21 in Africa
and 18 from Asia and Pacific) - 48-52 male-female split
5The problem
- CeDEPs existing VLE (Effect) was- becoming
outdated - ongoing development and support
gradually being withdrawn by - University of London External System
- - the second VLE at SOAS requiring management
and support! - So
- Decision taken to migrate CeDEP from Effect to
the BLE (Blackboard) - But
- Short timeframe (between Nov and Dec 08)
6The Effect VLE
7What is the BLE?
- Consortium of 5 Colleges
- First example of a cross-institutional
implementation of Blackboard Learn in UK - BB v7.3 gt remotely hosted by BB in the
Netherlands - Administered locally in each college
- Individual branding for each institution
- Currently over 30k users
8The migration process
- Formation of project team
- Recruitment of additional resourcing
- Design and creation of new CeDEP
- branding and modules on the BLE
- Data management creation of new user BLE
accounts and upload to BLE via Snapshot - Course content migrated across
- User training for CeDEP admin staff and tutors
- Go-live
9- So what challenges did we face?
- and what solutions did we come up with?
10Challenge 1. CeDEP required a separate, distinct
identity on the BLE
- Individualised CeDEP branding
- Creation of new CeDEP Primary Institution Role
- Creation of Secondary Institution Roles
11SOAS BLE Front Page
12CeDEP BLE Front Page
13The Staff Room
14The Student Cafe
15Challenge 2. Designing course templates for
distance learning
16Online Library Access
17Challenge 3. User Data reliable, well
formatted, secure
- CeDEP not on Unit-e
- Manual data input
- by admin staff
- Different course code
- and username
- conventions
- How to upload data
- to BLE?
18Existing Manual Snapshot Process
- snapshot_override
- Ddata.source.keySOAS_STUDENTS_SRS_CRSMEMS_2008"
-V ble1.blackboard.com -f ENR_MANUAL -t
c\blackboard\apps\snapshot\data\bloomsbury\soas_e
nrol_SRS.txt -C C\blackboard\apps\snapshot\data\s
napshot.properties -P "blebbadmin
19New Automated Snapshot Process
20Challenge 4.(Re)training the users
- Tutors familiar with existing VLE
- Physical locations of staff!
- What about the students?
- Ongoing technical and pedagogic support
21- So what lessons did we learn?
- and what recommendations do we have for others?
22- Less can definitely be more course design, data
requirements, training etc - Use your local network for project resourcing
before considering (expensive?) external
developers - Take the opportunity to improve existing
processes- and pilot new ones
23Gracias / Gràcies! Thank you! Any questions?
- Email mg52_at_soas.ac.uk
- Acknowledgments All members of the project team,
including - Lucy Allan and Alexis Wolton of CeDEP, Leo
Havemann of - Birkbeck College and Sarah Sherman, BLE Service
Manager