UGA prepares for migration to new learning management system, eLearning Commons (ELC)

Office of the Chief Information Officer Press Release
The University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia

Thursday, October 23, 2008

WRITER: Sarah Lee, 706/542-5359, slee23@uga.edu
CONTACT: Nelson Hilton, 706/542-0539, nhilton@uga.edu; Sherry Clouser, 706-542-0525, sac@uga.edu

ATHENS, Ga.— The University of Georgia has made strides recently to prepare the university for migration from its current learning management system (LMS)—Blackboard WebCT 4.1—to Blackboard Vista 8. The new LMS environment, to be known as eLearning Commons, will be available for use on a limited basis as early as May 2009.

In 2006, UGA's Chief Information Officer and Associate Provost Barbara A. White charged Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS), the UGA Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), and others to form a committee to evaluate possible LMS solutions for UGA after learning that support for WebCT 4.1 would be ending. The Learning Management System Executive Committee (LMS-Exec) researched available LMS solutions, including proprietary and open-source programs, and with members of the UGA community conducted a parallel installation pilot (PIP) of Vista and the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment in the fall of 2007.

Following the PIP, the LMS-Exec sent a report to members of the Committee for Academic and Instructional Technologies (CAIT) on January 28, 2008, and began work to implement and promote Blackboard Vista 8 as the new UGA-wide system.

Calling UGA's LMS "mission critical," Nelson Hilton, Director of the CTL, says the migration offers UGA the "opportunity to upgrade and add new features."

"The program behind eLearning Commons, Blackboard Vista, is used by most institutions in the University System," notes Hilton, adding that migrating to an application that is being adopted through most of the USG system allows for better development and collaboration and could defray costs to the university through a system site license. In addition, discomfort usually felt with migrations and upgrades is mitigated by the ease with which courses can be moved from WebCT 4.1 to Blackboard Vista 8.

Hilton and Sherry Clouser, Academic Professional with CTL, in collaboration with the rest of the LMS-Exec committee, began working to implement the new system as soon as it was decided upon in early 2008. Campus users of the current system will have plenty of time to make the transition, says Clouser, as WebCT will be available until December 2009. However, those who wish to get a jump on the change can expect plenty of opportunities for training.

"There will be a number of learning opportunities for the UGA community, including workshops, help documents, and online demos," says Clouser. "[And]...for those who just want to sit down and talk about how the new system can work for them, EITS, CTL, and other support professionals will be available for personal consultations."

Some of the new features in eLearning Commons include, according to Clouser, "[an] updated look and feel, gradable discussions with blog and journal-style options, grading forms (rubrics), a new grade book with the ability to freeze the names columns and build custom views, the ability to upload multiple files to the file manager, a central repository for files to be shared across courses ... new question types for quizzes and surveys, and more!" While Clouser acknowledges the ease of migration of current courses from one system to the other, she will encourage faculty members to look at the transition as an opportunity to re-design courses in order to take full advantage of the new features in Vista 8.

A timeline for implementation and awareness is still being finalized; however, for members of the UGA community who would like to become involved by learning more about the new system, a list of Frequently Asked Questions is currently available at https://webct.uga.edu/elc

"The UGA community is welcome to get involved," says Clouser.

About the CTL
The central mission of CTL is to provide campus-wide leadership on matters relating to instruction. By coordinating a wide variety of programs and activities, CTL serves faculty, administrators, and graduate teaching assistants (TAs) in each of the university's schools and colleges. Teaching is promoted as a fundamental enterprise at UGA through numerous campus-wide activities. These include instructional grants, consultation services, faculty and TA development programs, publications, activities planning, and teaching resources and media services.

About the Office of the CIO and EITS
The Office of the Chief Information Officer and Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS) are committed to the mission of UGA as a land-and-sea-grant institution where academics come first and the research extensive university community encourages research efforts at the undergraduate and graduate levels. To that end, under the direction of the university´s Chief Information Officer, EITS endeavors to provide a robust, reliable, and secure information technology infrastructure, maintain essential production services, and offer world-class support.

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