University plans to move to WebCT as sole campus VLE

The University of Nottingham is planning to adopt WebCT as its sole campus Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by the summer of 2006, according to an email sent to School heads on the 27th July, quoted below:

To All Heads of School

As you may be aware Information Services (IS) have been reviewing the support that they currently provide for e-learning. A new development strategy for the Learning Team has recently been agreed by SGIS and this recommends focussing our resources to increase the amount of e-learning produced and provide increased levels of support for academics.

One area for review has been the provision of support for Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). Currently the Learning Team support both Blackboard and WebCT, which has led to a dilution in the amount of support that can be provided. The time is now right to more tightly integrate a VLE with our other systems (such as Student Records and the Portal) and it makes sense to do this with a single VLE. We are also getting frequent requests from academics who wish to start using a VLE to tell them which is the best VLE to use.

Over the past few months we have created a VLE Focus Group from amongst the academic community across all faculties which has been researching the facilities provided by both of these products. We have also surveyed the usage of both VLEs. Although there is little to choose between the two products, there was a slight preference for WebCT, when all factors were taken into account.

IS are therefore proposing in future to recommend WebCT as the preferred VLE, and we will be concentrating our development work on integrating WebCT with the Portal, Student Records, Library, etc, as well as providing additional support to staff to get the most out of the application. We will still be supporting Blackboard in the medium term, and indeed a major upgrade of Blackboard is planned for this Summer (made necessary by student numbers). We will also be providing a programme of support to move courses from Blackboard onto WebCT so that academics can take advantage of the improved integration and facilities that will be provided.

The implications of this proposal are as follows -
1) We will wait for the next version of WebCT (Campus Edition v6) before any major programme of work will commence. This is not due until early 2005, so will not be live until Summer 2005. IS will be evaluating this version, prior to moving to the next phase. Therefore there will be few implications for the session 2004/05, other than we will recommend new lecturers use WebCT.
2) During the session 2004/05 Semester 2 we will begin consultation with Blackboard users to see if and when they would like support from IS to move their courses to WebCT. We will be providing demonstrations and information on the new WebCT version so that academics can make informed decisions.
3) During the session 2005/06 IS will provide support to move materials to WebCT so that by the end of the summer 2006 all courses can be delivered on WebCT. We will also be providing training and additional support materials to ensure that the transition is as easy as possible.
4) During this period we will continue to support Blackboard as before, providing updates etc. Academics will be able to keep their courses on Blackboard if they wish, but it is expected that most will wish to take advantage of the improved integration and facilities of WebCT.

We would like to assure you that IS will provide as much support as we can to help with the transfer of materials to WebCT and with training of your staff in the new software. If you have any concerns about this proposal, please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss the matter further.

Regards

David

David Ford
Head of Applications Development and Support
Information Services
University of Nottingham