D2L Blog

D2L Campus Visit

Today we had our official campus visit from one of the SDBOR D2L Implementation Task Force project managers, Carla Reihe.  While we had to struggle through some early technical issues, eventually we were up and running, and the presentations from both Carla and I went well and I think that most were satisfied with the answers we supplied.

So, what did we talk about?  Well, Carla spoke mostly about the overall project, how the various committees were structured, and the major goals.  I'll be adding a link on the right-hand menu to the SDBOR D2L project site, so you can read more about these on that site.

As for my presentation--well, actually presentations--I covered questions that had been asked of us by the project managers as well as a general plan for the implementation of D2L at USD.  You can click on either of the previous links to see the respective presentations; however, I will detail some highlights below.

First, what's next in the project?  Next week, I will be going to Pierre, in place of Laurie Becvar, to discuss organizational  matters regarding D2L (role hierarchy, processes, etc.) .  Our "train-the-trainer" training will start two weeks later on the 29th of October, and this is when the project will really get rolling.

After that training, we will begin to develop our training sessions at the CTL.  Running parallel to this will be the conversion of our pilot courses to D2L and the training of the pilot faculty.  The pilot courses and faculty are:

ACCT 523	Cherie Noteboom supported by Eric Mosterd/CTL
AHED 752	Karen Card supported by Don Versteeg/InTEC
ESCI 103	Kelly Dilliard supported by Eric Mosterd/CTL
NURS 285	multiple instructors supported by Gary Larson
Note:  we may add a School of Medicine course to this list, and I will also be informally piloting my MUS 100 course.

These courses were selected based on many criteria, not limited to:

• SDBOR mandate of only four to eight pilot courses
• Scheduled to be offered in the 2008SP term
• Cross-campus representation of heaviest WebCT users (Arts & Sciences, School of Business, School of Education, School of Health Sciences)
• Low to moderate enrollment (we need to not only support the pilot faculty pilot, but also their students)
• Courses representing typical usage of WebCT
• Course utilizing many WebCT resources (NURS 260)

Moving forward into December, we hope to begin offering training sessions to all instructors, as once the spring term rolls around, we will need to begin converting courses.  As we have 1500 courses to convert, we envision the conversion process running as follows:

• Courses that need to be accessed, or those that will be offered in the 2008SU term, will be converted first.
• Courses that will be offered in the 2008FA term will be converted once the above are complete.
• Finally, courses that will be offered in the 2009SP term, and any other remaining courses will be converted.

This will all need to be completed by July 1, 2008, as our contract with WebCT ends on June 30, 2008, at which point certain functionality of WebCT will be immediately disabled and we will no longer be able to teach from it.  What has yet to be determined is if we will still be able to access courses for the purpose of academic retention (participation, grade disputes, etc.) after this time, so the SDBOR is looking at the details of our current WebCT license to gain clarity on this issue.

That pretty much wraps up everything to this point.  Once I return from Pierre next week, I'll post more.

Posted at 05:08PM Oct 11, 2007 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[3]