CMS College of Engineering

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CMS College of Engineering

• Paul Oliphant
• Oct 9, 2006

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CMS College of Engineering

• CMS Course Management System
• CMS Content Management System
• CMS Customer Management System

eCOW engineering Courses On the Web
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eCOW History

• A web based interface similar to an anonymous ftp
  server.
• Developed 1996-2001
• By Eric Gracyalny, COE Webmaster

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eCOW

• Show and Tell
• Course descriptions
• XML link to MyUW portal
• Anatonomy of site

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Current Use

• Current Active Sites
• Engineering Courses
• PSERC
• Historic 10 sites created

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Salient Features

• Good
• VERY Simple interface
• self serve
• Available to non-UW folks
• passwords on folders
• front-end link to anywhere
• Bad
• locally developed
• difficult to extend and support (we are on our
  own)
• security usernames passwords stored in a
  hashed cookie
• site management tools are lacking

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Community of Educational Technology Support
(ComETS)
Open Source Course Management Systems Special
Interest Group (SIG)

• Eric Alborn, School of Business Bruno
  Browning, College of Letters and Sciences Kathy
  Konicek, Academic Technologies, DoITDirk
  Herr-Hoyman, Academic Technologies, DoIT
• Paul Oliphant, College of Engineering and
• Catherine Stephens, School of Education
• April 2006

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ComETS SIG ReportUW-Madison Course Web Sites
1999 2005
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ComETS SIG ReportUW-Madison Course Sites 2005
by College
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ComETS SIG ReportCourse Web Sites Usage
Observations

• 80 have static content(see eCOW and Library
  eReserves)
• Correlates with peer use of Blackboard and WebCT
• Needs are met for part of this 80 with very
  simple solutions
• Barriers to entry (time, effort, technical
  hassles) are too high for part of this 80 to do
  more

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ComETS SIG ReportThe Defacto is a Distributed
CMS

• No one solution dominates, all lt 25
• Some solutions pre-date central solutions,
  some solutions have been introduced to augment or
  replace central solutions
• Weve had over 5 years in the current mode (since
  WebCT in 1999), why hasnt the central solution
  taken hold?
• Why is the adoption of course management software
  for all courses on campus only at 20?

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ComETS SIG ReportNeeds of the other 80

• . . .this is not the time for high expenditures
  for CMS products.
• Instead, we believe that 80 of sites would be
  better served by an approach concentrating on
  ease-of-learning and ease-of-use instead of
  extensive feature sets.

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ComETS SIG ReportCall for a Supported
Distributed CMS

• , an approach that utilizes distributed CMS
  tools on the UW-Madison campus is needed. This is
  based on what we see in use by various Schools
  and Colleges. The needs of the various
  educational communities and the technologies
  available to meet those needs are too diverse and
  change too quickly for a single centrally hosted
  approach.

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ComETS SIG ReportBenefits of a Distributed
Approach

• Multiple products with multiple strengths
• 20 can use emergent solutions
• Local support is the norm, scales better, is
  what faculty and instructors request
• Distributed hosting has less risk of widespread
  failures or outages
• Change can be made by those willing to take the
  risk without jeopardizing others
• Use commodity hardware for best price point

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ComETS SIG ReportBenefits of Open Source

• No panacea, but
• No vendor lock-out from the programming code
• No vendor lock-in for licensing issues
• UW students/non-UW students/non-students
• Forced upgrading due to technical support issues

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ComETS SIG ReportOpen Source Tools

• CMS Tools- Moodle is of interest
• Other Tools- eTeach- MediaWiki

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ComETS SIG ReportCommon Portal with AuthN/AuthZ
Portal
Tools
UDS
Tools
Rosters
Tool
Tool
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CMS College of Engineering

• Recent Experience