Migrating for the winter: moving to Blackboard from another institutional VLE

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Migrating 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
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Me 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

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Agenda 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

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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

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The 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  outdated - ongoing development and support
  gradually being withdrawn by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)

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The Effect VLE
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What 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

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The 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

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• So what challenges did we face?
• and what solutions did we come up with?

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Challenge 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

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SOAS BLE Front Page
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CeDEP BLE Front Page
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The Staff Room
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The Student Cafe
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Challenge 2. Designing course templates for
distance learning
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Online Library Access
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Challenge 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?

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Existing 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

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New Automated Snapshot Process
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Challenge 4.(Re)training the users

• Tutors familiar with existing VLE
• Physical locations of staff!
• What about the students?
• Ongoing technical and pedagogic support

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• So what lessons did we learn?
• and what recommendations do we have for others?

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• 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

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Gracias / 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