Moodle Moot UK 2010 – Moving to Moodle

Laura Widger – Waterford Institute of Technology

in 2008 were using WebCT 4. At a point where they had to move. So either upgrade webct/blackboard or go open source.

Evaluated others having taken same decision. people with commercial were happy. people with open source were excited.

Open source is like a race car, need very skilled mechanics.

Ran a pilot in parallel to help get management buy-in.

One of the factors on their timeline was webct licence expiring in may 2009. Couldn’t get a several month extension to cover exam resit period.

3 years of content – what should they move? 60,000 modules in webct.

Content migration process: staff requested what they want moved.

8.5GB of data moved (files moved en masse with ftp, and staff relinked manually). When licence expired, LDAP logins all broke.

many staff generall happier with their moodle installation than the old WebCT one.

Tightly integrated with internal systems to reduce admin work. End of each year take snapshot and move to another archived moodle installation.

Use redmine for tracking teamwork and managing project, issue tracker, etc.

Also use RT, a web-based ticket management system for support.

Looking back:

• Not as stressful as they thought it would be
• The more you do the more you reallise you need to do
• Attitude is a small thing that makes a big difference… the right team

Susanna Quincee – City University

When found webct was losing support, realised they needed to change. Due to timescales, had to bid for funds before decided on VLE. had to get buy in from their users, and support for their staff.

change in lms has let city uni drive a rethink of teaching practice – good excuse to shake things up

Chose OUWiki over default moodle wiki.

Evaluation docs available at: http://www.city.ac.uk/ldc/projects/VLEEvaluation.html