Moodle Implementation Project

11/1/2007

Undecided Items:
 How to proceed with Law School and other non-LSU constituents.
 How to proceed with “automated” Blackboard conversions.
 Course deletion policy.

Upcoming Dates:
 Bid hosting service – ASAP
 Advertise LSU Admin and second developer position – November 5
 Student ads, brochures – November 5
 Faculty mail-outs, training ads – November 6
 Develop BB/SB conversion plan – November 6
 Apply LSU branding to “test” Moodle system – November 7
 Hire Moodle developer – November 19
 Develop “generic” Moodle template – November 30
 Develop lab-based and online training materials – November 30

Hosting Service
 A version of the Moodle Hosting bid invitation has circulated at ITS and LSU Purchasing. A
revised version is now being reviewed.
 OIT forms are being prepared.

Personnel
 No applications received for first developer position. Other options to investigate.
 Status of instructional technologist positions.
 Advertisements for LSU Admin and second developer will go out next week.

Documentation
 Status of documentation
 Decsions:
o “Persistent” documentation will reside on GROK (http://grok.lsu.edu/Categories.aspx?
parentCategoryId=437)
o “project” documentation will reside on the course management systems web site
(http://www.lsu.edu/cms)
 To Do:
o Enlist Melissa Brocato to develop student-focused FAQs
 o Develop a process flow diagram that makes the CMS process as transparent as possible
(where to start, defaults, options, consequences, etc.)

Communication/PR
 Status of announcements.
 Decisions:
o No branding/naming contest – our CMS will be called Moodle
o The URL to the new CMS will be moodle.lsu.edu
o The URL to the future LSU CMS Web site will be www.lsu.edu/moodle

System Development
 Status of system development
 Decisions:
o Non-primary instructors will not be automatically have a course created for them
(FERPA, student fairness, sometimes requested when not really teaching course)
o Course preference module will allow instructors to choose a course creation date, but
the option will be accompanied by a warning that regardless of the date requested the
course creation will not occur until xxxx.
o CMS processing terms need to be defined (for example, definition of course).
o Give faculty the option to not have a course deleted in the future in order to address the
issue of being able to have an inactive “materials-only” course shell that can be worked
on when a course is not actually being taught.
o We can’t control the fact that once a course template has been applied it cannot be
changed. Most courses will initially be created with the generic LSU template (unless
they set a preference ahead of time) or a “Blackboard” template (if converted). Faculty
will be able to address this issue (if desired) by changing their template preference,
requesting their existing course be deleted (by emailing the admin), and having the
course get automatically re-created within the hour (due to the fact that it no longer
exists so the system will automatically create a new one with the new preference).

Support
 Status of training materials
 40 training classes lasting 1.5 hours each will be offered in the spring (960 seats), beginning
January 28 and ending April 24 (see attached schedule)
 The breakdown is: Mondays - 10 classes; Tuesdays - 9 classes; Wednesdays - 11 classes;
Thursdays - 10 classes; Morning classes – 5; Early afternoon classes – 19; Late afternoon classes -
16