TRT: Moodle Statement

Contributed to the development and editing of the following statement in the Fall 2006 semester:

Current situation:

Traditionally Cerro Coso distance education classes have been delivered using a “home-grown” template developed through Microsoft Front Page. However, this template lacked many of the site management and user management features that instructors desired. In response to this, Cerro Coso Online decided to run a pilot study for the Spring 2005 semester using the open source course management system, Moodle. Moodle is presently being hosted under a contract with a commercial internet service provider.

Description:

Moodle is an open source course management system that is guided by social constructionist pedagogy. It is uniquely designed to focus on the needs of the student and has many features that enable the instructor to set up activities that allow the student to construct new knowledge as they interact with their learning environment and with their peers. Moodle is a robust and secure platform that is fully customizable, allowing users to create and add modules in response to specific local needs. Faculty have full control over course settings, course formats, and a flexible array of activities, including forums, quizzes, resources, assignments, chats, and workshops. Moodle provides the ability to fully track user activities as well as full email integration. It also provides the ability for users to create and use one login account for all classes. It is a cost-effective alternative to commercial course management systems that require annual licensing fees.

Pilot:

A few online course sections were offered in the Spring 2005 semester and were taught by seasoned CC Online instructors that were anxious to incorporate the features of a course management system into their courses. Based on positive feedback from instructors and students and grant funding via the CVC, the pilot continued. It has been very successful and, through word-of-mouth, has grown substantially since the first semester. The following section describes the number of course sections, disciplines, and instructors involved in the pilot.

Semester	Sections	Disciplines	Instructors
fall 2005	30	13	14
Spring 2006	50	17	22
Summer 2006	34	14	15
Fall 2006	75	22	40

As shown in the above table, the use of the CMS has grown substantially and the college appears vested in the continued use of the environment past a “pilot project”. Recently, due to reaching our bandwidth capacity, the college is purchasing an upgrade to the current hosting agreement. The upgrade will include a dedicated server with increased capacity and bandwidth for the remainder of the 2006-2007 fiscal year.

Recommendation:

Based on the positive results from the five-semester pilot study, Cerro Coso Community College would like to move the use of Moodle out of the pilot stage and formally adopt it as a recommended and supported option for faculty teaching distance education courses as well as faculty who wish to web-enhance their face-to-face courses.