The University's new course management system, Moodle, is making its debut this semester.
"We've gotten nearly everybody from Blackboard over to Moodle," said Sheri Thompson, IT Communications and Planning Officer. "If we're not at 100 percent, we're really close."
Moodle will become the University's only course management system after Semester Book is phased out in December.
Moodle users include 8,221 students and 968 instructors.
Thompson said the feature-packed Moodle will be better than what students have used before because the faculty can do more.
"Initially, there's a learning curve," Thompson said. "Faculty have to learn a new way of doing things, learn to use all of the cool stuff that they have been asking for."
Faculty are able to customize Moodle to fit their needs. The Moodle Development Advisory Committee, which consists of faculty and a student representative, use instructor's feedback to create new features for Moodle.
"The faculty are actually deciding what goes into Moodle, which we couldn't do in Blackboard," Thompson said. "There are features that we wanted for years that Blackboard couldn't provide."
Thompson said Moodle is an upgrade from Blackboard, and it is not as expensive.
"The money that we were previously spending on licensing fees is now being spent directly on making this product work best for our environment," Thompson said.
Thompson expects students to adapt quickly to the new system.
"Students will like having one thing to learn instead of two," Thompson said. "Having to go in between [Blackboard and Semester Book] is just annoying. They will like having just one place to go for all of their course stuff and to be able to see everything at once."
Derek Richard, accounting senior, is not sold on Moodle just yet.
"Once people have time to adjust, it will be effective," Richard said. "However, for the time being, the complicated nature of Moodle will cause problems."
Allison Holcomb, communication disorders graduate student, said Student Technical and Resource Training is offering free Moodle training for students.
"A lot of professors are concerned that students will need training in Moodle," Holcomb said. "If students come in for help, we will offer tutoring."
Holcomb said START is a program that offers free software training to registered University students. Training is offered in Web design, office productivity, mathematics and engineering software, programming languages, graphic design and operating systems.
---- Contact Scott Holley at sholley@lsureveille.com
