Blackboard is in

Bb has granted MEA from CalState. I have started to prepare for NG pilot when it is released by th end of this month. Feb 2009!

Updated Road Map on LMS Pilot and Extended Projects

This is a updated ROAD MAP of the LMS Pilot and extended projects:

Learning Management System and ePortfolio

Pilots:

1. Moodle and Mahara (pilot Spring 2009)
2. Sakai and OSP (pilot Spring 2009)
3. Bb and ePortfolio (being constantly reviewed)
   

Potential pilots:

1. Elgg (piloted and available to be integrated with Moodle)
2. Keeps Toolkit
   

Projects:

1. Student ePortfolio and Peer Review (LMS pilot)
2. Project ePortfolio and Collaboration (Ida)
3. Department ePortfolio/Repository for Assessments (Ida)
   

Researches:

1. IMS Content Package (preparing potential Content Migration if we decide to move)
   current: IMS Content Packaging v1.2 CM/DN Release v2.0 Specification
2. IMS ePortfolio (preparing potential eP portability)
   current: MS ePortfolio Specification - Version 1 Public Draft Specification - HTML
   

Instruction Content System

Alfresco Lab 3c (pilot Spring 2009):

1. Integration with LDAP (and CAS if necessary)
2. Integration with LMS (Bb/Sakai?)
3. Integration with ePortfolio systems
4. Integration with Institutional Repository (library?)
5. Implementing Share
6. Integration with Social Networking Platforms (Goole/Facebook gadgets)
7. .. continuing streaming media and Podcasting/iTunes U implementation.
   

Social Networking

1. Implementing OpenSocial containers, mainly Google
2. Implementing OpenID application interface (consumer), mainly Google/LinkedIn
   

Max

And -- ePortfolio

A quick follow up:

With our on-going efforts on the LMS pilots, there are ePortfolio tools available for both Moodle and Sakai. Moodle has an integrable ePortfolio tool called Mahara (http://www.mahara.org). Mahara is a 'very Web 2.0 implementation' for providing ePortfolio and Social Networking features with user-centered focus. Sakai Project comes with OSPortfolio (Open Source Portfolio - http://www.osportfolio.org/) that is very powerful (aka. complicated) with their Learning Matrix and comprehensives Assessment implementation. One of our 'technology' goals is to evaluate the two open source LMS/eP solutions with Blackboard/ePortfolio system ('IF' Bb-NG is proven to be section 508 compliant :-) ). Also, one of our main criteria is to carefully evaluate any ePortfolio solutions with the adoption of IMS ePortfolio standard (http://www.imsglobal.org/ep/) to ensure content interoperability for life-long learning; so, the ePortfolios are not depending on any particular application. All Mahara, OSPortfiolio, and Blackboard eP are or being implemented with IMS eP standard in mind! Another exciting project related to this is our ICS (Instructional Content System). ICS will allow users (students and faculty) to directly publish digital content directly to the LMS/eP system, and also, with the potential, to Facebook and iGoogle for peer reviews or team projects by taking advantage of their Social Network technologies.

Moodle: Blackboard Course Content Converter

For converting Blackboard course content to Moodle, we have tested and are very happy with the tool created by LSU. You can find it at:

http://moodleconverter.lsu.edu/

I have contacted the development team and they are kindly to share the code; so, we will be able to host the application at Fresno State in possible Moodle future!

Initial Server Platform Setup

Set up the pilot server virtual instances today for Moodle and Sakai Project pilots:

• MySQL
  
• Moodle
  (reserved url) http://moodlepilot.tlt.csufresno.edu/
  
• Sakai Project
  (reserved url) http://sakaipilot.tlt.csufresno.edu/
  

Server: Dell PowerEdge 2950 / 8 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5440 @ 2.83GHz, 16GB RAM
OS: VMware ESX Server, 3.5.0
Virtual Machine Instances: 5

Base System:

• MySQL Pilot
  Redhat AS5 (64bit) installed / 2vCPU / 1024MB / 32G+64G diskspace
  
  
• Moodle Pilot
  Redhat AS5 (64bit) installed / 2vCPU / 1024MB / 32G+128G diskspace
  
  
• Sakai Project Pilot
  Redhat AS5 (64bit) pending / 2vCPU / 1024MB / 32G+128G diskspace
  
  

Future of LMS Pilot

This is an unofficial worklog of Future of LMS pilot implementation at Fresno State.