Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT
Colleges and universities have increasingly invested in specialized software and hardware designed to enhance and facilitate the instructional process for faculty and students. One type of technological assistance is commonly known as course management software (CMS). Once learned, these CMS packages can greatly enhance and enrich the classroom experience and provide internet based access to course materials, assignments, grades, supplementary materials, such as quizzes, PPTs, and study aids. Like all moderately complex software packages (Blackboard is proprietary software and Moodle is open source software), there is a learning curve involved in mastering the functionality of each CMS. This paper examines the process of changing from one type of CMS (Blackboard) to another (Moodle). Faulty (FT & PT) and students (graduate & undergraduate) were surveyed to obtain opinions about the transition from one CMS system to another. The goal is to identify issues that may be addressed by targeted training and insights which would improve the transition process.
Keywords: CMS, Blackboard, Moodle, Computer Aided Instruction, VLE.
INTRODUCTION
Adelphi University is a medium sized (8000 students) private sector university offering bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees; it is located in Garden City, New York in the United States. This case study was conducted in the School of Business at Adelphi University which offers bachelors and MBA degrees in business. Approximately two thirds of the students are in part time and full-time undergraduates programs, and one third enroll in graduate business programs in traditional formats as well as in accelerated cohort formats.
Adelphi University is an AACSB- International accredited institution; pedagogical research is one of the foci of scholarly activity. The goal of the research was to study the transition from Blackboard CMS to Moodle CMS.
The purpose of this research is to determine what the faculty and students think about the use of CMS and more specifically what they think about the comparative advantages and disadvantages of each system. It is hoped that the results of the surveys will lead to ideas to improve not just the transition to Moodle which will be the only CMS available as of the Fall 2009, but also for ideas on faculty and student support mechanisms. Finally, this type of pedagogical research is consistent with the School of Business's...