Comments on: Survey Gives Proprietary AND Open Source VLE Developers Cause to Worry http://mfeldstein.com/survey_gives_proprietary_and_open_source_vle_developers_cause_to_worry/ What Michael Feldstein Is Learning About Online Learning...Online Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:36:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: Patrick Masson http://mfeldstein.com/survey_gives_proprietary_and_open_source_vle_developers_cause_to_worry/#comment-376 Sun, 02 Jul 2006 19:25:01 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/survey_gives_proprietary_and_open_source_vle_developers_cause_to_worry/#comment-376 Very interesting report. Thanks for the IM&M crew for this information. The reports states, 14% of colleges and universities that had no VLE in 2001 had one or more in 2005. I wonder how many of those first time implementations where fee-based, OS or homegrown. Also if fee-based VLE's dropped by 33.7% and locally developed grew 23.2%, I wonder which platforms (Angel, Blackboard, WebCT) those who invested in local development migrated from? WebCT seems to have seen the biggest drop. So I wonder if there is a "maturity level" that campuses reach. That is, those who are new to online learning assume fee-based applications provide stability (code quality, services, support), then after some time and experience running a VLE, realize the costs associated with commercial support are greater than the assumed risks of either OS or just doing it themselves. As Michael points out, if campuses see faculty primarily using a discussion forum and content repository (while supplementing grading techniques just as they do for offline classes), then why pay for all of the other tools, e.g. portfolios, portals, e-commerce? And since your not running an "enterprise level" LMS anymore, why by all of the service/ support (if you where even using or happy with it anyway)? Here is another thought. Many of the commercial applications (and now some of the OS) are extending the scope of their products/projects into non-LMS functionality, as noted above with portals and ecommerce. Campus administrations must be struggling with replication of services. If my LMS (Bb) has a portal, and my SIS (SCT Banner/Luminis) has a portal, and my DB has a portal (Oracle/CampusEAI) while my LMS (Angel) has a calendar, my email (Outlook) has a calendar, and my portal (Academus) has a calendar, how do I integrate these or push all my users to just one? And if I am only going to have one interface, why pay for and support all the ones I am not using? Perhaps LMS functionality is now modular enough (how many discussion forums are there now anyway?) that it's easier to find the educational tools you need and deploy those as a bundle, and if that bundle just happens to look like an VLE, great. So the next question is, looking at the locally developed VLEs in Great Britain, how much of their functionality is original (written from scratch by the institution) and how much is components based (modules of existing applications bundled together)? Very interesting report. Thanks for the IM&M crew for this information.

The reports states, 14% of colleges and universities that had no VLE in 2001 had one or more in 2005. I wonder how many of those first time implementations where fee-based, OS or homegrown.

Also if fee-based VLE’s dropped by 33.7% and locally developed grew 23.2%, I wonder which platforms (Angel, Blackboard, WebCT) those who invested in local development migrated from? WebCT seems to have seen the biggest drop.

So I wonder if there is a “maturity level” that campuses reach. That is, those who are new to online learning assume fee-based applications provide stability (code quality, services, support), then after some time and experience running a VLE, realize the costs associated with commercial support are greater than the assumed risks of either OS or just doing it themselves. As Michael points out, if campuses see faculty primarily using a discussion forum and content repository (while supplementing grading techniques just as they do for offline classes), then why pay for all of the other tools, e.g. portfolios, portals, e-commerce? And since your not running an “enterprise level” LMS anymore, why by all of the service/ support (if you where even using or happy with it anyway)?

Here is another thought. Many of the commercial applications (and now some of the OS) are extending the scope of their products/projects into non-LMS functionality, as noted above with portals and ecommerce. Campus administrations must be struggling with replication of services. If my LMS (Bb) has a portal, and my SIS (SCT Banner/Luminis) has a portal, and my DB has a portal (Oracle/CampusEAI) while my LMS (Angel) has a calendar, my email (Outlook) has a calendar, and my portal (Academus) has a calendar, how do I integrate these or push all my users to just one? And if I am only going to have one interface, why pay for and support all the ones I am not using? Perhaps LMS functionality is now modular enough (how many discussion forums are there now anyway?) that it’s easier to find the educational tools you need and deploy those as a bundle, and if that bundle just happens to look like an VLE, great.

So the next question is, looking at the locally developed VLEs in Great Britain, how much of their functionality is original (written from scratch by the institution) and how much is components based (modules of existing applications bundled together)?

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