Title

Popular Course Management Systems Reify Existing Problems in Education

Abstract

Commercial course managment systems (CMS) in wide use today encourage restrictive configurations and create obstacles to educational innovation. Here we describe the history and development of one department's course resources and contrast their transformative effects on teaching and learning with those available using commercial software implemented at the same institution.

Background and Overview

The Biology Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has provided a suite of web-based resources for faculty since 1996 when the Biology Computer Resource Center (BCRC) was established with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In the beginning these resources were nothing more than hand-edited mailing lists and web-directories where documents could be posted. The Director of the BCRC, in collaboration with faculty, using free and open-source software, and supported by a variety of small grants, has continued to tailor a set of resources to faculty interests and needs. This has resulted in a set of resources that are widely perceived as being responsive to faculty and students. The BCRC course resources currently provide an extensive set of capabilities, including facilities that support student preparation for class, practice quizzing, and review for exams. The University and UMass Online, its distance-education arm, has pursued a different strategy by leasing a commercial Course Management System (CMS) and offering training sessions with faculty. The RFPs crafted by the University for providing CMS services have resulted in free software projects being largely excluded from consideration. The result has been a system, implemented largely without consultation from the faculty, that is insensitive to issues of teaching and learning. This presentation will attempt to illustrate how commercial CMSs, and their implementation, can result in practices that reify existing problems in education, rather than serving as a transformative catalyst, empowering faculty in the exploration of the new affordances that could be provided by technology. We will describe the history and development of the solutions we have devised and make the case for how similar approaches could be adopted at low cost for departments with similar needs.

Outline

  1. Problems with current environment

    • Encourages extremely restrictive configuration
    • Creates obstacles
    • Violates expectations of the savvy webuser
    • Expensive
    • Fosters expertise in the company, rather than at the University
    • One-size-fits-all model

  2. Fostering meaningful learning, supporting student learning activities

    • Learner-Centered
    • Knowledge-Centered
    • Assessment-Centered
    • Community-Centered

  3. Building Community

    • Among faculty
    • Among students
    • Between students and faculty

  4. Using the grassroots

    • Supporting faculty ideas
    • Empowering faculty
    • Playing to local strengths
    • Building local expertise
    • Building a distributed architecture