A Cat-Herding Tale: Forging a Single Course Management System

A Cat-Herding Tale Forging a Single Course Management System for a Decentralized Institution Copyright Abdul Shibli, 2004.This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author. A Poster Presentation by Abdul Shibli Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts

http://gseweb.harvard.edu/~shibliab Educause 2004, Denver, CO Percent of Harvard courses by school and course platform Arnold Arbor KSG HMS HBS

FAS ICG Tools HLS FAS -DCE ICG Tools HGSE ICG/iCommons Tools HGSD HDS ICG/iCommons Tools FAS HSPH

HSPH ICG/iCommons Tools HGSD ICG/iCommns Tools HLS ICG/iCommons Arnold Arbor ICG/iCommons Tools HDS HBS HBS Coursetools KSG Lotus HGSE

HMS HMS myCourses FAS -DCE Some Accomplishments Strengthening of the student learning experiences in the various schools at Harvard World-class course management platform that is both faculty- and student-centric Started as a Pilot in 2000, now embraces all schools at Harvard 80% of courses using common set of tools Harvards schools are sharing resources; librarians and instructional technologists are

cooperating; faculty are enthusiastic. Accomplishments The collaborative effort has spawned and/or

linked up with other initiatives: Presidential Instructional Technologies Fellows Web pedagogy and community of practitioners Technology Integration Needs assessment Faculty development Course transformation & content development Three Ts (tools, training, and technical support) Strengthening of working relationship between faculty and technologists Key Challenges To consolidate best of breed instructional tools

from around the university into a single, integrated course management system To overcome the historical independence of Harvards various academic environments To reconcile technical approaches to software development in a way that produces an application equally relevant to diverse instructional cultures and curricula