Comments on: WebCT Campus > Vista > Future? http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:15:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: incorporated subversion » Archive » WebCT pricing and some open source developments… http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-1807 incorporated subversion » Archive » WebCT pricing and some open source developments… Tue, 21 Jun 2005 05:33:01 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-1807 [...] d with price increases for the database licenses necessary with WebCT” Reminds me of a discussion we had about WebCT Campus, Vista and the future a bit back. From which I quot [...] [...] d with price increases for the database licenses necessary with WebCT” Reminds me of a discussion we had about WebCT Campus, Vista and the future a bit back. From which I quot [...]

]]> By: James http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-1668 James Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:40:10 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-1668 Thanks for teh comment Phil, I'd agree with you on many points there especially the problem of educational benefit... or lack thereof. Thanks for teh comment Phil, I’d agree with you on many points there especially the problem of educational benefit… or lack thereof.

]]> By: Phill Brook-Carter http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-1665 Phill Brook-Carter Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:01:38 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-1665 I have spent this semester using Vista for online delivery both to on-campus and off campus students. Last year I did the same with CE, and I can safely say that I believe Vista is far better than CE. From the perspective of stability, ease of communication, management of permission levels, timed permission-based release of online quizzes , marking of those quizzes and delivery of results immediately to students it proved effective and fast. It was a good (quick and simple) way of setting up small group discussions for our PBL approach and more importantly the students found it simple to use. Having waxed lyrical on the benefits, it has taken lots of time to set up (transfer from CE was a flop) and quite a few sessions with training staff, and the students. I was still left wondering "what has this done for us that the previous In-house web-portal system did not?" (setting aside costing lots of $ time and effort). I put this to a colleague as I was sure I must have been missing the "big picture" but his reply was "nothing". These proprietory software intregration packages for education re-invent the wheel at great cost, time, and confusion. As I instructed students in how to access and post to discussion groups the one question (from them ) that I had no satisfactory response for was "why do we have to use this system and can we not use the web-portal to do the same thing" The only answer that I had to hand was that the University had decided to! No doubt in future starting students off with this system will make them very familiar with it, but if you have to pay per annum is it truly worth it? Does it actually provide an educational benefit (as I fail to see the cost benefit)? I have spent this semester using Vista for online delivery both to on-campus and off campus students. Last year I did the same with CE, and I can safely say that I believe Vista is far better than CE. From the perspective of stability, ease of communication, management of permission levels, timed permission-based release of online quizzes , marking of those quizzes and delivery of results immediately to students it proved effective and fast. It was a good (quick and simple) way of setting up small group discussions for our PBL approach and more importantly the students found it simple to use.
Having waxed lyrical on the benefits, it has taken lots of time to set up (transfer from CE was a flop) and quite a few sessions with training staff, and the students. I was still left wondering “what has this done for us that the previous In-house web-portal system did not?” (setting aside costing lots of $ time and effort). I put this to a colleague as I was sure I must have been missing the “big picture” but his reply was “nothing”.
These proprietory software intregration packages for education re-invent the wheel at great cost, time, and confusion. As I instructed students in how to access and post to discussion groups the one question (from them ) that I had no satisfactory response for was “why do we have to use this system and can we not use the web-portal to do the same thing” The only answer that I had to hand was that the University had decided to!
No doubt in future starting students off with this system will make them very familiar with it, but if you have to pay per annum is it truly worth it? Does it actually provide an educational benefit (as I fail to see the cost benefit)?

]]> By: Karen Gage http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-441 Karen Gage Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:19:46 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-441 Here is the relevant excerpt from the letter Scott Leslie references in his post. This was sent from WebCT to our customers on February 17, 2004. "Our WebCT Campus Edition offering will continue to be a foundational element of our product line. As always, WebCT remains committed to WebCT Campus Edition and will continue to provide solutions that meet the broad range of needs of institutions across the higher education community. Our next major release — WebCT Campus Edition 6.0 — is targeted for availability in the first half of 2005; WebCT Campus Edition 6.0 will run on a relational database and will include a wide range of new features and enhancements to our existing teaching and learning tools. We do not expect license fees for this new release to increase significantly over current license fees." At Educause 2004, we further announced the following regarding Campus Edition 6. http://www.webct.com/service/ViewContent?contentID=23632402 Here is the relevant excerpt from the letter Scott Leslie references in his post. This was sent from WebCT to our customers on February 17, 2004.

“Our WebCT Campus Edition offering will continue to be a foundational element of our product line. As always, WebCT remains committed to WebCT Campus Edition and will continue to provide solutions that meet the broad range of needs of institutions across the higher education community. Our next major release — WebCT Campus Edition 6.0 — is targeted for availability in the first half of 2005; WebCT Campus Edition 6.0 will run on a relational database and will include a wide range of new features and enhancements to our existing teaching and learning tools. We do not expect license fees for this new release to increase significantly over current license fees.”

At Educause 2004, we further announced the following regarding Campus Edition 6.
http://www.webct.com/service/ViewContent?contentID=23632402

]]> By: d http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-440 d Wed, 15 Dec 2004 10:27:13 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-440 I'm unconvinced that switching to a VLE that shares nothing but a name with your current VLE (Campus -> Vista), even if the current price differential is artificially maintained by removing large amounts of already implemented functionality, is going to be an easy or enjoyable task. If you're going to expend all that time, money and effort on switching systems, retraining and hiring new technical skill sets, then that's probably a good time to take a look at your other options. I’m unconvinced that switching to a VLE that shares nothing but a name with your current VLE (Campus -> Vista), even if the current price differential is artificially maintained by removing large amounts of already implemented functionality, is going to be an easy or enjoyable task. If you’re going to expend all that time, money and effort on switching systems, retraining and hiring new technical skill sets, then that’s probably a good time to take a look at your other options.

]]> By: James Farmer http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-436 James Farmer Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:54:43 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-436 Wow Scott, Thanks for the info, if it is as you say it is then IRRODL should do a serious review of its review! Cheers, James Wow Scott,

Thanks for the info, if it is as you say it is then IRRODL should do a serious review of its review!

Cheers, James

]]> By: Scott Leslie http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-434 Scott Leslie Mon, 13 Dec 2004 17:54:14 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-434 James, the first paragraph that you cited above just got it plain wrong. WebCT is discontinuing support of the existing Campus Edition *code base*, not the campus edition product line. You should expect to see a Campus Edition product, based on a sub-set of the Vista codebase, with licenses analogus to the current Campus Editions one, sometime in 2005 I seem to think. I know there was a mailout to that effect at one point; the best I could find on the web was http://www.webct.com/service/ViewContent?contentID=23632402. While you may well have many legitimate issues with WebCT, I guarantee you that if your institution is a WebCT adopter, CE 6, based on innovations developed in Vista, will be light years ahead of what they were able to do with the PERL codebase and file storage system on which existing installs of CE depend. WebCT hasn't necessarily done a fabulous job with their messaging our outreach, especially in the blogging community, but I would suggest that if you are seriously concerned about it as a product, or about its future (especially if you are a current customer), then ask your product rep directly and escalate it up the ladder in that company if you aren't happy with the response you are getting. I have read many of the IRRODL product reviews before, and they are often o.k., but this particular one definitely had some issues with accuracy and editorial bent. Cheers, Scott James, the first paragraph that you cited above just got it plain wrong. WebCT is discontinuing support of the existing Campus Edition *code base*, not the campus edition product line. You should expect to see a Campus Edition product, based on a sub-set of the Vista codebase, with licenses analogus to the current Campus Editions one, sometime in 2005 I seem to think. I know there was a mailout to that effect at one point; the best I could find on the web was http://www.webct.com/service/ViewContent?contentID=23632402. While you may well have many legitimate issues with WebCT, I guarantee you that if your institution is a WebCT adopter, CE 6, based on innovations developed in Vista, will be light years ahead of what they were able to do with the PERL codebase and file storage system on which existing installs of CE depend.

WebCT hasn’t necessarily done a fabulous job with their messaging our outreach, especially in the blogging community, but I would suggest that if you are seriously concerned about it as a product, or about its future (especially if you are a current customer), then ask your product rep directly and escalate it up the ladder in that company if you aren’t happy with the response you are getting. I have read many of the IRRODL product reviews before, and they are often o.k., but this particular one definitely had some issues with accuracy and editorial bent. Cheers, Scott

]]> By: N http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-431 N Mon, 13 Dec 2004 09:53:32 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-431 The logic goes something like this: 1) We've just done Y2K for our student records management and finance/HR systems 2) That's millions of dollars on admin systems 3) L&T and research are our core business 4) Shouldn't we spend millions on these systems too? The idea that we could actually spend the millions on supporting the learners and the teachers rather than proprietary licences hasn't actually occurred to University executive management... The logic goes something like this:
1) We’ve just done Y2K for our student records management and finance/HR systems
2) That’s millions of dollars on admin systems
3) L&T and research are our core business
4) Shouldn’t we spend millions on these systems too?

The idea that we could actually spend the millions on supporting the learners and the teachers rather than proprietary licences hasn’t actually occurred to University executive management…

]]> By: incorporated subversion » One Up WebCT (in a good way) http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-447 incorporated subversion » One Up WebCT (in a good way) Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-447 [...] g from WebCT (as of a year ago, can’t confirm that now). Karen’s added to the <a href="http://incsub.org/blog/index.php?p=123">Campus > Vista > Future</a> post quoting a letter sent out by WebCT to customers a bit back that Scott quoted, [...] [...] g from WebCT (as of a year ago, can’t confirm that now). Karen’s added to the Campus > Vista > Future post quoting a letter sent out by WebCT to customers a bit back that Scott quoted, [...]

]]> By: incorporated subversion » One Up WebCT (in a good way) http://incsub.org/blog/2004/webct-campus-vista-future/comment-page-1#comment-446 incorporated subversion » One Up WebCT (in a good way) Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://incsub.org/blog/?p=123#comment-446 [...] g from WebCT (as of a year ago, can’t confirm that now). Karen’s added to the <a href="http://incsub.org/blog/index.php?p=123">Campus > Vista > Future</a> post quoting a letter sent out by WebCT to customers a bit back that Scott quoted, [...] [...] g from WebCT (as of a year ago, can’t confirm that now). Karen’s added to the Campus > Vista > Future post quoting a letter sent out by WebCT to customers a bit back that Scott quoted, [...]

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