« Thomson iLrn powerlink | Main | A Tale of Three Universities »

July 20, 2005

CE6 Partner Program Panel

This session was a panel discussion of participants in the WebCT CE beta program. It was primarily to test installation and upgrade procedures for the product. There is some useful information for people planning to migrate to WebCT 6 from WebCT 4.1.

Common themes include:

  • Retraining of faculty will be a major issue because of the interface and functionality changes.
  • We will need new documents and support web sites.
  • Time for faculty to use new tools in their courses and revise courses.

Hardware issues:

  • Use 140Gb for database server.
  • Watch server kernel requirements Solaris has both a minimum and maximum server level. They used a more recent version and WebCT 6 didn't work. May be similar for Linux.
  • Oracle redo logs should be on a separate file system. Watch disk capacity as these logs will "grow phenomenally"

Course Migration Issues:

  • Get Service Pak for 4.1
  • Run the migration tool to generate an XML export of courses
  • Import this into CE6 to create the courses
  • Examine the log file for migration problems
  • Note that student work is NOT migrated (quiz answers, assignments, etc.). Implies we need to keep an old 4.1 server around to support student appeals, etc.

Training:

  • Start with a course on what's changed.
  • WebCT has a lot of resources online including a course for faculty, students, etc. we can include in our courses

Major Changes:

  • The glossary and image library have been combined to something called the "Image Library". May affect courses that use either tool.
  • Changes in look will require adjustments to screen shots in documents.
  • Crosslisted courses will be different. We won't pick one course as "master", instead a separate "master" will be created separate from all official sections.

Known Problems:

  • The product is released with a list of known problems.
  • Service Pak 1 will be released in August to address documented known issues
  • Service Pak 2 in November will upgrade the HTML editor to the latest version (should support Macs). Will also add support for crosslisted courses.

Other Questions:


  • There's no terms in WebCT 6. How do they get around that? Answer is they use the ability to set start and end dates to display courses in myWebCT. However, this is known and there are discussions to reinstate terms.

Posted by kvl014 at July 20, 2005 05:49 PM