Integration makes Lightwork

About a week ago, I had a lengthy Skype chat with Dr Eva Heinrich, Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering & Advanced Technology at Massey University, NZ.

We met to discuss  Moodle-compatible software for Assignment assessment, called Lightwork. I first came across Eva and this product at the M25 Learning Technologies Group meeting at the LSE (where I was presenting) late last year and was keen to find out more.

See, developing an efficient mechanism for the downloading of work from Moodle, prior to assessment by lecturers (and subseqent re-upload to Moodle) has been a major area of interest for colleagues at the University of Bath, where I’m based. Indeed, my colleague Vic Jenkins, has already worked on factors to consider for setting up such an activity in our VLE, later evaluating functionality that might be required in an ideal world.

When I heard that colleagues at a university at the other side of the world had encountered similar issues, I was keen to hear more about both their work and findings.  According to the Lightwork website, the application “runs on the user’s PC. It connects to the institutions; Moodle installation and works together with the Assignment module and Gradebook in Moodle. Students still submit their assignment work to Moodle and receive their marks and feedback via Moodle.”

Some notes and reflections from the meeting follow:

• Lightwork has been ten years in the making, and seeks to answer a particular research question about efficient marking practices. A plan was formulated in 2006/7, and the first user version (with Moodle in mind) was released in May 2010. Five participating Australian institutions are currently piloting the software, and will report back in due course.
• With a large investment for development by Massey University, the software is ready for download and deployment for those institutions who want to use it. These institutions would be encouraged to feed back their experiences via the lightworkmarking.org website.
• A 0.5 FTE developer is currently assigned to the project, and is available to fix bugs and the like. Longer term though, it is likely that more development resource (provided either financial or physical resource) will need to be provided by participating institutions to really drive this product forward.
• The wishlist or roadmap currently includes Moodle 2.0 integration (this is likely to be achieved by Spring/Summer 2012 at the very latest), an iPad optimised interface (or iTunes Store app) and the ability to include audio feedback.
• Whilst this development sits outside the Moodle Foundation, one of the key aims of the project is to have it led by a community of users. This is likely to be made up by representatives of universities who are currently piloting the software, or who have gone for a full deployment.

Whilst I am encouraged by the progress that Eva and her colleagues have made to date, I am concerned that there isn’t yet enough evidence to justify either a pilot or a full blown deployment at my own institution.

Becoming one of the early adopters is possible I guess, but we would still have to tread incredibly carefully. Making non-core database related changes to our production service is only ever done in exceptional circumstances, and if such an integration was deployed, we would need to consider the risks associated and the exit strategy.

After all, there would be nothing worse that to trial this software as a proof of concept with staff, who in turn like it, only to find that that software isn’t viable, scalable or resilient enough in the longer term. That’s the point of a pilot, I guess! That said, I feel that not enough institutions have thrown their weight behind this project (yet!) to make sure that this software doesn’t become a niche, which is not sustainable in the longer term.

Much like my experiences with BigBlueButton last week, I’d be keen to keep in touch with the Lightwork community and see how their work develops, checking back in 6-12 months to see how things have moved on. I’d really like to implement Lightwork longer term, but I think that I (and everyone else I work with) might need a few more assurances first.

Focusing on BigBlueButton

Earlier on today, some colleagues and I from the e-Learning team and elsewhere at the University of Bath (@alexlydiate, @vicjenkins, @jpodcaster, @edsgmj, @jezcope) met virtually to take a look at BigBlueButton. We’ve previously explored MegaMeeting, which after a two year pilot, is now being phased out.

According to the BigBlueButton website, the software “is an open source web conferencing platform which enables universities and colleges to deliver a high-quality learning experience to remote students”.

With Moodle integration now available (for versions 1.9 and 2.0), this solution was put forward as something that we might pilot as a proof of concept. The Division for Lifelong Learning are already trialling Elluminate so I’d be keen to hear how @jpodcaster thinks that the two compare.

It was a rather interesting exploratory session, particularly as after tweeting about the session at demo.bigbluebutton.org, a few fellow tweeters at other institutions (@mattlingard, @KrisEdTech, @zakmensah) joined us for the demonstration too.

It look us a little while to get going, but once we did, we managed to get a conversation started and begin to explore the functionality.

Some notes and reflections from the meeting follow:

• Once we got the webcams and headsets going, the streams were of a pretty good quality – admittedly most were on JANET-based university LANs – and the sound was variable. Adobe Flash doesn’t provide echo cancellation, so users need to have headsets ideally. @alexlydiate and I were using a webcam-based mic, so others in the conversation were getting a fair amount of feedback and echo.
• The interface reminded me of a number of ESTICT SIG meetings that I’d had with colleagues over Adobe Connect – the interface wasn’t too dissimilar, though Connect was smoother in appearance and functionality.
• @alexlydiate had a look at look at BigBlueButton over the Christmas break and found that the install guide was quite specific about the install being on Ubuntu 10.04, 32 bit. Or at least, that being the one tested and stable platform. If BUCS don’t have this expertise in house, will we (even) be able to get as far getting BigBlueButton installed on a test server?
• The Activity Monitor might prove to be useful in monitoring usage of the software. I wonder if it’ll be able to provide graphical representations of usage going forward like the ones provided for Panopto (see slide 13 in this presentation)?
• The Adobe Flash interface infers that it won’t work on mobile devices such as Apple’s popular iPhone and iPad devices. I wonder how much of a dealbreaker this would be for users, and if indeed, a HTML5 based solution is in the offing?!
• @vicjenkins commented that it took 30 minutes to get her audio working, so if we did take this solution forward with staff and/or students, a ‘Quick Start’ might well be required.
• I’m keen to learn about the funding model for BigBlueButton. For example, our institutional open source VLE, Moodle, is strategically led by the Moodle Foundation within funding contributions by Moodle Partners and other commercial activities, as well as (the community) providing support through the Moodle.org forums.

Where next? Talking to colleagues following the session, confirmed my views that BigBlueButton still has a way to go before we can consider it to be a viable solution that we can deploy institutionally. However, we’ll watch developments with interest and will consider setting up another, similar demonstration in six months time to see if the functionality has moved on at all.

Finally, I’m grateful to Fred Dixon at BigBlueButton who came along at 6.30am (Canadian Time!) to help troubleshoot our session and answer any questions that the team and I had. Thanks too to @alexlydiate for finding a spot in the diary for getting us all together.

Deployment of Learning Technologies

I’m currently working on putting together a portfolio for CMALT accreditation, and have been thinking about the process that we’ve been employing within the e-Learning team at the University of Bath for the deployment (or not!) of learning technologies.

• Stage 1: Consider a number of solutions, before choosing the hardware/software that is most appropriate. This might be conducted across a particular set of criteria, prior to being written up formally.
• Stage 2: Deploy and pilot the software on a development server, and work with academics (and colleagues in support services, if appropriate) to develop a proofs of concept.  Consider the exit strategy if things don’t quite turn out as planned.
• Stage 3: Working alongside practitioners, evaluate this pilot by producing a set of reflections. For example, when evaluating the Electronic Voting System (EVS), I asked users to write session reports or case studies of use.
• Stage 4: At the end of the project timeline, evaluate its use and impact (through log data, surveys capturing quantitative and qualitative data and if required, focus groups).
• Stage 5: Make a decision, in conjunction with stakeholders, to operationalise the pilot as a service… or say goodbye and farewell!

I wonder if this process is employed other Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) too. Is the process longer or shorter? More in depth, or more light touch? How much documentation is produced? And are stakeholders brought into this process?