Important Learning Managment System Announcement

Ashland University will be deploying a new Online Learning Management System (LMS) called Angel 7.2, which will replace our present WebCT 4.1, starting this Spring 2007.

Over the past year, the Information Technology Department has conducted a comprehensive search for a LMS to replace our current WebCT 4.1. An LMS Selection Committee, composed of several advanced faculty WebCT users, I.T. department personnel and University students, examined several LMS such as Desire to Learn, Blackboard, Moodle, WebCT 6.0, ANGEL 7.0, and the latest version of Sakai.

After an exhausting examination of the available educational LMS on the market today, the Director of Instructional Technology, Mr. Thomas Kemp, in counsel with the Ashland faculty and other colleagues on and off campus, narrowed down the choices to three candidates; which were identified as best fit for a replacement of our WebCT 4.1. These candidates included: WebCT 6.0, ANGEL 7.2, and latest version of Sakai. These three LMS vendors were chosen because they were better suited towards the long term synchronous and asynchronous goals of our University.

The Learning Management Committee reached out into the Ashland University and Seminary academic communities with surveys and presentations to obtain a general consensus of which LMS candidates would best serve our current and future needs.

After a presentation period, where all three vendors demonstrated their LMS online packages to selected faculty members, I.T. personnel and the LMS Selection Committee, selected the Angel 7.2 Learning Management Suite as our replacement for the present WebCT LMS.

This recommendation was sent on to Ashland University’s Academic Counsel, where it was approved this past week.

To prepare the campus for the change and ease the transition from WebCT to Angel; Mr. Steve Kaufman and Mr. Kenneth Ocheltree will be holding Angel Instructional Training Sessions on how to:

Successfully manage an online course

Best Practices for using Angel
Instructional Design Models for use in your class

Use the Action Editor / Event Editor

This will allow automated LMS actions linked to a student’s course progress (ex: students can be redirected to content based on an assignment or quiz grade).
Create a Learning Object Repository

This allows for storage, tagging, searching, sharing, reuse, and management of content in a highly scalable, efficient manner.

Create Databases and / or Learning Objective Databases
Improve Accessibility

Allow individual users to change their Angel interface to best suit their needs.

Use Tracking Capabilities

Identify precisely what is going on in your course on a daily basis.
Who has submitted assignments?
Who has not been participating?
Set Course Milestones

Share content using Libraries
Use the Angel HTML editors

Copy and paste content from Microsoft Word Documents and other letter formats directly into Angel.

The Information Technology home page will be updated frequently with additional information regarding the timeline for classes covering Angel. We will be offering Basic Courses and Advanced Courses for faculty to attend in the Educational Technology Center located in Patterson Hall, The Ronk Auditorium in the Schar College of Education, and the newly renovated Ridenour Room in the Dauch College of Business. In addition, we will be holding one-on-one sessions to provide extra assistance with each faculty member as we move to our new Learning Management System, Angel 7.2.