Academic Technology Podcast - Episode 15

Kimberly: Hello and welcome to the fifteenth episode of the Academic Technology Podcast. I'm Kimberly Hayworth, the manager of Academic Computing's Consulting and Multimedia Services group.

Today's episode includes an interview with Marc Brierley, head of the CourseWork User Experience Team, about CourseWork 5.  Marc, what is CourseWork 5?

Marc: CourseWork 5 is the new version of CourseWork; CourseWork Version 5.  We call it V5 sometimes.  There's been a CourseWork system that we built at Stanford starting in 2001 that's been in use and it's been wildly popular.  About 800 or 900 courses a quarter, which out of 1200, is a pretty good percentage.

So the new CourseWork is built on an open-source system called Sakai that Stanford was one of the earlier contributors to.  Originally, it was Michigan, Indiana, MIT, and Stanford.  And then we added UC Berkeley to the mix.  Those were the original 5.  For 2 years it ran under a grant from the Mellon Foundation.  And then in 2006 it transferred over to being the Sakai Foundation.  So it's a non-profit foundation.  These schools have essentially given their ownership of the code over to the foundation.  Now there's about -- depending on how you count it -- 50 to 75 contributing institutions worldwide.

Kimberly: And who uses CourseWork 5 on our campus at Stanford?

Marc: Primarily, the heavy users are faculty and instructors.  In CourseWork, there's a site that corresponds to a course, usually.  Sometimes, it'll be a section of a course, like if you're a language instructor, you teach one of the sections.  CourseWork is primarily a tool for increasing efficiency, I would say.  And some faculty, instructors, use it also as an added pedagogical tool, working on teaching and learning outside of the typical classroom, and that would be "blended learning."  The majority of faculty are using a CourseWork site so that they don't have to track as much information as that they might have done on paper or through email before there was a course management system like CourseWork.

Kimberly: So it's really a way to make their jobs easier as far as tracking things and communicating with students.

Marc: Right.  Writing an assignment, or sending out an announcement, and the students are sort of consumers.  Of course, if you're taking an assignment, like if you're a Human Biology student in the core and you're working on a problem set, that's obviously a lot of work, and that was actually one of the primary usage scenarios that the original CourseWork was built for and of course, the new CourseWork is quite tailored to that usage.

Kimberly: Hmm.  And what services does CourseWork 5 offer?

Marc: CourseWork 5 offers all of the service that the original CourseWork offers, as well as a few more that will be interesting and exciting for faculty and instructors to hear.  But the basic premise for the services is a course site and then within a site you have a set of tools. There’s sort of a basic set which is "Announcements", "Course Materials", "Schedule", "Syllabus".  For people who use it more intensively, there's an "Assignments" tool, there's a "Discussion" tool which, parenthetically, will be the same CourseForum tool that all of our existing CourseWork users will know about.

And then some of the new things about CourseWork 5, the Sakai version of CourseWork, is that one thing that people really like is the ability to upload files in bulk into Course Materials, and that's using a technology called WebDAV.  Basically, what it means is that you can mount a drive on your desktop on your computer, and then drag a bunch of files into it.  And then all those files will show up in the Course Materials tool inside of your course site.

Kimberly: Oh, that's pretty cool.  So it's just like a folder on your desktop and then you just put stuff in it, and then it just automatically appears in CourseWork.

Marc: Right.  So rather than--before, you had to upload one by one, and that wasn't very fun if you had a lot of files.  Related to that is--one of the new tools in CourseWork 5 is the Drop Box, which is a tool--when you're a student, you come in and just upload a file just like you would turn in a paper, say in the real world.  So, in the instructor's side, the Drop Box shows a folder for each student.  Whatever the student has put in their drop box the instructor will see in a separate folder.  So this is a really good way for quick paper submissions.  Some people have been using the Assignments tool to do this, but if they don't really want to create an assignment per se, they can just ask the students to submit a paper, problem set, or whatever through the Drop Box.

Kimberly: Yeah, that seems much more convenient.

Marc: Yeah, that uses the same ability to download in bulk so--

Kimberly: Oh, that's great.

Marc: So, the instructor can go to their site and then just grab all those folders, and they'll receive all the files that students have put in there.

Kimberly: That's much more convenient for faculty, yeah.  So, this is a one-to-one relationship though, right?  If someone uploads something to the Drop Box, it's only visible to the instructor?

Marc: Right.

Kimberly: Okay.

Marc: So yeah, all the students; privacy is enacted there.  If they want to share, they can create folders in the Course Materials which actually, one thing I should mention that's new about that is that you can have more than one level of folders--in the old CourseWork, you just had one level.  So you can have as many levels as you want.  Having at least two levels is helpful for things, especially, like, if you're doing revisions on papers and you want to keep things separate if there's collaboration on those papers.

Kimberly: Yeah, that's a great new feature, because I know many people wanted to have several levels of organization within one topic area.  So having subfolders is great.

Marc: Well, this is one of the things that is really great about being a part of this community source in Sakai is that other schools are contributing tools and improvements to existing tools that make it easier for enhancements to happen, cause more than just one school is doing the work.  And this multiple level of folders was something that was just already there when we started Sakai.  But then there's been other improvements to the Course Materials tool that just happened recently.

Kimberly: Can you talk a little bit more about the difference between open source and community source?

Marc: The typical open source model is a lot of contributors putting in code to a program.  And these people are very distributed and it's totally voluntary and the software is free and sometimes is supported by a company or an institution.  And some of the models for this have been, like, Linux or Apache, which is a web server program.  There's Open Office.  But the thing that's a little bit different about Sakai and calling it "community source" is there is a membership if you want to join; the software is always free, but if you want to contribute towards paying for the communication and contribute towards building the resources that are needed to run a foundation like this.  Typically schools will contribute $10,000 a year – that’s what they're asked to do.  And that pays for communication, a few staff, there's a conference every six months, which will probably be an annual thing.  So, it's kind of a opt-in level that bolsters the community.  The other thing is that most of the people working on Sakai are paid to do so by their institution.  So, we have a number of staff here at Stanford.  They do have a dual role and a primary role as programmer, designer, or project manager here at Stanford but they also contribute to the work of Sakai.  And actually, in some places, an institution will fully fund a staff to do all the work that they're doing just for Sakai.

Kimberly: Hmm.  Just a question: even though the larger project is called Sakai, the member schools or people using the software may change the name on their campus.  For example, even though it is Sakai code, we're calling it CourseWork here at Stanford.

Marc: Right, and since it's open source and there's no directives to do things a Sakai way per se -- UC Berkeley it's called bSpace, University of Michigan calls it CTools.  It's all branded in a different way.  And at Stanford, we're trying to brand in a way that makes sense for our existing users.  So, we're not changing the name and potentially discombobulating, you know, "Is this the same as CourseWork or is it different?"  There are some differences in the interface, and some changes that our existing CourseWork users won't be familiar with initially.  For instance, one of them is that there is a site for every individual.  When you log in it's called "My Workspace" and it has many of the same tools as if you were in a course site, but it's limited in view only to you as a individual in the system.  So you can put your files there, you can have your own schedule, shows schedule items from sites for which you are a member.

Kimberly: Hmm.  So, basically, if I'm enrolled in a course and I go to My Workspace, I'm going to see all my classes' schedules in this particular space?

Marc: Assuming your faculty member put schedule items in that course site.

Kimberly: Okay, so that -- that is something that is good to know as well, that not every single faculty member in every single course is going to have a CourseWork 5 course.  But as you said, many, many will.

Marc: Right.  And so, there's other tools that are in My Workspace that are just for you as a user.  And the thing that's actually kind of kind of nice -- if you're a faculty or instructor and you put things in your "Resources", which is your Materials tool, when you're in your course site, you can actually just grab these items and not have to upload it again.  So, you can just basically copy them over into your course site.  So, you can have your repository of course materials that you use in various course sites.

Kimberly: Oh, that's a nice feature, to be able to access something from a central location like that.

Marc: Yeah, that's something that a lot of our users have been waiting for.  Some people have been able to do that with AFS, but this is a more convenient way because it's all built into the web interface.

A little difference about the UI of the new CourseWork compared to the old, especially if you're an instructor, you had an Admin View and Student View, right?  So, the new CourseWork, you really just have one view, but if you're the instructor, you get different options within each tool.  So, you kind of have the view of what the student sees all the time, but then you'll have added functions that the student does.  So, like, if you're in the Announcements tool and you want to add an announcement, you can click "Add" and the announcement goes out.  The student will see it, you'll see it, but there isn't, kind of, this flip-flop that there was in the old CourseWork where you kind of see a grey version of Admin student View and then the color version of Student.  So, it's one view -- if you're the instructor, you just have added capabilities.

The new CourseWork is more like the rest of the web in terms of experience.  That, you know, it's just one of those things that'll be a little bit different and we really hope people will see the benefit -- it'll be kind of a transition.  Another thing, just for faculty, instructors, students to be aware of that's a little bit different about the UI -- User Interface -- of the old CourseWork is that -- just a warning: the back button at this point doesn't work as you typically would experience it.  Sometimes it goes back to a page that you intended it to, sometimes it doesn't work correctly.  So, the best way to avoid that confusion is to use the links and the navigation built into the interface.  And then within a tool, you'll notice next to the title of the tool, a little double arrows going in a circle and that's "Reset".  If you want to go back to the top of that tool pushing that little double arrow will take you to the first screen in that tool.

Kimberly: Okay.

Marc: So those two things: My Workspace and then some of the navigation being a little bit different are just things to be aware of.

Kimberly: Okay, well that's good to know.  So, ultimately, it sounds like there a quite a few new features and it's a much easier way to to interact with large amounts of information.  So, that will save a lot of time for people who have many materials.  Speaking of that -- so if you have a lot of materials in your current version of CourseWork, what people are using now, CourseWork 3, what happens when you move to CourseWork 5?

Marc: That's a good question and I can talk a little bit about the transition plan from -- CourseWork 3 is the version we've been using here at Stanford.  And in terms of all the files and data that you have in your existing sites, what'll happen starting the summer, when you log into CourseWork 5, you'll see sites  that you had created in the old version of CourseWork.  So, they'll be "past tense" course sites and those courses will be populated with much of the same materials, so everything that was in you Course Materials will be there, as well as your Assignments.  And some of the other information that corresponds directly we are migrating.  So, it'll be as if you'd been using the new tool already.  What the benefit of this is is that when you create a new site, you can just select which courses you want to copy materials.  Which is actually something else that people'll like to know.  Rather than that kind of "request and approve" model like in the old CourseWork; you wanted a course site, you filled out this form and you requested it and then within 1-3 days someone approved that site and basically created it for you.

The new model will be a self-serve model and when you fill out the form for your course site it'll actually be creating it as you're doing it.  So, by the time you're done with that form or a few forms that go in a row -- it's a wizard -- you'll have your site right away and you can start working without waiting like 1-3 business days.

Kimberly: Wow, that's a much better model.  That's a huge improvement.

Marc: Yeah, and it'll help everyone all around.  So, our team, the CourseWork team, won't have to spend as much time just creating sites.  And that'll give us more time to support users on questions that are unique to them.

Kimberly: Mmm Hmm.

Marc: So, another, another part of the transition that people need to be aware of is that when we move to the new CourseWork -- you know, we've communicated this pretty widely already is that, when we move to the new CourseWork, the old CourseWork we will no longer be creating new course sites.  So, the old CourseWork will be available, but it'll be ready-only mode that they can go back if there's things that about the structure of the way someone created their site in the past they can then look at it and then duplicate it at their new sites.

But because we have limited resources, we can't really support both system the way  we're supporting one right now.  So, we'll need to move over.  The current plan is to do that in the summer,  so that we'll be running in our full production in the summer while we don't have as big of a usage -- we only have 100 some course sites in the summer, whereas starting in the fall, it'll be back up to 7-, 8-, 900.  So we'll be running over the summer with more experience coming into the fall.  But if you're teaching in the summer, then that's really the time when we're asking people to move to the new system.  And that's also when the data will be migrated from your old CourseWork sites, as well as all the tools that were in the previous CourseWork version will be available.

Kimberly: Yeah, that -- that sounds like a really good model because that way people, when they just go to open the new version of CourseWork, they'll still have access to their older materials and that happens automatically so, that's a much better system than having people request things be transferred.

Marc: Right.  Come summer, it's going to be CourseWork 5 and the old CourseWork will be read-only.

Kimberly: And you guys have done a great job of advertising that on the login page for CourseWork.  That information has been posted for quite a long time now.

Marc: We sent out a mass mail to pretty much all instructors and faculty through various channels the deans of all the schools.  We'll be doing other things to make sure people are aware and try to show them the differences between the new and the old system, but also mostly all the things that are the same and better.

Kimberly: Yeah, it sounds like there are quite a few major improvements to the system.  So, where can folks find out more information about the new CourseWork?

Marc: Right now, since it's still a pilot, if you go to coursework-pilot.stanford.edu you'll see the new CourseWork, CourseWork 5.  Starting in the summer, that will be CourseWork, so going there you'll find out about it.  There is a set of informational pages -- they're divided for instructors and students to read more about how to use the new system.  The other thing, and it's also linked off that site -- coursework-pilot, and you'll be able to get all this information I'm talking about -- the other thing is that there's a demo site of the new CourseWork that you can log in as instructor, or student, or TA and you'll be able to see the different views for those different kinds of users.  To get into the system, you'll have to use your Stanford ID.  Once you're in there, you just log in as an instructor, student, or TA.  So, this demo site is really a good place to try out the new tools, how it works -- see how it works in general, you can make up new assignments or upload materials.  We refresh the site once a night.  So you -- it's kind of like a sandbox, just a place to mess around or try out the things that you do.

Kimberly: Go to the site and check it out.  And if people have any questions?

Marc: Right now, you can send an email to the coursework-pilot@lists.stanford.edu and somebody from our team will get back to you any questions you might have.  That's the quickest way to get information.  And again, maybe within your department, you will have a special CourseWork demonstration or if people want us to demonstrate CourseWork 5, we're very open for invitations.  We're gonna be actively seeking them out, but in some cases we won't know; there's certain departmental meetings or there's a, a time where it might naturally fit for one of us from our, the CourseWork team to come and give a demonstration -- we'd really like to be able to do that.  We have a number of those set up for the fall for new faculty training, or new TA training, hopefully some as well through the Center for Teaching and Learning but we're also very open to invitations and want to do that.  Or we just have materials for your department to, to give to your constituencies if you want to do it that way, so we don't have to be the ones to deliver it.  We have some PowerPoint slides that we can give you that do an overview of much of what we've talked about today and you can do that on your own.

Kimberly: I know most of the CourseWork team and they're amazing people.  So, if you have a chance to have them come to your department, I would strongly encourage you to take advantage of that.

Marc: Thanks, Kim.  We appreciate those comments.

Kimberly: Sure.  Well, thank you, Marc.  I really appreciate your coming by.  Well, that's it for Academic Technology Podcast, episode 15.  Thanks for listening.  Episode 16 will include an interview with Jeremy Sabol about the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Links to information discussed in this podcast and other show notes are available online at acomp.stanford.edu/cams.  Just click the Academic Technology Podcast link.  You'll also find a link to our blog if you'd like to provide feedback or suggest topics for future podcasts.

Links to information discussed in this podcast and other show notes are available online at http://acomp.stanford.edu/cams Just click the Academic Technology Podcast link. You'll also find a link to our blog if you'd like to provide feedback or suggest topics for future podcasts.