[D2l-alert] Upgrade and thoughts from yesterday

[Meyer, Chris J.]

Our PROD LE is presently on LE 10.0.0 SP7. An upgrade would be a change
in version number like 10.1. The service packs do not change the version
number. They are designated as SP##. The service packs have come out
roughly every month in the past. They mainly address bug fixes and don't
change the UI at all.

 

Agreed that it is important to consider the total cost of ownership and
impact to users due to loss of functionality of the platform. If I
recall correctly, that is what drove many users, including OU and OSU,
from Blackboard a few years ago. Blackboard is obviously a different
company now after having absorbed WebCT and Angel. J

 

Chris

 

From: Hedgepeth, Shira [mailto:shira.hedgepeth at swosu.edu] 
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 8:31 AM
To: Meyer, Chris J.
Subject: RE: Upgrade and thoughts from yesterday

 

I have much to ask about your e-mail below and to add.

 

I can tell you from working with tools to implement them into D2L and
the brief time working with D2L the cost is going WAY beyond the price
for D2L.   I will expand on that during our conversation.

 

However, I do have questions about the consortium and practices as well.
Please let me know when you are available.  I need a full understanding
of "upgrades".  

 

I come from a background of total focus on faculty training which I have
not seen here and I am trying to implement.  However, I cannot do that
until we have a clear plan.  

 

Hopefully Aaron will have pricing for you today or by Monday.  

 

From: Meyer, Chris J. [mailto:cmeyer at rose.edu] 
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 8:24 AM
To: Hedgepeth, Shira
Cc: Klein, Karen; Lindon-Burgett, Dana J.; Primo, John; Engelman, Mark;
d2l-alert at lists.onenet.net
Subject: RE: Upgrade and thoughts from yesterday

 

Sure, Shira. Let me see how my schedule falls next week. I'd like to
hear back from Aaron first. I have not receive the information on
pricing that he said he would send.

 

I was impressed with the Blackboard suite. I was impressed years ago
with WebCT CE and Blackboard. The decision we made to use Desire2Learn
was never about features, quality and desirability of the learning
platform. The decision was based upon price, mistrust of Blackboard as a
company (through first-hand experience), and desire for standardization
and cooperation among Oklahoma colleges. 

 

To draw an imperfect analogy, I don't drive a Mercedes Benz because I
don't like them, I don't drive one because a cheaper brand does what I
need at a much better value. Another analogy. For years, I have been a
PC guy. Mainly, it is because Rose uses and supports the Windows
platform. I had an old Apple 2e and IIGS before I came to Rose. (Yes,
I'm THAT old.) I had thought about getting a Mac a few years ago, but
the price, at almost double what a PC costs, steered me away. I finally
decided to try a Mac mini a couple years ago. I wanted to experience and
give the Mac platform a real chance by using it day in and day out.
There are a lot of things to like about it. But, there are a lot of
things you can do in fewer steps and more easily on a PC. While the Mac
might suit some users, I don't think it is as good a value as a properly
maintained PC. Nice? Yes, and beautiful. The Mac as compared to most
PC's is almost a work of art. But, functionally much better than a PC?
I'm not so sure.

 

Back to Blackboard and D2L. Blackboard will need to show it is a better
value than D2L, win my assurance it has changed as a company, and win
over 4-year institutions in the state of Oklahoma. The last factor is
important but not mandatory yet. The State of Oklahoma may have
something to say about this last point as taxpayers demand more
emphatically that government cut waste from state appropriations.

 

Generally, our consortium decided to slow down its upgrades to give
users and administrators time to adjust to the new UI and work out bugs
in the platform. Given the radically different academic calendars of
OCU, SWOSU, and Rose, we've pretty much come to agreement that the first
week in January is the best time to upgrade if we are going to upgrade.
We can revisit that timeframe again to see if that is still the best
option. I think we have come to consensus that we should apply service
packs as they come out because there is little to no downtime and
because they often correct bugs that we have experienced. It would be
nice to have our TEST site and PROD sites on the same version of the LE,
but it could work to our advantage to have the current version on TEST
so that we know when the time is right in the development of the
platform to upgrade PROD.

 

Chris

 

From: Hedgepeth, Shira [mailto:shira.hedgepeth at swosu.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 8:20 AM
To: Meyer, Chris J.
Subject: Upgrade and thoughts from yesterday

 

Do you have some time we can talk about your plans for the D2L upgrade
and what you thought about yesterday?

 

Shira Hedgepeth, JD, MS

Director Distance Education

Southwestern Oklahoma State University

100 Campus Drive

Weatherford, OK 73096

580.774.3149

580.774.7180- fax

 

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