New lessons in course management: a group of universities have banded together to offer a low-cost course management software alternative; commercial vendors compete with new applications

University Business, Sept, 2004 by Jean Marie Angelo

13. Describe the method by which your system can be tied into a student information system. Specifically address your proposed method to automate the registration (granting of access) of students into courses via a batch process.

14. Describe the different forms of course access (administrative, faculty, student, etc.). Is there a limitation to the number of each form of access per course? Can access be defined for each individual? (For example, can a faculty member determine which elements of faculty access will be allowed for a teaching assistant?)

15. Does your system provide Web-based conferencing? Does that conferencing support both synchronous chat and asynchronous threaded discussions? Is that chat logged to an accessible file?

16. Are glossary and references functions available? If so, are they searchable?

17. Can portions of a course be made available to potential students for review? (For example, can the syllabus be made available outside the secured course?)

18. What is your corporate strategy and commitment to staying current with emerging technologies and standards?

19. How would you address training and technical support for staff?

20. What type of technical support will be available to faculty and students? If a help desk or other technical support e-mail or phone number is available, what are the days and times of availability?

21. Are faculty and student tutorials available? If so, describe.

22. Describe the communication system and processes that will be put in place to facilitate the working relationship between your company and our institution.

23. Describe in what ways your system allows for automation of student access to courses. How "open" is your system in terms of integrating back-office processes with our Student Information System?

24. What is the process to resolve technical problems?

25. What would be the minimum required user configuration (processor, browser, and version, etc.) for course access?

26. Will course development be possible on PC and Macintosh computers? Will courses be available to students using Windows, Macintosh, and Linux systems?

27. How will you handle modifications/upgrades of the courseware platform? How frequent are modifications/upgrades?

28. Describe your course hosting options and models (e.g., licensed to end-user, vendor-hosted, etc.). If hosting will be outsourced to another company, please name that company and describe the relationship between the two companies.

29. How will the hosting system handle backup and recovery? What will be the frequency of backup?

30. Do you maintain a development environment separate from your production environment? Describe the differences between the management, security, and hosting of courses being developed and 2courses being offered to students.

31. Provide data on server downtime during the recent 12 months.

32. How would you handle the issues of course conversion from the current platform (if necessary)?

33. Please address our need for documentation and online help regarding the courseware.