From: "Greg Ashley" Subject: [WebCT] Re: WebCT versus others Dear Richard, et. al., I wanted to share our experience in selecting WebCT here at the University of Georgia (UGA). In the summer of 1996 we began to build a new Internet access system for our Campus. At about the same time, a committee of computer professionals at UGA searched the Web and other sources of information to identify potential applications for the delivery of Web-based instructional resources. As many as fifteen applications were initially identified, but that number was quickly reduced to five because many of the applications did not offer the features that our faculty deemed relevant. The applications remaining for evaluation were: Web Course in a Box (WCB), WebCT, TopClass, Virtual-U, and Learning Space (it might have been called something else at our evaluation time - I do not recall). We have two campus-wide Listserv lists at UGA that are devoted to teaching and instructional issues and combined have a readership of over 500 faculty. We invited all members of these lists to participate in the selection and review process. We had about 50 volunteers of which about 30 were quite active in testing and reviewing these applications. We also asked all 500 or so members of these lists for additional applications that should be included in the selection process -- none were suggested. Our evaluators were asked to thoroughly test the five applications and to provide feedback. The Web-based instructional applications were either installed on a local server at UGA or trial accounts and demos could be setup and viewed at the various application's own Web sites. We setup a Listserv list for the participants to discuss and evaluate the various applications. At the end of a month or two of testing we asked the participants for final discussions and feedback and then they were asked to vote on the application that they felt best met UGA's needs. Not all 50 responded, but the final vote was 31 for WebCT, 1 for TopClass, and 0 for the others. Given these results, we beta tested WebCT over the Spring and Summer of 1997 with about 70 volunteers. We began production this past September and now a few short months later we have over 500 WebCT courses used by over 13,000 students (UGA has about 2500 teaching faculty and 30,000 students in all). Faculty use of WebCT here at UGA is completely voluntary and, in fact, instructors or departments are free to use other applications if they so choose. We support WebCT centrally via our Office of Instructional Support and Development and our University Computing and Networking Services (the central IT organization). We believe that this partnership has been critical in providing balanced support here at UGA. We typically provide training and technical support, consultation on pedagogical issues, 24 hour 7 days a week support of our central server, and similar services. Our experiences with WebCT have been extremely positive and it has been very well received by the faculty, staff, and students here at UGA. Currently, we have about 300 individual faculty members offering over 500 WebCT courses and this number is steadily growing. Most of these WebCT courses are used in combination with lecture based instruction, however some are offered completely online. The Web address for our local implementation of WebCT at UGA is http://webct.uga.edu We hold a feedback session at the end of each quarter and invite all UGA WebCT instructors to attend. These have been real ego boosters for us -- since we hear glowing comments from most everyone. I might add that the group that I manage supports many other computer systems on campus and we definitely hear from users when they are dissatisfied. Fortunately, WebCT is a exception and I don't recall a single instructor ever being unhappy with it. My personal opinion is that WebCT is best supported software application that I have ever used (and I have heard many others echo this sentiment also). The folks at UBC are responsive, courteous, open to suggestions, and really care about their product and customers. The URLs for all of the applications we evaluated are: WebCT http://www.webct.com, WCB http://www.madduck.com/index.html, Virtual-U http://virtual-u.cs.sfu.ca/vuweb/, TopClass http://www.wbtsystems.com/, and Learning Space http://www.lotus.com. The WebCT site has links to 3 independent sites that evaluated most of these same products. The Top Class site has information on a PC WEEK evaluation of Web-based instructional applications (although unfortunately WebCT was not included in this evaluation). I hope this information helps you in your evaluation. Greg Ashley Manager of Host Systems Support University Computing and Networking Services University of Georgia ========================================================================== webct-users@cs.ubc.ca A mailing list for questions and comments re. WebCT To subscribe : send an e-mail message to majordomo@cs.ubc.ca reading subscribe webct-users To unsubscribe: send an e-mail message to majordomo@cs.ubc.ca reading unsubscribe webct-users List maintainer: Sasan Salari (salari@cs.ubc.ca) ==========================================================================