Author: Dr Ian G Anderson, i.anderson@hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk

JISC e-Learning Activity Area: Technology-enhanced Learning Environments

Higher Education Academy Subject Centre: History, Classics and Archaeology and Philosophical and Religious Studies

This case study illustrates...an effect on learning, an effect on exam results, staff satisfaction with e-learning, an influence on policy, modifications to learning spaces, management of learning assets, an effect on social equality

Technology Used

What technologies and/or e-tools were available to you?

As mentioned above, we initially used icampus as our VLE, a locally re-branded version of Claroline. I am not aware of all the factors that lead to this choice but with the uncertainty over the University's position, the fact that it was free, open source and had large community of support was certainly attractive. The VLE itself was relatively simple, but contained all the basic functions one would expect, was easy to learn and got participants up and running quickly.

The decision to adopt Moodle as the University's centrally supported VLE took place after widespread and lengthy consultation. Although I only participated in a small part of the consultation process, which was a demo of what we were doing with icampus, similar factors were involved. Cost effective, well supported and open source were all major considerations. There certainly seemed to be a consensus amongst staff that we should adopt an open source platform rather than a commercial alternative. There certainly didn't seem to be much difference in functionality between the products on offer.