Session: Ditching proprietary software and moving to open source

Date: Thursday, January 31, 2019
Time: 10:00 - 10:45 am (CST) (UTC-06:00)
Location: Room 2
Format: General Lecture Session

Session description

Imperial College London (School of Medicine) was one of the first higher ed institutions in the UK to provide all undergraduate students with Apple iPads to support their learning and Apple iBook software is used to deliver module handbooks to all year groups.

Following informal feedback of the student and staff experience of the iBook software, it was determined that the process for updating and distributing module handbooks was time consuming, and that there was no mechanism to collect data to inform on student engagement.

This session explores the process we underwent to move 80+ module handbooks from iBooks to WordPress and will focus on the process that we implemented in order to demonstrate the need for change, manage risks during transition, measure improvements in the student and staff experience, and finally how lessons learned will inform future development of such applications.

Presenter

Alex Furr

Headshot of Alex Furr
Senior Learning Technologist (Student Experience), Imperial College London

Alex is an experienced eLearning technical consultant and has over 18 years experience working in Higher Education.

He has overseen the development and implementation of a large number of bespoke institutional wide applications including ePortfolios, tutor support tools, student blogging systems, critical appraisal and peer feedback plugins as well as virtual learning environments.

Sessions

  • General Lecture Session: Ditching proprietary software and moving to open source