Hi Adam,
I don't think there is a formula for this as it depends on
where you are starting from (i.e. a few hundred students/staff using a VLE
sporadically) or several thousand students and staff with nearly every
department heavily using it, with integration into
MIS/email/libraries/content repository etc. However , there are some factors
which apply to almost any change of system.
You would need to calculate the costs of running the current system,
including all software licence fees (if any!), hardware running costs
(including maintenance and upgrades), staff costs of any IT staff keeping
the system running (including network support, security - firewall, virus
protection, backup's etc.), staff costs of support (including any external
support contracts) for the software infrastructure including databases,
staff costs for teaching and learning support. In addition, there will be
costs with any integration with other systems. Note that staff costs should
include all costs (overheads), not just the salaries. Once you have this
information, then you have a baseline figure of the basic costs of running
your existing system - before anyone even uses it.
Then you have to do the same for a new system - and the only reliable way to
do this is to talk to existing real users of the new system (not the sales
people or evangelists) and try and estimate the probable costs in your own
institution. Note that this can be extremely difficult to do as it depends
on so many factors.
Of course, when changing a system, you will certainly (unless it's very
small/insignificant number of users) have to run both in parallel for a time
( probably a minimum of one academic year).
In addition, of course, there are many costs which you can't see easily.
These are the costs involved in students and staff (all types including
academic, support, MIS, library etc.) learning to use (retraining) and get
the best out of the new system. This is where the real costs of changing
come and are the most difficult to estimate. For some institutions, this
will be a very large amount and will greatly outweigh anything else.
Unfortunately, the costs of this are frequently overlooked. They are not
only financial but involve other issues like staff time and workload. And
don't forget the costs of rewriting local documentation - especially where
the institution has to write most of it.
Then there are the costs of changing over the content - unless of course
they are all 'standards' based learning objects......
A bit of food for thought.
Laurence
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Virtual Learning Environments
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Adam Marshall
> Sent: 20 January 2006 12:42
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VLES] VLE migration
>
> Can I just point out that Oxford are NOT considering
> switching from Bodington VLE. We are more than happy with
> this platform. I was just curious to find out if any studies
> had been done.
>
> I figured that a few institutions must have switched from
> Bb/W-CT to Moodle in the last year or so.
>
> adam
>
> | -----Original Message-----
> | From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> | Behalf Of Adam Marshall
> | Sent: 20 January 2006 12:11
> | To: [log in to unmask]
> | Subject: [VLES] VLE migration
> |
> | Has anybody ever looked at the cost of switching VLEs? I'd be
> | interested if anybody had a formula for this.
> |
> | Adam
> |
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