1. The Collaborative Hosting of Moodle
Dec 1, 2011
Presented by:
Curtis Fornadley, PMP
CCLE Coordinator

2. The Collaborative Hosting of Moodle
Topics
 The organizational structure that helped UCLA evolve from
having ~25 LMS systems on campus to under 5
 How CCLE goes about the planning and decision making
process
 Cost, benefits and lessons learned in making the collaborative
host of a large system work.

3. Decentralized IT
 Academic
 Many Autonomous Departments
 Primary clients: faculty and researchers
 No Central Funding
 Administrative
 Business and Student Applications; ex. payroll
 Campus Communication Technology
 Obvious Synergies
 Email
 Course Management Systems

4. CMS on Campus circa 2002

5. What is CCLE?
 Common Collaboration and Learning Environment
• Common System for the Campus (Moodle v1.9.8)
 Supports: Instruction, Collaboration and Research
 Users: Faculty, Students and Staff.
 First successful, large scale, project that pulls together
many different campus departments to host a single
service.

6. Growth of CCLE
2500
2000
Fall
Total Winter
1500
Course Spring
Sites 1000 Summer
500
0
2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011
Logins per Day Total Users
Spring 2011 7,113 23,854
Spring 2010 4,178 19,362

7. Defining CCLE
 Guiding Principals:
 School/division staff and support are the foundation for the CCLE
 Encourage broad adoption through “opt-in” participation
 Planning and Governance should be open and participatory
 Academic priorities and faculty/student experience drive decisions
 Support creativity and innovation
 Allow for more than one Moodle installation in the plan

8. Defining CCLE
Possible Organizational Structure:
Common Software, Central Coordination,
No Coordination Less Autonomy/Flexibility
 Decision: Less Coordination, More Autonomy/Flexibility
 One shared campus-wide system
 Some unit-only installations
 Establish an administrative home for the CCLE

9. Shared Governance Model
Oversight
Academic Leadership, Deans, CIOs
Governance
Standards and Practices
Faculty Group Student Group
Group
Operations
Autonomous Department
Common Interest System
CCLE Home Group (CIG)
Autonomous Department
System
Shared Campus
Operations CCLE Subgroups Autonomous Department
System

10. Shared Governance Model
Oversight
Academic Leadership, Deans, CIOs
CCLE Home
CCLE Coordinator (hired Sept. 2008)
Governance Developer
Lead
Standards and Practices
Faculty Group
Support Coordinator Student Group
Group
System Administrator – Shared System
Operations
Autonomous Department
Common Interest Opt-in units can
System
CCLE Home Group (CIG)
run their own
Autonomous Department
System server
Shared Campus
Operations CCLE Subgroups Autonomous Department
System
Common Code
base in SVN Local support is at the unit level

11. How it Works: Communication
 Standards & Practices Group (S&PG) – Monthly meetings, email
 Determine guidelines, policy and approves spending
 When necessary decision by vote
 Common Interest Group (CIG) – Weekly meetings, email
 Balance day-to-day issues with mid-long term planning
 CCLE Subgroups –Weekly meetings, email, Jira
 Developers - Crucible, Jabber
 Functionality
 User Support
 System Operations
 CCLE Home:
Organize, Facilitate, Coordinate, Mediate, Moderate, Execute

12. Requirements Gathering
CIG and SPG
F&F Matrix
Faculty Survey Student Survey
Faculty Advisory Group Student Advisory Group
CCLE
F&F Matrix
CCLE Projects

13. Prioritizing Feature Requests
Features and Functionality Matrix (H, M, L)
Feature Types:
• System Operations
• CCLE Archival
• User Interface
• Functionality Improv.
• Integration with
Campus Systems
• Other CCLE sites
• Staffing Resources
• Admin/Support Tools
• Mobile
• Copyright
• Documentation
• Merge Code to
Moodle .org
• Contribute to
Moodle .org
• Governance
• Other
Value Technical Difficulty

14. CMS on Campus circa 2002

15. CMS on Campus 2011
Arts and Architecture - CCLE
Anderson – CCLE (2012)
Public Affairs - CCLE
Statistics - CCLE
Social Sciences - CCLE
Engineering – CCLE (2013) Humanities - CCLE
Mathematics – CCLE (2012)
GSEIS - CCLE
Physical Sciences - CCLE Life Sciences – CCLE
Nursing - CCLE
Public Health - CCLE

16. Challenges and Insights
 Building Trust: communication and transparency
 Getting commitments and contributions from staff
 Difficulty building a community of Moodle developers
 Balancing individual needs in a shared environment
 “Fairness is Relative”
 Differing Perspectives and Priorities
 Compromise is Constant
 Managing entropy
 Funding challenges – “common good”

17. Challenges and Insights
 Collaboration has a Cost:
 Many meetings – essential for communication
 Compromise, but power in numbers
 Projects take longer
 CCLE governance mirrors government
 Few vocal people drive direction
 Some choose to not get involved
 Free ridership
 Having a priority setting and decision making
process is essential

18. The Collaborative Hosting of Moodle
Questions
Curtis Fornadley, PMP
CCLE Coordinator
cfornadley@oid.ucla.edu