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Technology Sources and Standards

March 24, 2010 by
Categories: Strategies

An important consideration when selecting a given technology is the source of that technology and the standards that it adheres to. With respect to software, there is a common distinction between “open source” and “closed” or “proprietary” source. Open source refers to software that is distributed with its source code completely open for anyone to read and modify. Source code here refers to the collection of files that contain all the “instructions” or code that programmers have written that are the source of a given software’s features and functionality. Open source is often contrasted with proprietary or “closed” source technologies, those which restrict access to source code and can only be changed by the vendor. Open source technologies are usually available for free, proprietary technologies usually require a licensing fee to use.

Open standards refer to publicly available specifications that provide a common method of achieving a particular goal. These standards are usually free to use and are often defined by formalized committees that are open to participation by any interested party. These are often coupled with open source code that provides a reference for how the standard is implemented. Open standards are contrasted with “closed” or proprietary standards that require licensing to implement and are usually defined by individual companies or organizations.

With respect to technologies used for teaching and learning, Middlebury Library and Information Services (LIS) has had a strong commitment to both open source and open standards. In 2001 the LIS Curricular Technology group began to develop database-driven web applications using the Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) open source web platform. Segue was developed at Middlebury and released as open source software in 2003. Segue v2 implements a set of specifications developed by the Open Knowledge Initiative (O.K.I.) that continue to be promoted as open standards. Other open source technologies in use at Middlebury include Moodle, Drupal, MediaWiki and WordPress.

Thus the Curricular Technology team favors open source technologies because they allows LIS designers and developers to integrate such technologies with other systems on campus including other open source projects. Segue itself builds upon a number of open source tools including the CKEditor. The Curricular Technology team also favors technologies that use open standards because they help to prevent lock in to a given application or vendor.

There are exceptions to these rules. For example, proprietary technologies can certainly be good candidates for selection when they implement open standards. While the Microsoft Exchange server is a proprietary system, it implements a number of open standards such as LDAP, IMAP, and SMTP that allow LIS to integrate data from the Exchange server into other applications such as Segue, WordPress, Drupal, and your favorite non-Outlook email clent. Google Apps for Education are another proprietary platform that can be fairly easily integrated with existing platforms and infrastructure.

Thus this historical commitment to open source and open standards does not preclude the use of proprietary software, but it does favor open source solutions when these solutions offer comparable functionality. The use of proprietary formats may be necessary and supported, but only if such formats adhere to open standards, can be edited by more than one application or offer unique functionality not replicated in other formats.

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Technology Selection Strategies

March 22, 2010 by
Categories: Updates

Over the next few weeks, the Curricular Technology team will be posting our thoughts on strategies for choosing curricular technologies in general and for finding alternatives to Segue in particular.  In describing these strategies, we will do our best to list various options available and then articulate our position, the selection criteria we think are most appropriate for LIS to adopt when evaluating technologies for use by the Middlebury community.

We hope these strategy posts will be informative and at times provocative and will spark some discussion of educational technologies and technology in education.

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Usage Analysis: Audio Capture

March 4, 2010 by
Categories: Updates

A number of programs of study make use of technologies for recording audio.  Some faculty have recorded their lectures, others  have recorded class discussions.  Language faculty have recorded samples of the language they are teaching for students to listen to and reproduce in their own recordings or have required students to record themselves reading words, phrases or passages from various texts.  Some faculty teaching writing courses have asked their students to record themselves reading their own writing.  Finally faculty in various departments have had their students produce podcasts.  For more details, see:

Curricular Technology Usage Analysis » Audio Capture

We invited others to send us more examples of the use of audio capture at Middlebury or comment on any of the case studies included in this usage analysis.  We also invite anyone in the Middlebury community interested in or knowledgeable about this topic to participate in our focus group sessions later this month.

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Segue from Segue Advisory Group

March 3, 2010 by
Categories: Announcements

A Segue from Segue advisory group (SAG) has been formed that includes of the following participants:

  • Amy Morsman (Associate Professor of History)
  • Claudia Cooper (Director Education Studies Program, Visiting Assistant Professor of English & American Literature & Education Studies)
  • Sasha Woolson – (Visiting Lecturer in Spanish)
  • Ray Coish (Professor of Geology)
  • Erik Fendik ’12
  • Andy Cohen ’11

The purpose of this advisory group is to provide input and guidance to the Curricular Technology team that will help identify stakeholders and engage the college community in the process of selecting one or more replacements for Segue.

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Segue from Segue Focus Group Sessions

February 25, 2010 by
Categories: Announcements

To help find platforms to replace Segue, the Library and Information Services (LIS) Curricular Technology team will be coordinating the formation of Segue from Segue focus groups.  The goal of these focus groups is to understand how faculty teach and how they use the technologies currently available to them at Middlebury and beyond.

To ensure focus group discussions are manageable and productive, each session will be limited to 8-10 participants and session registration is required.

Here is a list sessions currently scheduled:

Online Discussion

This group will focus on the role of online discussion in classes at Middlebury.

Register (required for participation)

10-11 am, March 8, Library 145 (cancelled)
3-4 pm, March 15, Library 145

10-11 am, March 17, Library 145

Assignments & Assessment

This group will focus on how assignments are “assigned” to students, how students submit their completed assignments, how they receive feedback on their assignments and other ways student performance is assessed (quizzes, exams, papers, projects, participation…).

Register (required for participation)

2:30-3:30 pm, March 9, Library 105

2:30-3:30 pm, March 16, Library 105

Websites & Media

This group will focus on use of course web sites, access to course sites and the use of media (e.g. images, audio, video)

Register (required for participation)

4:30-5:30 pm, March 10, Library 145

12-1 pm, March 18, Library 145

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Usage Analysis: Language Learning Resources

February 25, 2010 by
Categories: Updates

The Language Schools and language departments have long been innovators in the use of technology.  I have reviewed many of the language learning resource sites that have been created over the years and drafted a description of some of the ways Segue has been used for language instruction, see:  Language Learning Resources

I invited others to send us more examples of language learning resources at Middlebury or comment on any of the resources listed on this site.

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Technology Usage Analysis

February 4, 2010 by
Categories: Updates

To help us understand the functional requirement of platforms and applications that will be needed in the future including those that will replace Segue, we have started to do some curricular technology usage analyzes.

The first usage analysis we have done is an overview of Segue usage.  Over 5000 sites have been created in Segue since it was introduced in 2003 at Middlebury.  Over 12,000 individuals have created Segue user accounts.  About a third of the sites  created in Segue have been for courses, another 30-40% have been for personal sites and the remaining have been for “custom” sites which could include department and area sites or curricular resource sites.

For more details, see: Segue Usage Analysis

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Segue from Segue: Strategy and Timeline

February 1, 2010 by
Categories: Updates

The Library and Information Services (LIS) Curricular Technology (CT) team will be leading the project to phase out Segue and find one or more replacements for it.  The team will definitively use the Middlebury Web Makeover project as a model for how to engage the college community in this critical transition (for more information on why we are doing this, see: Segue Decommissioning).  Indeed many of the team members are actively involved in managing different aspect of the transition to the new college site.

Currently the team is reviewing the many course sites and curricular resources that have been developed over the years at Middlebury in Segue and other platforms.  From this review we hope to get a sense of how faculty and students are using technology in their teaching, learning and research.

Based in these findings the team will help coordinate the formation of curricular technology focus groups to define the functional requirements for platforms replacing Segue.  We also hope that these focus groups will help draft a set of survey questions that we can send out to the entire college community.  Our goal is to engage as much of the college community as possible.

Project Timeline

The CT team is committed to making recommendations for Segue replacements by the end of the Spring semester (May 2010).  We will be publishing a more detailed timeline in the next week or so.

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Segue v1 Shut Down

October 21, 2009 by
Categories: Announcements

Segue v1 will soon be shut down.  Currently, editing and new site creation has been disabled in Segue v1 since August.  Sometime this spring (specific date to be set soon…), existing Segue v1 sites will not be viewable as well.

(Segue v2 will continue to be available at least through summer 2010.)

If you have created a site in Segue v1 that is still being used, please migrate it to Segue v2 ASAP.  To migrate a Segue v1 site to v2, do the following:

  1. Go to https://segue.middlebury.edu/
  2. Log in with your Middlebury username and password
  3. Click on the “Migrate Sites” link
  4. Locate the site(s) you want to migrate
  5. Click on the “Import into” button

If you have any problems migrating your Segue v1 site, please contact me immediately (achapin@middlebury.edu).  Also contact me if you know of Segue v1 sites that are being used regularly.  Segue v1 sites are all sites whose web address starts with the following:
https://segue1.middlebury.edu/….
https://segue1community.middlebury.edu/…

We are currently researching alternatives to Segue in general.  Check back here for updates on this.

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