Snapshot Implementation

Roadmap: Bringing Order to our Chaotic World?

Gary ClayLearning Development Manager

Staffordshire University

g.m.clay@staffs.ac.uk

Target Audiences

•Those who do everything manually and want a way of automating it (perhaps you haven’t heard of Snapshot)

•Those who have heard of it but not sure what implementing it entails

So what is Snapshot?

• Already installed on your Blackboard system (e.g. in the apps directory)

• what can it do for you? User accounts (and associated details)– Student enrolment onto courses– Staff assignment to courses– Course creation, copying, etc

Implementation Requirements

• Commitment from and availability of Staff (and their management) with the appropriate skill set

• How you deal with e.g. enrolment now - knowledge of how the relevant processes operate and any shortcoming?

• Time and money

• Knowledge of how snapshot operates• How you expect to be operating post-snapshot

Staffordshire UniversityPre-Snapshot

Problems this gives us…1. changes to the surname in Blackboard (or

Thesis) not reflected in the other system

2. no enrolment at weekends

3. training issues – (too many) process(es) and policies

4. dangerous to farm out support to staff in Faculties.

5. All eggs in one basket – we are too dependent on certain individuals

There must be a better way?!?!• We therefore, partly based on this

conference last year started to look at what snapshot could offer.

How we started

• We contacted Blackboard to see what help they could offer.

• They gave us a quote (much larger than we actually needed in the end) and indicated availability / lead time

• Business case prepared setting out what it costs to support the VLE in this manner and how long we estimate it should take to recoup the consultancy cost

Involvement by Blackboard• Talk to them well ahead of time• Experience• Emphasised the need to align to business

processes• Identified who needed to be involved• Three visits

– 1 x 1 day– 2 x 3 days

Processes - 1

• Supporting a VLE is the sum of

Pedagogic knowledge +

Business processes+

Technical processes+

A fudge factor

Processes - 2

• So what processes are there – e.g. for a student– Student joins the University– Students enrols on a course (award)

– Students selects modules

– Students studies modules

– Post module processing– they might change awards, sadly a few will die, some

will fail, some will fail to pay fees, etc – what happens in those circumstances?

What we learned about the way that Snapshot operates

• Data source keys and feed files

• Snapshot Controllers

• Different operational modes

Snapshot Modes

• 4 modes– Snapshot

– Manual

– Remove

– Copyinto

What DSKs have we opted for?

• student • course• enrol• ah_users• ah_courses• ah_enrollments• ah_staff

Aims Post Snapshot

Lessons learned

• It takes time

• Break it into stages e.g.– Student usernames and enrolments– Staff– Courses

• Have reserves (for key staff)

• Be prepared to redesign processes

So – does it bring order?

• YES – eh sort of – at the very least it will give your e-Learning methodology A Reality Check and mean you will probably start to Practice What you Preach!

• See also our ENABLE project http://www.projects.staffs.ac.uk/enable/

Thank youGary Clay - g.m.clay@staffs.ac.uk

This talk is dedicated to the memory Jim Payne – a valued member of our snapshot implementation team who passed away on

17th December 2008 aged 37.