I am able to provide strategic and/or tactical support to educational or training organisations which is informed by a deep understanding of both the educational and technical issues. I am also able to undertake technical work in support of your own IT staff.
The following are some example work packages that I will undertake for you.
I can analyse your organisation's needs in consultation with your management, teaching practitioners and support staff and help you devise a strategy for acquiring and commisioning a VLE. This analysis will include management, financial, pedagogic and technical issues.
If you choose Bodington to build your VLE then I can provide training for your IT support staff and for your teaching staff. This can be strategic training which is built into your VLE planning or tactical training in response to issues that arise as your VLE develops and staff gain experience. I have many years experience using Bodington as a teacher and running a VLE service for tens of thousands of students.
If you choose to use Bodington to build your VLE and you have decided on a specific budget for hardware I will design the best possible configuration of server hardware, order the hardware, build the server, install an operating system, install and configure the VLE. I will then deliver the complete system to your site and provide a training session for your IT team. This service can be provided for a fixed fee (not an estimate) which is agreed before work commences. Since Bodington is an open source product there will be no recurring licensing costs associated with the built VLE.
You may wish to avoid the capital outlay and overhead costs associated with owning and running your own server or you may lack a sufficiently fast or reliable Internet connection at your site. In this case the best option is to rent a server from one of the many commercial hosting companies. I will liase with a suitable company on your behalf to determine the best configuration for your needs. When the server is ready I will install Bodington and configure it. This service can be provided for a fixed fee which is agreed before work commences. If you compare the monthly fee for renting a server against the inevitable replacement of your own server hardware, rental will often be the cheapest option. It is also the most flexible since upgrading to a more powerful server simply incurs a higher monthly fee.
I am well placed to take on programming projects related to Bodington. This may include the addition of new tools, new functionality for existing tools, implementation of a novel user interface, localisation, interfacing with enterprise tools such as course enrolment database etc. Normally a condition of my taking on programming work related to Bodington would be that any software produced will be contributed to the Bodington project under its open source license. I may bend this rule in certain circumstances.
Bodington is used by a number of prestigious universities to implement their virtual learning environments (course management systems as they are known outside of the UK). It was originally created by me at the University of Leeds and is now an open source project, hosted at Source Forge and with many contributions to development from a large number of developers. Equivalent commercial products incur very large software licensing costs and are difficult and expensive to adapt and customise. Bodington is not only free to install and use for any number of years, it is also very flexible and highly configurable. The work of installation and customising Bodington can be carried out by your own IT staff or can be easily funded from the savings made in licensing costs.
Some people in management find it difficult to choose to use open source software because they perceive it as risky. This may be a genuine concern if the particular product in question is not widely used and your organisation is the only one that depends on it.
However, Bodington is used as a mission critical component of eLearning provision by a number of highly prestigious educational organisations, for example the University of Oxford. These organisations are commited to develop and maintain Bodington collaboratively and have a vested interest in supporting your use of it if there is some chance that you will contribute to development and maintenance of future versions.
There are other advantages to open source. In particular, those organisation with sufficient IT skills can change the way the software works. For a wealth of information about open source software take a look at the OSS Watch web site. The site has a very pertinent article about support issues around open source by Sebastian Rahtz.
The Joint Information Systems Committee provides a number of useful briefing papers related to VLEs.
The University of Oxford VLE, WebLearn which is built with Bodington.
The University of Leeds VLE, Bodington Common which is, of course, also built with Bodington.
The University of Highlands and Islands VLE, Clan.
Worldwide Universities Network VLE, WunLearn.
A Google search for Maber Bodington OR VLE reveals some of my activity in this field as referenced by others.
Email address: contact@jonmaber.co.uk