Hello TestPilot instructors,

As TestPilot instructors, I have considered you at the forefront of online learning at Lane.  Although most of you are not teaching fully online courses, your use of TestPilot software for online testing puts you "ahead of the curve" educationally.  You will be able to continue doing what you are doing with Moodle.

I hope you've seen The Daily this week.  Lane has officially adopted an LMS and this means there will be some changes for you.  Here's the article, in brief:

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MOODLE ADOPTED AS THE COMMON LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR LANE

The Executive Team and Office of Instruction have approved the faculty-led decision to adopt Moodle as Lane's common learning management system (LMS), supported by IT, starting in fall 2006. Lane will cease the use of WebCT when the license expires in September. Moodle will be supported by Lane's IT department both in terms of technical server and student support. In addition to being comparable to other commercial LMS systems such as Blackboard or WebCT, Moodle is open source software, which will save Lane thousands in licensing fees and support costs.
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What the Moodle adoption means to you is simple.  Since Moodle can accomplish everything you are currently doing with TestPilot, all TestPilot testing will need to be converted to Moodle by Fall Term 2006.  Thankfully, this is not a difficult task, and it may not be very time consuming in most cases.

Here is a short list of the Moodle features you have grown accustomed to in TestPilot.
     managing your tests from any computer with a web browser
     secure testing at specific locations on campus
     the ability to import multiple questions automatically from a formatted file
     all of the question types, MC, TF, Short Answer, Matching, Essay
     setting start and stop dates
     item analysis
     ability to add media types to questions, such as pictures

Here are some NEW features that Moodle provides and I'm sure you will like.
     you no longer need to input your list of students and L#'s  (that's BIG)
     the ability to fix a wrong answer and have all tests automatically RE-graded (WOW)
     have the graded tests automatically go to Moodle's (Excel) gradebook (NO sorting, re-entering, transposing grades)
     utilize that same gradebook for ALL of your course activity grades
     much more easily score essay questions online, and give feedback, all without downloading and printing anything


That's all for now.  I'll be contacting you again with more details soon.  Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.

Joe Escobar
TestPilot Server Administrator