@seanconnor wrote:
Collected and collated with the help of our staff, this "roadmap" collects a number of the items we have talked about recently into one place. This is not meant to be formal, binding, totally comprehensive, or exhaustively detailed. Of course, we certainly welcome questions, comments, and discussion!
Certificates
Older-Style
August 26th 2015 - These certificates will no longer be issued once the Testing Center (AKA "old Moodle", AKA school.saylor.org) is retired. Student access to these will disappear, so we encourage people to save PDF copies. We are working to replace all previously-issued certificates with Accredible certificates. We are also considering how best to preserve the existing verification codes.
Newer-Style (via Accredible)
Ongoing - Accredible certificates are now issued for all new exam completions at learn.saylor.org. These certificates include all the function of our older-style certificates with plenty more to recommend them. We remain interested in creating "bundled certificates" -- i.e., meta-certificates that cover a group of courses, such as old "majors". Older certificates, as noted above, will be re-isssued as Accredible certificates.
Courses, Testing, & Eportfolio
Testing Center ("Old Moodle"; school.saylor.org)
August 26th 2015 - Currently, this system is intended to serve only Legacy courses; this system will be deactivated in late August and students will not be able to directly access existing data. Certificate data and course completion data will be preserved, but specific records (such as a quiz review indicating correct and incorrect questions) will not be retained. Students should save or print copies of anything specific they wish to keep.
Legacy Courses - Certificate and Exams
August 26th 2015 - Final exams and completion certificates for legacy courses will no longer be available. We are still considering how best to preserve and share the exams -- we do not intend to simply discard or withhold them. The courses themselves will continue to be available.
Legacy Courses - Maintenance
Current - Legacy courses now reside in public GitHub repositories; the information there gets ported to the legacy.saylor.org website. These courses will have final exams and certificates through August 26th and will be available as "just" courses after that. Legacy courses are "as-is" and may have quirks -- broken links, outmoded materials, and some formatting issues resulting from the WordPress to GitHub to Website transition. We have called these courses "community supported" -- next steps for these courses need to be finding ways to encourage the community to update these courses -- or even to adopt and adapt them for reuse elsewhere. We know that saying, "here they are" isn't enough encouragement, and are happy to take suggestions on really opening up these resources.
Supported Courses
Ongoing - Since officially launching the Learn platform a few weeks ago (and well before, in fact), we have been working to make a better learning experience for students. On the surface, that includes breaking courses up into more discrete resources (which makes the progress bar much more useful), automating enrollments so that enrolling in eportfolio equals enrolling at Learn, etc. Behind the scenes, many courses are getting updates to materials and additional resources such as end of unit assessments, etc. We want lots of feedback, both warm and cool, to help make these courses everything they can be. We also plan to better surface some of these improvements in our blog.
Eportfolio
August 26th 2015 - The eportfolio fulfills a number of necessary as well as supplementary functions: student registration and information system, student account management, course list and planning, personal profiles, digital transcripts, and more. Because the system is aging and we have made a number of changes that make some functions obsolete, we will need to redevelop or replace the eportfolio -- either reducing it to core functions or transferring those functions elsewhere. For example, the discussion forums provide a good opportunity for interacting with other students and hosting personal profiles; the new Learn site could handle registration, course lists, student information, and transcripting. These functions are not likely to be replicated, however: blog, study groups, resume, and work samples.
Other Technology
CAS Registration and login system (cas.saylor.org)
August 26th 2015 - This is the system that processes initial registration and login and communicates between the eportfolio, the older testing center, and the new Learn platform. Deprecation of this system is implied in forthcoming redevelopment (or de-development) of the eportfolio -- we propose to manage registration and login through Learn, which will integrate student activities and functions as much as possible in one place, with a consistent design and user experience.
Library (library.saylor.org)
TBD - This has long been in the Saylor stable but without fanfare. Originally, we had proposed to use the library as a repository for open educational resources (OER) and other freely-available materials that we use in our courses; further, we had hoped to reference these resources directly in our courses -- that is, the library and our courses would be interconnected, and updating or replacing a resource in our library could potentially update or replace it everywhere it is used in our courses -- or for anyone linking to that resource in our library. The library is built with open-source software called DSpace and is hosted by a partner that specializes in managing this software. Currently, the library hosts metadata almost exclusively -- not actual downloadable files. We hope to host files and to make the library better serve students' needs and ours, as well as those of the public more generally.
Main Site (www.saylor.org)
Summer-Fall 2015 - With our courses having moved from WordPress (our “www” site) to Moodle (our “learn” site), we have an opportunity to revise this platform. As we simplify our ecosystem, we also have a better understanding of how to get people where they want to go. The main website will perform primarily an informational and discovery function for prospective students, educators, and potential partners.
The Blog (www.saylor.org/blog)
Summer-Fall 2015 - A change in the site implies a change in the blog, which is part of the same WordPress instance that contains our main site. Here is what we have in mind: migrate blog to updated platform; fix bugs; improve styling and readability; more diverse, more frequent, and more interesting content.
Initiatives & Philosophy
Okay, in fairness the below is more general than specific -- we just want to let you know where our thinking is; the results of these initiatives, we earnestly suppose, will be better open courses for everyone and an exciting future for Saylor Academy.
College Credit Recommendations
Many people know that a number of courses/exams have been recommended for college credit, both at specific partner schools and at many more besides. We are working to have many more recommended for credit, which involves new investments in the courses and exams that benefit others as well. More on this as soon as we know and can share!
Workforce Training
We have been sharing some stories in our blog from the staff of a long-time partner of ours; more and more businesses, from small shops to large corporations, are seeing the value of open online courses for supporting, developing, and engaging their staff. We are eager to work with new and existing partners to serve
Modern Credentials for Fun and Profit
As we work to improve courses, refine the student experience, and dole out nice new certificates (thanks, Accredible!), our offerings for individual students will better support both casual and career-oriented learning and everything in between.
Degree Completion
Although we are not an accredited school, we are partnered with several that use our courses to support their students -- and that includes both our formally credit-recommended courses as well as many of our certificate courses.
OER Adoptions
From individual textbooks to full courses and exams, educators use and adapt our curated materials -- the more, the merrier!
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