HawkLearn: A Small College Reaches for the Clouds

Kim Round is director of Instructional Technology at Saint Anselm College.

At Saint Anselm College, a Catholic, Benedictine liberal arts institution in Manchester, New Hampshire, the technology strategic plan challenges the Instructional Technology team to lean forward. By design, the Instructional Technology team is the only function within the IT organization that does not operate as a "near follower." Rather, the team is tasked to explore emerging technologies and pedagogies to create engaging on-ground and virtual learning environments.

As Saint Anselm CIO Adam Albina explained:

"In areas of instruction and pedagogy, we expect to be leaning forward in the saddle and doing things that are a little bit more risky in order to bring the technologies that have a strategic advantage to our students — which you can't really do unless you're out on the front edge. So, it's good to have instructional technology exploring cloud solutions, because a lot of what we learn will define our cloud strategy."

In 2010, Saint Anselm implemented the Sakai learning management system (LMS). Last year, with the enterprise LMS three years old, preliminary discussions began about future directions. Generation Y's characteristics, including teamwork and collaboration, had to be taken into account.¹ Free, cloud-based Web 2.0 tools were also increasingly popular with Saint Anselm's student body. Instructional Technology posited that the next LMS implementation should include enhanced capabilities for rapid feedback, peer review, game-based learning, and open resources.

We considered several next-generation LMS models, including the personal learning environment (PLE) and open learning network [http://www.olnet.org/] (OLN). A PLE is a combination of web-based technologies, chosen by the learner, that connect to tools, learning communities, and resources.² As figure 1 shows, OLNs combine the best characteristics of traditional LMSs and PLEs, allowing learners to easily leverage Web 2.0 collaborative tools and open educational resources while securing sensitive data and processes.³

The Instructional Technology team found compelling OLN efforts at Brigham Young University,⁴ Northern Arizona University,⁵ and Open University.⁶  However, these initiatives were all explored at large universities; the team found no reports of small colleges — which typically have more limited resources — pursuing similar projects. In addition, Saint Anselm College had yet to leverage cloud-computing strategies for application deployment. An OLN pilot initiative could bring technical, financial, support, and policy issues squarely into focus.

OLN Pilot Project

At Saint Anselm, the Instructional Technology team conducts an LMS review every three to four years to stay abreast of the latest offerings. LMS decisions are made collaboratively with faculty. During the 2014–15 academic year, an LMS committee comprised of faculty, students, and IT stakeholders will explore alternative systems and discuss whether one might support Saint Anselm's teaching and learning methodologies better than the current LMS. If the LMS committee identifies a promising option, it will make a recommendation to the vice president of Academic Affairs. If the VPAA and Dean's Office agree with the committee's recommendation, it will be brought before Faculty Senate; with Faculty Senate buy-in, Instructional Technology will move forward with the change. Before an LMS review can occur, however, research must be done and possible LMS options vetted by Instructional Technology.

Since Sakai was implemented at Saint Anselm, new options — such as OLN and Instructure's Canvas — had emerged. Canvas had gained traction at peer institutions; while the OLN model was compelling, some stakeholders had reservations about Saint Anselm College's ability to architect and support it.

During summer 2013, Saint Anselm College launched an OLN pilot known as HawkLearn. Despite initial trepidation around the project, feedback was largely positive. Faculty and student users were not fixated on the new system's cloud-based infrastructure, but rather enamored with the feature-rich environment. Faculty cited integration with Web 2.0 collaboration tools, audio feedback capabilities, drag and drop editing, flexible course layout options, and intuitive interface as the OLN's strengths. One professor noted, "… I was very pleased with the engagement of the students." Group work was simplified; a professor observed that "giving students the ability to work on a shared document was advantageous. We can not do that easily in our present LMS."

Professors also noted that students appreciated HawkLearn's robust feedback capabilities, which enhanced teaching and learning.

"I was able to give students much more extensive feedback. It would have taken me 15 minutes to write all those comments down. As a result, I did get a number of very positive student remarks. It really is all about getting the feedback and immediate feedback on the work that students need, and the biggest challenge for a teacher is having the time to write all that out and to comment on it. So any technology that can help [with giving feedback] makes a big difference in teaching."

Students also found the system intuitive; one professor noted that "people were finding and accessing the material they needed to access without any additional help or input from me, which was good."

All faculty participants said they would use the system if it were available as an enterprise application — and if all course materials were automatically migrated from the current LMS to the new system. Faculty also reported some communications were delayed because Saint Anselm's spam filter labeled Google Apps and Moodle e-mail as spam; this issue would have to be fully addressed as well.⁷

From a technical standpoint, the system was developed in-house, functioned as expected, and did not generate an inordinate number of support requests.

With the pilot project complete, HawkLearn will be demonstrated, along with several other options, to the LMS committee during the upcoming academic year.  The committee will make recommendations regarding a system, as well as a timeline and process for introducing it to the community by May 2015.

HawkLearn Overview and Implementation

The detailed system implementation follows, for institutions considering similar initiatives. A virtual tour of HawkLearn is also available.

Exploring HawkLearn (3.35 minutes)

Architecture

We named the Saint Anselm College OLN "HawkLearn," both for our college mascot and the system's cloud-based architecture. We defined several non-negotiable requirements upfront. System compliance with the college's internal security policies and regulatory obligations was a priority. To manage risk, sensitive HawkLearn components were given the ability to migrate to the on-premises data center if a cloud vendor became unstable. If performance issues arise, such as downtime or security breaches, Saint Anselm IT staffers must be able to relocate the LMS components containing highly sensitive student data. Therefore, the OLN's LMS portion could not be subscription-based, as IT needed access to the source code and database. We therefore designed HawkLearn to leverage freely available open-source technologies and Web. 2.0 collaboration tools (see figure 2).

We chose HawkLearn's PLE component first, debating the merits of Microsoft 365 versus Google Apps for Education. Both tools' core features were Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) 16 compliant and offered powerful functionality. Table 1 compares their features. Ultimately, we chose Google's no-cost, low-maintenance solution, which leveraged a community-source approach. Also, Google makes its API available to third-party developers. Although Google third-party apps require security review prior to use, potential platform extensibility was a strong feature.

Table 1. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) comparison  

Tool	Security (SSAE 16 Compliant)	Free for Students	Low Maintenance	Extensibility through Third Parties	Real-time Collaborative Functionality
Google Apps for Education	x	x	x	x	x
Microsoft 365	x	Not at the time	x

Next, we considered three open-source LMS options: Sakai, Canvas, and Moodle. Table 2 compares LMS features. We chose Moodle because of its seamless single sign-on (SSO) integration with the institutional Google Apps instance. No programming or user setup was required to enable pass-through between traditional LMS elements and collaborative PLE tools. In addition, Moodle contained plug-ins that could easily integrate with the college's administrative and network authentication systems.

Table 2. Learning management system (LMS) comparison

LMS	Open Source	Secure	Integration with Google Apps	Community Source Extensibility	Plug-in Integration with Campus SIS and Network Authentication Systems
Moodle	x	x	x	x	x
Sakai	x	x		x
Canvas	x	x	Yes, but requires user to log in	x	x

Next, we evaluated Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM solutions for cloud hosting. Table 3 compares the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) features. Ultimately, we chose Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) because it let us easily deploy Moodle using platform-as-a-service (PaaS) vendors in the Amazon Marketplace.  Bitnami, Turnkey Linux, Jumpbox, and Moodle Cloud offered Moodle solutions (see table 4); after testing several Moodle instances through various PaaS vendors, we chose Turnkey Linux. The vendor offered daily OS maintenance and support for the standard Moodle directory structure, all at a low cost. The college later received an Amazon Research in Education grant, allocating $5,000 in service credits over a two-year period. Without the Amazon grant, the pilot would have cost $172.50 per month to run a production instance and two staging instances.

Table 3. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) comparison

Provider	Lowest Cost	Secure	Ease of Moodle Deployment
Amazon	x	x	x
IBM		x
Microsoft		x

Table 4. Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) comparison

Cloud Solution	Low cost	Standard Moodle Directory Structure	Daily OS Maintenance
Turnkey Linux	x	x	Included
Bitnami	x		Available
Jumpbox		?	Available
Moodle Cloud		?	Available

Incorporating Feedback and Managing Risk

As figure 2 shows, HawkLearn was initially deployed "out of the box" without customizations; we used only web-based interfaces to launch the Moodle server, customize the look and feel, and activate authentication between Moodle and Google Apps. However, we put HawkLearn 1.0 through a thorough security review and faculty focus-group evaluation, which revealed the need for application developers and network staff to facilitate the next phase of development.

According to our security review, the deployed Moodle instance had several critical vulnerabilities. Application developers thus installed the newest stable Moodle version on top of the Turnkey Linux OS, then found the SSO authentication between Moodle and Google broken. They tested several alternative authentication plug-ins, but deemed them unsecure. Eventually, developers found secure authentication plug-in code in the New Zealand Moodle branch.

Next, we turned off Google Sites and Blogger, because they gave students the ability to publish course work publicly and the college's web publishing policies had not been updated to reflect these Google Apps capabilities. Until further evaluation could be made, HawkLearn's public-facing Web 2.0 capabilities were not enabled. Finally, to satisfy requests from the faculty focus group, developers installed Attendance, Poodle Widgets, and Engagement Analytics Moodle plug-ins and identified a Study Space integration process.

Implementation

In total, 144 IT staff hours were required to develop, deploy, and support HawkLearn (see table 5). Most of that time was spent designing the system architecture and remediating security vulnerabilities. Network resources were required, particularly from the security review standpoint. However, compared with an on-premises implementation, server administration was greatly simplified because it was easy to deploy and back up servers through Amazon.

Table 5. IT resources for HawkLearn deployment

Task	Team	Hours
Security review	Network	4
Domain and spam filter configuration	Network	1
Enrollment file creation	Information Systems	1
Research and development	Instructional Technology	120
Training and support during six-week summer term	Instructional Technology/ Help Desk	18

Support and training initiatives were key to HawkLearn's success. We introduced participating faculty members to HawkLearn through workshop-style training. To guide students, we offered web-based tutorials. The help desk was trained to handle first-tier questions as they arose, and staff noted that support requirements were consistent with the number of hours typically spent supporting the existing LMS. Issues encountered involved student password resets and faculty questions about using the gradebook, reporting and exam features, and Google Groups. In addition, network adjustments were required when HawkLearn e-mails generated through Amazon and Google were initially flagged as spam.

Scalability

At the conclusion of the pilot phase, HawkLearn team members felt the system could easily scale to support the entire campus. To prepare for full-scale use, we need to complete integrations with the administrative and network authentication systems. Such integrations would permit real-time course enrollments, grade reporting, and inclusion in the college's SSO framework. Moodle's plug-in capabilities are expected to greatly simplify that integration.

We expect faculty training and support efforts to be consistent with those required of any new LMS launch. The most problematic challenge will involve course material migration from the Sakai LMS to HawkLearn, which does not contain a plug-in to easily import Blackboard and Sakai courses. Participating faculty emphasized that IT must completely migrate existing courses for all faculty members to readily accept a new system.

Regarding cloud readiness, Saint Anselm College must further develop its cloud adoption taxonomy. App choices within Google Apps for Education, particularly among third-party developers, will accelerate decision making around student publishing, security review procedures, intellectual property, budgeting, and support. Jim Davis⁸ and Richard Katz⁹ recommend higher education institutions plot cloud strategies given their impact on priorities, staffing, and system interoperability.

Student privacy and security are our first priority. Aside from securing the application, use of public-facing Google tools might expose student work — particularly if tools like Sites and Blogger are made available. Part of HawkLearn's orientation process will require discussions around strategies for using Google Apps in a way that is respectful of learners' desires around public footprints. Faculty members who are planning to use public-facing tools must consider offering alternative assignments for learners who are uncomfortable sharing their work on that level.

Given the collaborative culture at Saint Anselm College, a new LMS can be launched only with faculty buy-in. HawkLearn performed well enough to be among several choices that the LMS committee could consider; whether it ultimately becomes the college's online learning platform is up to Saint Anselm's academic community.

Lessons Learned

HawkLearn was well received by faculty, students, and IT staff. HawkLearn's feature set, Google Apps/Moodle SSO integration, and high availability were considered strong assets. Our experiences in this pilot study offer several lessons:

• Small colleges can deploy and support an OLN, providing the institution has access to the LAMP development skill sets and has the ability to conduct security reviews.
• CIOs might be able to save money on server hardware by placing applications in the cloud. However, continued bandwidth and campus network infrastructure investments are necessary, as faculty and students still have to access the system through the campus network.
• Security is not guaranteed in the cloud. Colleges must conduct security reviews and be prepared to provide appropriate remediation.
• Network adjustments might be necessary to allow e-mail traffic from some cloud providers, such as Google and Amazon, which was flagged as spam in our study.
• Faculty orientation on HawkLearn might require particular emphasis on student privacy; given HawkLearn's capabilities for public sharing, faculty must guide students in managing their public profiles, as well as be prepared to offer students alternative assignments.
• To gain faculty buy-in for scaling the system across campus, IT staff need a plan to migrate courses from the current LMS to HawkLearn.

Recommendations

Colleges considering an OLN launch should keep in mind the following recommendations, based on our experience piloting HawkLearn:

• Develop a cloud-computing adoption taxonomy¹⁰ to help inform OLN architecture decision making.
• Adopt Google Apps for Education first. Policies and procedures driven by Google Apps adoption will guide OLN architecture. A prior Google Apps launch will also scaffold campus training and support prior to launching a new LMS across the enterprise.
• Identify IT resource requirements to complete course migration from the current institutional LMS to the OLN.
• Acquire LAMP application development and security review IT skill sets.

Overall, the HawkLearn initiative not only provided insight into a potential LMS strategy, it also shed light on the broader issues of cloud computing readiness. By placing an LMS pilot completely in the cloud, Saint Anselm College can better predict the financial, policy, risk management, and skill set requirements necessary for future cloud-based projects. Ultimately, conclusions arrived at through HawkLearn's deployment have helped inform Saint Anselm College's overall cloud computing strategy.

1. Vanessa Chang and Christian Gütl, "Generation Y Learning in the 21st Century: Integration of Virtual Worlds and Cloud Computing Services," Proceedings of Global Learn Asia Pacific, 2010, 1888–1897; Eden Dahlstrom, ECAR Study of Undergrduate Students and Information Technology, Educause Center for Applied Research, 2012; and Nada Dabbagh and Anastasia Kitsantas, "Internet and Higher Education Personal Learning Environments , Social Media, and Self-Regulated Learning: A Natural Formula for Connecting Formal and Informal Learning," The Internet and Higher Education 15, no. 1 (2012): 3–8.
2. Chih Hshiung Tu, Laura L Sujo-Montes, Cherng-Jyi Yen, Junn Yih Chan, and Michael Blocher, "The Integration of Personal Learning Environments and Open Network Learning Environments," TechTrends 56, no. 3 (2012): 13–20; and Su White and Hugh Davis, "Making It Rich and Personal: Crafting an Institutional PLE," International Journal of Virtual and PLEs 2, no. 4 (2011): 23–39.
3. Jonathan Mott, "Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network," EDUCAUSE Quarterly 33, no. 1 (2010): 1–9.
4. Ibid.: 1–9.
5. Tu, et al., "The Integration of Personal Learning Environments and Open Network Learning Environments," 15-18.
6. Niall Sclater, "Large-Scale Open Source E-Learning Systems at the Open University UK," Research Bulletin, no. 12, Educause Center for Applied Research, 2008.
7. Kimberlee L. Round, Development and Evaluation of HawkLearn: A Next Generation Learning Management System, dissertation, Graduate School of Computer and Information Science, Nova Southeastern University, 2013.
8. Jim Davis, "Beyond the False Dichotomy of Centralized and Decentralized IT Deployment," in The Tower and The Cloud, Richard Katz, ed. (Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE, 2008), 118–125.
9. Richard Katz, "The Gathering Cloud: Is This the End of the Middle?" in The Tower and The Cloud, Richard Katz, ed. (Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE, 2008), 2–42.
10. Ibid., 35.