This fall, Nicholls State University is implementing another form of online academic correspondence called Moodle, which is slowly usurping the role of the previously used Blackboard.

Financially, this change is more cost-efficient considering that Moodle is free when maintained by the University. Blackboard, however, costs the University $60,000 a year to use.  

Beginning with the spring semester, Blackboard will no longer be used; instead Moodle will be used exclusively for class. For faculty members, this transition has been eased with the offering of workshops and tutorials to acquaint teachers with this new program.

Lori Soule, director of the center for advancing faculty engagement, led the Moodle workshops for faculty members, which dated back to March of last year.

“I really like the flexibility of Moodle. It is certainly different from Blackboard, but it will give students the opportunity to change the appearance of their classes and sections. Students will have the option to use different formats according to their preference,” Soule said.

Farren Clark, professor of mass communication, said of the transition: “When you change from something that you are familiar with, it will always take some time to adjust. The administration, however, has done a wonderful job of making the workshops and tutorials available for faculty. One aspect of Moodle that I do like is how students still have the capability to communicate with one another.”

However, some students do not approve of the integration of this new system. Using both Moodle and Blackboard for classes is a hassle, dietetics senior from Morgan City Alyssa Galler said.

“As a senior, using Moodle is an inconvenience considering I must familiarize myself with this site for only one course. I think Moodle should have only been implemented for underclassmen, ” Galler said.

Ryan Collins, history sophomore from Cut Off, agreed.

“It is an inconvenience to have to check both sites. Since teachers have the option to use either system, it becomes a problem, especially since I have a class where a teacher uses both sites for the same class.”

Christine Hypolite, associate professor of education, said she still uses Blackboard for the majority of her classes.

“Most of the information for my classes is still on Blackboard, which I have not transferred yet to Moodle. I am switching the information one class at a time. For three of my classes, Blackboard is used. My fourth class is conducted with both sites because my students were not fully comfortable with Moodle yet,” Hypolite said.

According to Thomas Bonvillain, director of academic computing, there are 1,339 courses that use Moodle. Of those courses, 1,251 were accessed at least once. There are 290 courses that received at least 10 accesses online.

Bonvillain said the gradual adjustment “has had a good adoption rate so far. This is the first week of school, so as the semester progresses, the faculty will have time to build up their Moodle accounts for the spring. I expect these numbers to continue increasing, especially since a lot of these courses have few students in them, especially the upper level courses.”

The transition has received mixed reviews. But this spring, Moodle will be the only form of online correspondence for students.

“Overall, students and faculty seem to understand the site and have been able to do their course work with less problems. So that is a very good sign for the future,” Bonvillan said.