Comments – February 28, 2006/Angel

• Very informative – looks like Angel will work for everything we need it for.

• Very good Very clear!

• Very powerful, almost overwhelming in that the learning curve is perceived to be very steep but well worth the effort in that an online tool must be comprehensive.  Many (if not all) of the short coming of Blackboard seem to be addressed.  I would definitely work hard to adopt this or Desire2Learn

• It was a huge amount of info very fast, thus rather overwhelming.  However, what I could digest seemed very encouraging.  It seems to improve on problem/issues that I have with WebCT.  My main concern is with the steepness of the learning curve far how to do various tasks.

• Seems to allow an awful lot of automation; probably steep learning curve, but might be worth it.  For sure looks much better than the version of WebCT we currently have!

• Looks very well thought out and complete.  If your system server platform is a window computer, how scalable is your system?  It seems somewhat limited if you cannot work on a bigger multiprocessor type computer, like Sun INM, etc.

• Looks interesting functional – would like to see the other software next week before making a decision.

• Desire2Learn and Angel both seem to be great CMSs and I expect both of them to be a big improvement compared to what we have at the moment.  Based on the presentations I attended I have a slight preference for Angel.

Comments - March 2, 2006/Desire2Learn

• Very nice, like how fast and easy Blackboard and WebCT can be converted.  Has helpful features for faculty, student and support staff.  How will conversion take place?  Will ITLE convert all OSU wide blackboard and WebCT ready for Fall 06? It this do-able?

• In comparison to Angel, Desire2Learn appears to replicate the drop down menu/windows driven format that we have been enculturated to and in my impression is MUCH more user friendly.  I could see myself spending as much time on Angel as I do now on Blackboard because of its

• complexity – a powerful tool but faculty are simple folk.  The platform must be capable of achieving our course delivery needs without making us IT experts.  I believe I would lobby for Desire2Learn for my course applications.

• D2L looks professional very powerful tool with a lot useful components.  Would resolve a lot of issues we have each semester with DL courses and what faculty would like it to do.  To me seemed user friendly and less confusing navigation within it.  Seems to have thought of security issues on the student user side.  Nice tracking component.

• I am trying to compare with Angel and not all the questions came to mid at the same time to say one defiantly one or the other.  I do appreciate the apparent experience that D2L has accumulated – including scalability also appreciated the lack of help desk class that seem to develop. I didn’t ask this question to Angel.  Pricing apparently is better when looking at all components – servers licensing.  Includes faculty ease of use, adoption of components, reduced support cost.

• I saw demonstrations of Angel (Feb28) and Desire2Learn (March2) of these two programs, Desire2Learn is much better.  I think D2L would be much easier to use.  The layout of the program is much better that angel, which I found difficult to follow.  I am just using the basic features in BlackBoard and would actually prefer to stay with BlackBoard.  BlackBoard (WebCT) has the largest market share and they will be around in 5 years from now.  Will these other two companies (angel, D2L) be around in 5 years?  If a change occurs, make it Desire2Learn and not Angel.