FAST FIVE for week of March 18, 2012

Carleton Selects Moodle to Replace WebCT: Carleton has decided to replace WebCT with Moodle. Since WebCT is at the end of its life cycle and will no longer be updated Carleton decided to evaluate other learning management system options. According to their website "It was important that the system we selected be reliable, easy to use and meet our security standards. Detailed selection criteria was used to help guide the decision making process. After an extensive review and evaluation, Carleton has selected Moodle as the replacement for WebCT. After the trial of three popular systems, when surveyed, both the student and instructor data indicate that the Moodle participants were the most satisfied group with their new LMS by preferring Moodle over WebCT." Carleton Moodle

Shared Services in British Columbia: There is strong government shift towards emphasizing IT shared services in British Columbia and across Canada. From Oliver's blog, "In BC the recent budget showed an effective 2-3% reduction in government core funding, in addition to the disappearance of millions of dollars in capital renewal funding in prior years.  In addition, government authorities are applying greater constraints on institutions about the way they are run, in return for funding.  Research projects are directed increasingly explicitly toward resource sharing, especially in the high performance computing disciplines.  And very specific questions are being asked about sharing of support services not only within institutions but between them: in BC as well as other provinces Ministries recently engaged their university representatives in explicit conversations about sharing of administration functions, in the same way that this topic has been pushed for several years already in the K-12 and healthcare sectors." Changing Times for Universities

Dalhousie Hosts Data Privacy Day: On January 25, 2012, Dalhousie University hosted its 5th annual Data Privacy Day. The day is intended to be a global initiative recognized around the world to raise awareness and promote privacy education. There were over 220 participants and the keynote speaker, Michael Power, a Toronto-based lawyer and consultant, addressed “eHealth & Privacy:  Issues & Implications for Society.”  Data Privacy Day

WiFi access to McGill network from MUHC: Linking university and hospital networks has always been a difficult issue for a number of reasons. According to the McGill website "One of the IT challenges over the past years has been providing access to McGill resources to students, faculty and staff working at the MUHC (McGill University Health Centre). The Ministry of Health regulations concerning the interconnection of networks are extremely restrictive and complex. Now, as of March 1, 2012, there is finally a viable solution. During the fall, MUHC worked closely with McGill’s Network and Communications Services (NCS) piloting a solution that uses both institutions' wireless networks. After the successful pilot, they are ready to deploy this solution." McGill Health Centre WiFi

UofA has Gone Google: The University of Alberta is the #1 customer for Google in Canada in terms of both the number of users and volume of data. At the end of 2011, 128,084 users on campus have gone Google. A total of 21 departments had migrated migrated to Google and several more are scheduled to move. Gone Google