One of the main goals of the new assistant vice president for academic affairs for technology is to find a replacement learning management system for WebCT this semester.

John Henderson, assistant vice president for academic affairs for technology, said Eastern’s contract with WebCT expires in January 2013.

“I would like to have something in place by this spring so I can start a test run with faculty and students as guinea pigs,” Henderson said. “Two or three years ago, the company Blackboard bought out WebCT and, after changing and altering certain features, they basically did away with what we knew as WebCT.”

Henderson said they have written a bid and are waiting to hear back from companies.

“There are probably 10 to 12 companies that I figure are going to respond, given our parameters and features that our faculty committee specified after a lot of hard work,” Henderson said.

He said there are several steps to follow in the search process.

“We will set up rubrics of what we feel are the most important features and the companies will be graded, not necessarily on price, but features, functionality and ease of use for the faculty and students,” Henderson said. “Then we will probably narrow the companies down to four or five and invite them to campus to present to our committee.”

Henderson said the next step in the search would be to invite normal users, such as faculty not on the committee, to test the system.

“From that we will look at price and the committee will make a recommendation to me,” Henderson said.

WebCT was implemented at Eastern in 1998, the same year Henderson came to campus.

Henderson said his new position includes dealing with an array of technology that professors and students use.

“We support all of the technology that gets infused in the classrooms and the labs with services anywhere from web services to multimedia, training and graphic design services,” Henderson said.

He said his new position includes many different responsibilities.

“I am basically the front person for the department so I attend a lot more meetings and I assess the needs of particular projects,” Henderson said. “I also work more closely with the deans and other upper administration members along with dealing with the budget for CATS directly.”

Henderson said he also works closely with Faculty Development where he does more collaborative work, not just technology.

Besides finding a replacement for WebCT, Henderson said another goal he has for this semester is continuing to build more support at the Gregg Technology Center, especially in software training.

“We also want to build on the equipment that students probably don’t bring to school like video cameras and video editing equipment so they can work on their own projects,” Henderson said. “We have been doing that for a couple of years but we want to expand it for the students.”

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or rjrodgers@eiu.edu.