It is with great pleasure that we announce the official campus name for Desire2Learn: OAKS for Online Academic Knowledge System. OAKS is an online course environment (learning management system) that provides tools to help foster communication, collaboration, and facilitate after-hours learning.
As you may have heard, Teaching, Learning and Technology (TLT) hosted three Faculty Technology Institutes (FTIs) this past summer in an effort to train over 75 professors on how to effectively utilize OAKS in their courses. The FTIs were an enormous success, based on the very positive evaluations by the faculty participants! We would like to thank all of the faculty who willingly participated! The faculty that have completed the FTI are the beta (i.e., test) users for OAKS in Fall 2010. Well-prepared by their FTI preparation, the beta group will provide important feedback for IT and also act as points of contact within their departments to ensure a successful implementation and transition for the remaining faculty. Starting in January 2011, all faculty are highly encouraged by Academic Affairs and IT to use OAKS in their courses. Teaching, Learning and Technology will provide online and face-to-face training sessions in the fall so that faculty can be trained and prepared to use OAKS for the spring semester 2011. It is anticipated that WebCT will be completely phased out in summer, 2011. More details regarding the training sessions will follow after the start of the fall semester.
We’ve already had great feedback with OAKS! We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities provided by TLT so you can learn all of the features that OAKS can offer to you and your students. Communication regarding OAKS will continue throughout the academic year.
Monica Harvey M.A.
Instructional Technologist
Teaching, Learning and Technology Department