Case Story: Freestuffisnotenough

Summary	Lessons learned from setting up competing technologies
Group / workshop		Status	seed
Project details...	Case study from Pat Parslow

Situation

What was the setting in which this case study occurred?

University students in one School, providing a social networking and support platform

Technological setup (and frequency of use) :

Moodle VLE – Set up with a number of courses relating to actual academic courses and areas of common interest, using forums for peer support
DotNetNuke environment set up in parallel for same purposes.

Task

What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?

The project was intended to improve peer-support and social cohesion amongst and across the cohorts, encouraging students to learn collaboratively.

Actions

What was done to fulfil the task?

Moodle set up, with some key content (eg MSDNAA content) embedded within it to encourage its use.  Site was advertised, but only to one year group, and only at the beginning of their first term.
The dotNetNuke site was set up, effectively in competition, but with a more programming 'bent' to it.

Results

What happened? Was is a success? What contributed to the outcomes?

Moodle: Largely unsuccessful, although there was a degree of support given on precise technical issues by various students who were independent of the project.  Also, there was briefly some use of the inbuilt wiki by some students to provide general institutional hints and tips for their peer group.
Despite advice from the project implementor, there was no attempt to seed the environment with interested users, nor was the delivery released in a staged manner to promote excitement about what was going on.
DotnetNuke:  Briefly occupied, but dominated by technology evangelists.  This led to some heated debates, but it is believed this dissuaded others from participating.

Lessons Learned

What did you learn from the experience?

Providing free stuff is not enough.  There needs to be a sense of community which will help new users feel there is a real immediate value to them.  The lack of interested users meant the environment felt bare most of the time, with no activity, and there was no forthcoming news to keep people interested enough to keep visiting (which would, in turn, probably have resulted in the environment looking occupied.
Self moderating individuals who are prepared to nurture the environment are necessary, rather than individuals who are keen/evangelistic about specific topics.
Setting up two similar but competing services at the same time is unlikely to benefit either.

Licensing

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