Hopkins students will no longer log on to WebCT to turn in their homework and complete practice quizzes.
The University will begin using e-learning software Sakai after a task force was formed to investigate a future replacement for WebCT.
The University will replace WebCT before the specific version of the software will no longer be supported by its parent company, Blackboard.
"WebCT was bought out by another company and would have required JHU to transition to that company's product eventually," said Scott Smith, chair of the computer science department.
Blackboard announced that WebCT would be phased out in the next couple of years.
The announcement came after Blackboard bought competing education software provider WebCT for $178 million in February 2006.
Although initially claiming on its website that "both Blackboard and WebCT product lines will remain intact and supported," the company has announced end of life status for this version of the WebCT product line.
The exact date of WebCT's replacement at the University has yet to be determined.
Students and faculty at Homewood use WebCT for both undergraduate and graduate studies. WebCT is currently used to supplement classroom teaching.
"The product itself is a number of years old. There are a number of new functions in Blackboard's other product lines or in competitive products," said Geoffrey Corb, senior director of student systems and educational technologies.
Two different solutions, Moodle and Sakai, have been under consideration by the administration to replace WebCT.
"I was called in once and we fiddled around with the various systems. I found that Moodle and Sakai have a great deal of interactivity possibilities for posting materials and having discussions and essentially making it a multimedia interactive experience," said Writing Seminars Professor Douglas Basford, one of the instructors asked to test out the new software.
Individual schools are allowed to decide which e-learning software to use. While many have chosen WebCT, both the Schools of Public Health and Education has created their own solution.
"There could be efficiencies but it's not likely to happen," Corb said, in response to a hypothetical situation in which the University deploys a unified system.
Teachers at various schools are given full control over their use of WebCT.
"It has been a very useful tool for the Spanish language section. We do use WebCT and we do need an online component to our courses, so as long as we have a way to put our courses online, then I guess it doesn't make any difference," Spanish Professor Ivette Gonzalez said.
"For some schools it's somewhat of a religious following; there is a big investment in [both] the Schools of Public Health and Education in their homegrown products so they're not too interested in employing something else. Other schools are satisfied with the products that they have, in the case of the School of Medicine," Corb said.
"Hopkins is one of the slowest institutions to get on the technology bandwagon. We were very far behind when we started this. I started using WebCT in June of 2000. By that point I had been teaching at other college and they already had Blackboard up and running," Basford said.
