Common Collaboration and Learning Environment Initiative

UCLA IT Strategic Vision

UCLA's Information Technology Strategic Vision forms the framework for the direction of IT on campus. Influenced by the thoughts and requirements about information technology articulated by campus academic and administrative leaders interviewed during FY 01/02, five Areas of Emphasis have been identified: Student Integration, Research Leadership, Scholarly Interaction, Increased Productivity, and Community Interaction.

Common Collaboration and Learning Environment Initiative

UCLA's IT strategic vision is the catalyst for considering how UCLA might -- as an institution -- build on its unit-by-unit expertise in supporting instruction to create a consistent campus-wide environment that supports both instruction and research collaboration.

In spring 2005, the Faculty Committee on Educational Technology recommended to the IT Planning Board that the time had come for UCLA to converge on a single solution:

"Educational technology now plays a critical role in learning and teaching in many disciplines at UCLA. The FCET believes that our students now require a consistent, powerful, and transparent application of our educational technology applications across disciplines and across the campus."

In fall 2005, this vision was endorsed by the Educational Technology Executive Sponsors (Associate Vice Provost Larry Loeher, Executive Dean Patricia O'Brien, Vice Provost, Undergraduate Education Judith Smith and University Librarian Gary Strong). The ITPB endorsed the FCET's proposal for undertaking a campus-wide review of this recommendation.

CCLE Update, December 2006

In November, 2006, the UCLA Faculty Committee on Educational Technology decided that UCLA should converge on Moodle as the single open source platform for its common collaboration and learning environment (CCLE). The decision includes a commitment to remain engaged with the higher education community as it builds solutions for interoperability and cross-system collaboration. UCLA intends to continue as a Sakai Foundation member and, as capacity is available, to work with others in the Sakai, Moodle, and IMS communities who are interested in working on data, tool, and language interoperability solutions.

The decision to converge on common solution is a response to faculty leadership in the articulation of a vision for improving the student learning and the faculty teaching and research collaboration experience. The selection process was accomplished through the significant effort of many staff and faculty who worked on the CCLE Technical and Functional Sponsor Groups and the CCLE Assessment Taskforce. This decision will now be carried through UCLA's IT governance process in order to build even broader campus consensus and to define a campus implementation strategy.

The decision to choose Moodle over Sakai as UCLA's convergence platform was based on many factors that, over time, led us to believe it to be a better match for UCLA's current needs. The decision to remain engaged with the Sakai community reflects our support for the Sakai vision and our desire to promote CMS interoperability solutions.

For ongoing updates about the project, please visit CCLE Updates.

For further information please send your questions and comments to ccle@ucla.edu.