Hagerstown Community College is located in western Maryland and offers over 100 programs of study leading to an associate’s degree, specialized certifications, and much more. Over 61 percent of its 4,714 students attend part-time, a clear indicator that many students must balance the demands of work with their continued education in an online environment. Starting in the fall of 2011 the community college began to transition its online learning platform to Moodlerooms. This platform offers an end-to-end learning management system adaptable to a growing institution such as Hagerstown Community College. This scalable solution also provides for ease of transfer of existing course content; an important feature for this community college since it currently has a robust suite of courses already online through the Blackboard system.
After performing an initial review of the new Hagerstown LMS site, it is apparent that the program has been configured to meet the branding requirements of the institution and also offers the flexibility to address the unique needs of individual offices and divisions. Extensive student and instructor guides and videos are provided to ease the transition to the new LMS. The Joule feature provides for automated enrollments and portals for 360 degree views of student progress. Risk mitigation is ensured through a disaster recovery component and a particularly impressive “zero boundaries” feature offering support for up to 78 different languages, an important feature for a community college with a significant number of military students.
The advantages of Moodlerooms for college instructors is significant. Features include: automated grading, online access 24/7, Q&A capabilities including polling and surveying, instant feedback, individual course design opportunities, and Web 2.0 options.
Hagerstown Community College was the first college of its type established in the State of Maryland. Its transition to a new learning management system portends its continued recognition as a leading institution of higher education in western Maryland. For further information about Moodlerooms and its capabilities, check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MoodleroomsVideo#p/c/2/OMYzsAurxHY
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