ANN ARBOR—Imagine innovative software that’s readily adaptable to changing needs, that incorporates user suggestions for improvements in a matter of months, not years, and that is widely accepted.

Whoa, you’re dreaming. No, it’s reality at the University of Michigan.

Developers of UM.CourseTools software have met the challenges of a demanding market: students and faculty on the Ann Arbor campus. This past academic year, the number of users increased substantially, with more than 1,200 faculty offering course information online using the software and more than 20,000 students reviewing their assignments, checking reading lists, and “talking” online with other class members—from any computer with Internet access—just as planned.

UM.CourseTools is a premier success of the Learning Collaboratory, a multidisciplinary and inter-campus project supported, in part, through the Ameritech Learning Initiative. Ameritech provided a $1.5 million, five-year grant to the U-M to conduct research on using technology for both campus and community-wide application. The U-M Media Union coordinates the development, training, and support structures that make UM.CourseTools a model for others to emulate.

“The U-M has one of the largest user bases of any university in the country for this kind of software,” says Kim Bayer, who heads the Learning Technology Group and oversees the UM.CourseTools support staff. Most other universities rely on commercial software that cannot be easily changed or updated.

This spring, faculty and staff at the U-M used UM.CourseTools in another way. They browsed online and signed up for workshops that were offered in the week-long Enriching Scholarship program. A major benefit, however, was behind the scenes, Bayer explained. The software handled virtually all administrative details, from letting users sign up and manage their course selections to compiling data on wait lists and overflow sessions and automatically slotting users into those sessions.

“It’s another way that UM.CourseTools is more flexible and has more value-added features than an off-the-shelf course management system,” Bayer adds. “It helps us leverage work that we’ve already done to create new campus-wide accessible, authenticated systems. The automatic integration with U-M authentication is one of UM.CourseTools’ best features and one that is missing from many other course management systems.”

One reason UM.CourseTools is successful is its on-campus support network, which quickly gives developers feedback from real users. Many U-M students are trained as technical support staff and they maintain a question-and-answer database, which software developers tap into.

Additional feedback comes from Bayer’s professional staff, which helps implement UM.CourseTools in departments and relays user experiences to developers.

Bayer says campus adoption of UM.CourseTools is growing. More departments have mandated that faculty provide course materials through the software for fall 2001.

Already UM.CourseTools has been adapted, with a robust companion software program called UM.WorkTools now in use by researchers and scientists. With UM.Work Tools, scientists around the world, such as those involved in the Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Collaboratory at the School of Information, are able to share files, conduct real-time audio and video discussions, and archive data.

UM.WorkTools is also being used by the National Science Foundation for its Blue Ribbon Panel on Cyber Infrastructure, chaired by Prof. Daniel E. Atkins of the School of Information. The panel will recommend new areas of emphasis for the NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate.

A bonus for the external community is that businesses and nonprofit organizations could adapt UM.WorkTools software for their own information-sharing environments. Large organizations often have multiple locations that make it difficult for individuals to share work in real time. UM.WorkTools makes it possible for groups to work collectively without having to travel to a central location.

UM.CourseToolsLearning CollaboratoryUM.WorkToolsNational Science Foundation