Under the direction of Vivian Sinou, Dean of Distance and Mediated Learning, Foothill College is undertaking an effort to re-engineer ETUDES (Easy to Use Distance Education Software), a learning management system (LMS) developed in the mid-90’s by Michael Loceff, Foothill computer science instructor.
 
 Foothill now offers five online Associate of Arts degrees and 200 ETUDES-based courses. Over 9,800 students log into ETUDES at Foothill this fall. “There is no doubt that ETUDES made it possible for Foothill faculty to embrace internet-mediated instruction early,” says Sinou. Over 167 instructors are now served by Foothill Global Access, the program that supports and maintains ETUDES.
 
ETUDES is also used by faculty at other colleges, including Taft College, Bakersfield College, Mira Costa College, San Joaquin Delta College, Glendale College, Long Beach City College, Modesto Junior College, and many others. The wide acceptance and use of ETUDES is due to its stability, ease-of-use and local quality support. All of this has happened via word-of-mouth from faculty to faculty. The ability to respond to faculty feature requests coupled with the small learning curve has contributed to the extensive use of ETUDES.
 
As faculty are becoming more technically savvy and experienced with web-based instruction, Foothill College realizes that ETUDES, like many other products on the market, simply does not meet the shifting instructional and learning needs of the 21^st century. “It is time to create a tool where best online teaching practices drive instructional decisions instead of technology driving and limiting the choices,” says Sinou.
 
Foothill is in the initial stages of planning the re-engineering of ETUDES using .NET (Microsoft) technologies. Although the rewrite will build on Foothill’s broad experience from ETUDES, a system that was developed entirely from on-going faculty input, the rewrite will be a completely different LMS product. 
 
Foothill is embarking in this effort believing that an LMS academic alliance will ensure stability in the support, development, and future maintenance of the rewrite, serving many needs in the process. “We feel that others will find an LMS solution that is academically supported attractive,” explains Sinou.
 
When asked about the risks behind this endeavor, Sinou responds, “We are not competing with private industry. We are focused on our mission.” Foothill hopes to offer its partner institutions another choice. Right now, there are few other comprehensive, affordable learning management solutions available.
 
“Our primary goal in this effort is to continue to offer faculty across our member institutions a tool that is easy to use, reliable, and expandable.” It is not easy to build new features onto the infrastructure of the current ETUDES software that was written in C and C++. “Its main disadvantage is the architecture and technology it was built upon,” Sinou explains. “Scalability is also becoming an issue.” Sinou claims that ETUDES2 will be a robust, state-of-the art, highly scalable product that is easy to administer.
 
Unlike many institutions that feel hostage to private industry, Foothill has been free from the worries of price hikes from licensing fees of commercial products. “We have been spoiled with our locally supported product. We cherish this stability,” admits Sinou. “This may be the real reason we are undertaking this.”
 
Foothill is inviting interested institutions to join the ETUDES2 LMS Alliance. Through annual membership fees, institutions will contribute to the development and upgrade of the program. Members will receive a free license to use the LMS software for hybrid, online, and web-enhanced instruction at their institutions once the product is released, approximately in two years.
 
The ETUDES2 LMS Alliance is open to two and four-year non-profit colleges and universities. Individual faculty members are also welcome to join the ETUDES2 Alliance. To encourage early buy-in, Foothill College is offering an attractive incentive to institutions that join by December 31, 2002.
 
For information on how to join the ETUDES2 LMS Alliance, contact Vivian Sinou at 650.949.7109 or by email at, SinouVivian@fhda.edu.