[Xerte] Re: The Costs of Xerte

[Pat L (pgogy)]

Addendum
Liverpool uni started with a small install on an old pc using xampp to
prove there was a demand before paying for servers and so on

When toolkits was beinf developed my pc was the server and its always been
a relatively light piece of kit in terms of memory and processors

Not to confuse - the best option is full server, but there are other half
way houses or external hosting which are good ways to provide the service
as well
On 5 May 2014 07:37, "Alistair McNaught" <Alistair.McNaught at heacademy.ac.uk>
wrote:

>  Useful summary, many thanks
>
> Alistair
>
> Sent from my Windows Phone
>  ------------------------------
> From: Douglas Brown <dbrown61 at une.edu.au>
> Sent: ‎05/‎05/‎2014 02:08
> To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
> Subject: [Xerte] The Costs of Xerte
>
>   Mates,
>
>  Just wanted to share the summary of responses to my initial post. Thank
> you.
>
>  *The Costs of Xerte*
>
>
>
> Some thoughts from a post to the Xerte Listserv
>
>
>
> “Xerte is obviously free and open source and will hapilly sit on the same
>
> server as your Moodle installation so you could argue there is no cost or
>
> very little cost per designer/developer and Moodle + Xerte is a great
>
> combination if used in an informed way. By that I mean using each for what
>
> they are best at and making informed decisions about when and why to use
>
> each including integration with other tools too.
>
>
>
> In short I'd say it's a 'no-brainer' to use Xerte as part of the range of
>
> options you provide to staff and learners especially given the
> accessibility
>
> benefits. The cost comes with provided the initial and ongoing CPD and
>
> support to help all users get the most out of Xerte - but then that applies
>
> to all tools in use.”
>
>
>
> “Xerte Online Toolkits should sit nicely on the same server as Moodle and
> integrate with it for login purposes.
>
>
>
> Beyond installation anyone can then create LOs. You would only need a
> designer to change the theme or a developer to perhaps add page types.”
>
>
>
> “A lot of people use Xerte out of the box and so don't change anything or
> modify it. I suspect a few places restyle the CSS but this isn't essential
> or that expensive.
>
> I would think most places don't have a developer either. There are about
> ten Xerte developers and a lot more installs than that.
>
> A Xerte install can be done inside a Moodle install so doesnt require any
> extra servers or space.
>
> I'd be impressed if anywhere has a dedicated Xerte admin person, once
> installed it pretty much rums itself.”
>
>
>
> “As with all Open Source systems, the costs are in humans, not the
> software. In the UK, if you wanted a Learning Technologist to install,
> configure and administer Xerte, then advocate its use in blended learning,
> the going rate would be £32k-£37k. For a consultant, maybe £250-£300/day
> (an ex-colleague of mine at Heriot-Watt, who ran her own e-learning
> consultancy, would charge that). I'm sure that you could translate those
> numbers into Aussie dollars.
>
>
>
> I'd say that Xerte Toolkits is pretty easy to set up, as an administrator
> - the costs in terms of time and money would be in getting academics and
> teachers to use it constructively and to incorporate it into their learning
> and teaching, hence the need for a Learning Technologist or similar.
>
>
>
> Just my 2 cents worth - I'd be interested to read the views of others on
> the human costs, not least as I'm kinda interested in e-learning
> consultancy myself... ;-)”
>
>
>
> “In fairness, a learning technologist wouldn't need to be employed
> anything like full time to make Xerte Toolkits work for your organisation.
> It would be a tiny fraction of their time. There are lots of organisations
> like ours who have paid for a consultant to set it up and manage any
> maintenance but we're talking about a day or two here and there at the most
> and we get a lot of use from toolkits.
>
>
>
> Whatever tool you use the overhead will always be getting hard pressed
> teaching staff to learn new skills and dare to teach differently. But
> invest in some decent training opportunities and you'll find it's a very
> attractive cost benefit ratio.”
>
>
>
> “I've struggled to get xerte formally supported by my institution - still
> working on it! I'm currently stuck with a firewalled dev system...I wanted
> to use it at #oer14 so my colleague and I installed it on
> reclaimhosting.com which cost us 12 dollars and took us about 15 minutes.
>
>
>
> For more on reclaimhosting.com see this paper also at #oer14:
>
>
>
> http://www.medev.ac.uk/oer14/91/view/”
>
>
>
> “
>
>
>
> *Douglas Brown*
>
> Online Learning Designer
>
> Learning Innovations Hub
>
> Parramatta Future Campus
> Level 2, 232 Church Street
> Parramatta NSW 2150 Australia
>
> Phone  0477 740 230
>
> *www.une.edu.au <http://www.une.edu.au/>*
>
>
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