WebCT History at Georgia Tech

For the spring quarter of 1998, the Georgia Tech Office of Information Technology deployed the very first Georgia Tech WebCT server, running version 1.1 of the WebCT software. By fall of 1998, the server had been brought up to version 1.3.1, and it remained in place until December of 2000. Over the fall semester of 2000, OIT began the long process of moving all WebCT accounts to a new, more powerful server and bringing the server software up-to-date with WebCT version 3.1. Due to issues with the 2.x edition WebCT that had been discovered by other University System of Georgia schools, OIT opted to skip over it in favor of the newer 3.1 edition.
 
WebCT 3.1.2 became available to the Georgia Tech faculty on December 22nd, 2000, just in time for the start of spring semester 2001. WebCT 3.1 introduced a number of new features, the most important of which was the myWebCT area. In previous versions, users had an individual account in every WebCT course that they had access to, and could have had a different ID and password for every course. The myWebCT area rectified this problem by grouping all of a user's courses in one area, putting them behind one unified login account ID and password. Several new course tools were introduced, one of the most popular being the assignments drop box.
 
Over the summer of 2001, WebCT released several key upgrades, which they packaged as WebCT Version 3.6. This version of WebCT was the first to provide full compliance with the US Rehabilitation Act (section 508), and it also introduced a global calendar that could incorporate entries from every course in which a user was enrolled.
 
In the fall of 2002, OIT transitioned WebCT services to another more powerful server, and in the process upgraded the WebCT software to Campus Edition 3.8. The most important benefit from this upgrade was the ability for WebCT to use Kerberos authentication. Users could now login using their standard PRISM ID and password (now called the GT Account username and password), finally ending the process of setting a user's default password to the last four digits of his or her student ID number.
 

Around this time, a new campus portal project was announced, which resulted in the portal service now known as 'BuzzPort'. In conjunction with the release of BuzzPort in May of 2003, a new WebCT server was deployed, which brought with it a major change in functionality. Although this server ran the same 3.8 Campus Edition of WebCT that was already in use at Georgia Tech, the new server was fully integrated with Georgia Tech's SCT Banner Student Information System. This meant that course rosters no longer had to be updated manually, for whenever a student registers for a Georgia Tech course, the real-time integration automatically adds the student into the matching WebCT course.
 
With integration came a new way of thinking for everyone involved with the WebCT system. In the past, courses were regularly reused year after year, but this could no longer be done in an integrated system. WebCT provided some basic tools for moving content between courses, but the process was confusing and tedious to carry out. Faculty needed an easier method, and so OIT pioneered the way, creating a new supplemental web application to simplify the transfer of content into a three-step process. As time passed, more functions were added to this application, and today the Course Management and Content Migration Tool (CMCMT) is extensively used by faculty members throughout the Georgia Tech Campus.
 
In answer to the growing use of WebCT and the need to provide support quickly, OIT has continuously worked behind the scenes to improve its abilities to handle routine WebCT support requests. The CMCMT is just one example of how OIT has tried to help users to be able to help themselves, allowing them to spend less time waiting for help and more time developing their courses. Another example of a powerful self-help tool is the recently released OIT Web Browser Diagnostics Utility, which allows any Georgia Tech user to quickly verify that their web browser is compatible with WebCT and is configured correctly. This utility has helped to reduce web browser related support requests by nearly ninety percent.
 
OIT strives to make the WebCT experience as easy as possible, offering online help pages, training courses, and on-call support through the OIT Support Center. OIT also works hard to keep WebCT available on a 24/7 basis throughout every semester. When product upgrades and patches come out, OIT attempts to time their installation by weighing the current need against the possible disruption to users, and whenever possible, patches and upgrades will be held until the next semester break when usage will be minimal. WebCT is one of the best backed up systems on campus, with three different backup methods currently being used to ensure data integrity.
 
By the end of fall semester 2004, it had become clear that it was time once again to begin planning for another WebCT upgrade, as WebCT 3.8 Campus Edition was nearing the end of its supportable life cycle. Throughout spring semester 2005, OIT prepared for an upgrade to WebCT 4.1 Campus edition, and over the break between spring and summer semesters, that plan was carried out with great success, giving Georgia Tech students and faculty access to the very latest version of the WebCT Campus Edition product
 
Campus Edition 4.1 brought with it a new, more polished look for the student and instructor interface. It offered support for more web browsers, including Safari and Mozilla, and introduced a collection of wizards to help instructors create courses more quickly. Student tracking and content module creation were both improved, and a new HTML editor with spell-check was available to students and instructors.
 
WebCT continued to be the central Learning Management System for Georgia Tech until the fall semester of 2007, when it was officially replaced with T-Square, a new system based upon the open-source Sakai project. WebCT was offered as a temporary and transitory option for fall semester 2007, and was then retired to mostly archival use as of the end of that semester, most fittingly almost ten years exactly after it was originally deployed in spring quarter 1998.