Library and Technology Services implemented a new course management system last July, replacing WebCT, which the University had used since 1997.The new system, Learning and Teaching Technology Environment, is better equipped to hold a larger database, Vice President and Vice Provost of Library and Technology Services Perry Hanson said.

The change became necessary after the newest edition of WebCT, introduced at Brandeis in Fall 2005, became "big and unmanageable," Hanson told the Justice last March.

He also explained that because the database had been growing by one or two gigabytes a day to 500 gigabytes the previous fall, it had become too large for LTS to back up, meaning it could be impossible for LTS to recover courses should the system fail.

Hanson and Chief Librarian Susan Wawrzaszek complained that after Blackboard Inc., another educational software company, acquired WebCT in 2005, the company's customer service worsened considerably.

"LATTE is a living, breathing organism to us, so it's never going to be complete," Wawrzaszek said. "We're always going to look for enhancements, we're always going to look for new functionalities to add in response to faculty and student needs."

She added that LTS offered workshops to faculty throughout the summer to help instructors transfer their course materials from WebCT to LATTE, and would continue to do so throughout the academic year.

With over 200 courses currently using LATTE, Wawrzaszek stated that Over 90 percent of all courses that have an online component for the fall semester are using LATTE.

In order to make LATTE available this fall, Wawrzaszek explained that LTS had to make compromises on the functionalities the new system would offer in the beginning.

"We focused very much on offering to faculty and students the ability to do in LATTE everything that they could do in WebCT," she said. "So for this first rollout of LATTE we didn't seek to add any special functionality."

In working on future versions of LATTE, Wawrzaszek said LTS could make adjustments based on this semester's feedback and work on including functionalities that were not available in WebCT, such as blogs and wikis, Web sites with multiple contributors.

According to Wawrzaszek, overall faculty feedback on LATTE has been positive so far.

Prof. Ira Gessel (MATH) called it "better than WebCT."

So far, Gessel has only uploaded syllabi and other materials for his courses. "I haven't done anything brave yet," he said. "But I plan to.