ANGEL learning management system has gained popularity, but still is not considered heavenly by many MSU professors and students.

More than 1,000 course sections are signed up for the online class-assistant program, which stands for "a new global environment for learning." That's an increase of more than 250 classes from last semester, said Byron Brown, coordinator of instructional technology support for Libraries, Computing and Technology.

Brown said the program itself has been error-free, with a few hardware problems.

"A glitch yesterday had Angel down from 5 to 5:30 (p.m.) but that was not with the program, it was with subsidiary systems," Brown said. "Faculty members may think ANGEL doesn't seem to be working, but ANGEL has worked fine."

Libraries, Computing and Technology began phasing out the old assistant program, Blackboard, for ANGEL in early 2003.

Early last semester, problems also occurred because the load balancer - hardware that distributes hits among various machines for faster service - had trouble, Brown said.

Dean Rehberger, associate director of Matrix, said the problem with any course-management program such as ANGEL is that the classes at MSU are so different.

"They all try to design a tool where one size fits all - it's very difficult," Rehberger said. ANGEL is fine for formats such as multiple-choice tests, but it doesn't do much for professors with essay exams, he said.

Professors and students also said they don't care for the appearance of the program.

ANGEL's aesthetics are planned to change this summer when the current Angel 5.6 is upgraded to version 6, Brown said.

"(It) will solve earlier complaints on the gradebook and will change what is called the user interface to make it easier to navigate," Brown said.

A perk of ANGEL, Brown said, is the feature called ANGEL Groups, which allows faculty members to share a Web site for discussion. The feature, which was not included in Blackboard, is planned to be available for students as well.

But Rehberger said it's been easier for students to learn the new system than faculty.

"Students tend to be much better at these kind of things," he said. "There's the idea that 'I'm going to have to open something up and see how this works without looking at directions' is much more intuitive to college students, because who reads the directions anyway?"

The ANGEL 5.6 gradebook automatically organizes grades as percentages, which Brown said some faculty members disliked. There is currently an enhanced gradebook option that allows faculty members to choose what type of calculations are desired for their grading.

Christine Brown, an interdisciplinary studies in social science senior who has three classes using ANGEL, said the program has a good concept and she enjoys being able to e-mail classmates.

"I like ANGEL more than Blackboard because it has more capabilities, even though it is a little more frustrating," she said.

Christine Brown said ANGEL has students going through a number of windows before getting to their final destination.

Social work junior Ann-Marie Christman agrees the program can be difficult to navigate. Christman uses ANGEL for one class and never has used Blackboard.

"I have no idea how to use it," Christman said. "I can't get anything to print off of it."

The 500 courses still using Blackboard only have the current semester to switch programs.

Blackboard will no longer be available at the end of May. Faculty members can take classes to learn ANGEL through the Libraries, Computing & Technology training program.

Staff writer Laura Collins contributed to this report.