November 18, 2008

Summary

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are now an integral part of the support infrastructure for a modern university curriculum. Given the growing importance of LMSs both to the students and to the instructors, the Provost has requested a review of LMS usage and central support for LMSs on campus. The goal is to identify a plan for advancing the LMS agenda at the University of Alberta.

The University of Alberta is committed to providing an exceptional learning experience for our students. Integral to this vision is the University's ongoing investment in ensuring that our LMS and related services meet high educational standards by:

• Providing modern information technology environments that enrich the student experience,
• Meeting the unique requirements of diverse students, disciplines, and instructors,
• Fostering innovative educational practices, and
• Contributing to achieving outstanding learning outcomes.

To achieve these standards, it is essential that the University regularly monitor and review the effectiveness of our centrally supported LMS application and services.

A LMS Review Committee will be struck to provide a long-term academic vision for the University of Alberta. The committee will begin work in January with the goal of completing a report and making recommendations by June.

History

WebCT was adopted as the University of Alberta's centrally supported LMS in 1998. Since then there has been a major increase in the number of instructors using an LMS for their course offerings. Other LMSs are used on campus, including Blackboard, Moodle, and discipline-specific applications. There are now many viable LMS options for higher educational institutions, well beyond those that are currently used somewhere on campus.

Central support for WebCT has tried to keep pace with the growth in LMS usage. Some Faculties have established their own educational technology support units with staff who have built close working relationships with their community of instructors.

Terms of Reference

The committee will review LMS usage and support on campus. The objective is to formulate a long-term academic vision for LMS technology at the University of Alberta. The overarching question guiding the LMS review will be:

What deployment of Learning Management System(s) and related services promote flexibility, innovation, and outstanding learning outcomes at the University of Alberta?

To facilitate discussion and analysis, the above question is broken down into the following sub-questions:

1. Why has the campus LMS user community fragmented into numerous LMS applications?
2. Will a single centrally supported LMS flexibly support the range of innovative uses of instructors throughout campus?
3. What services and technologies (including one or more LMSs) are desirable to foster the best use of LMS by instructors?
4. What deployment of LMS(s) on campus offers the best student experience?
5. Should all courses be required to use a LMS?
6. What are viable, cost-effective strategies for offering Faculties decentralizing administrative authority for a centrally supported LMS?
7. What level of instructor support (both central and in the Faculties / Departments) is needed to realize the full potential of LMS technology?
8. What are the costs and relative benefits of employing a proprietary LMS versus an open or community source LMS?
9. What are the pedagogical impacts of alternative LMS adoption strategies?
10. What are the direct and indirect costs associated with adopting multiple LMSs and/or migrating to another centrally supported LMS? What benefits might be realized by this move?

This is a long-term planning exercise and will not get into the issues of the relative merits of the available LMS products on the market. The committee's visioning exercise will be product independent.

Process

The LMS Review Committee, in addition to meeting regularly, will engage the community in the following ways:

• Arrange demonstrations of multiple LMSs to help educate the committee members and the university population on the capabilities of these tools. The demonstrations will illustrate how these tools can support students, promote improved course organization, and facilitate learning.
• Engage faculty (instructors), graduate and undergraduate students (learners), and support staff (enablers and facilitators) for input. This will include open forums, as well as soliciting written input.

In addition, the following resource information will be gathered:

• Data on the current LMS usage on campus and the support provided (both centrally and within Departments and Faculties).
• Data on the industry directions for LMS technology.
• Benchmark the University of Alberta's current LMS approach and support with other comparable higher education institutions.

Committee

The intent is that this committee engage in an academic visioning exercise. Hence the committee is composed of students and members of the professoriate. Committee membership will include a representative from all the major LMS usage groups on campus (WebCT, Blackboard, Moodle).

The committee will consist of:

• Chair: Vice Provost (Information Technology)
• Vice Chair (to be determined)
• Representative from the Students' Union
• Representative from the Graduate Student Association
• Broad representation from Faculties
• Resource person to help organize the meetings and write the report

Outcomes

The LMS Review Committee will produce a report and a series of recommendations that will be made available to the University of Alberta community. The Vice Provost (Information Technology) and the Vice Provost (Academic) will consider the recommendations. This may result in the formation of a follow-on committee to develop a deployment strategy (which may, for example, need to delve into the relative merits of the available products).

Related Reports

Several documents have defined the University's vision for educational technology systems and related support services that are aligned the aspirations expressed in Dare to Discover and Dare to Deliver. These documents include:

• Report to CLE by the Subcommittee on Teaching and Learning (2006)
• Technology Adoption Process (2008)
• E-Learning Report (2005)