Is the Grass Greener? Exploring the New Wave of Course Management Systems Kelly P. Doney Associate Vice President for Enterprise Applications

Is the Grass Really Greener?

Participants Survey Participants (25) Princeton University Harvard University Virginia Tech UCSF University of Washington University of Minnesota University of Michigan Stony Brook Michigan State University Columbia University University of Pennsylvania Penn State University University of Southern California New York University University of Notre Dame UC Berkeley Duke Unversity Cornell University Georgetown University University of Virginia Stanford University University of Minnesota Yale University University of Iowa UC San Diego Interview Participants (9) Colorado, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Notre Dame, NYU, Princeton, USC, University of Virginia

The LMS landscape: What we’re using LMS usage LMS shopping: Your lawn, my lawn, and the whole neighborhood Migration experiences Takeaways and Looking Ahead Presentation Agenda

The Landscape Others: Black Bag Coursera (x3) Courseweaver edX Epsilen LCMS+ (Medical School) LON-CAPA Mahara Pearson Studio WordPress On average, each institution has 2.88 LMSes Source: CSG LMS Survey, 2013 # of schools

Primary LMS Source: CSG LMS Survey, 2013

On the market? 36% of institutions migrated within the last 5 years, 38% are considering changing their primary LMS Source: CSG LMS Survey, 2013 # of Schools Other: Ecosystem Integrating Multiple Tools edX Number of Schools Considering Each LMS

Satisfaction Source: CSG LMS Survey, 2013 Score

Features Most popular: –Grade book –Photo roster –Faculty-student communication features –Uploading course documents –Assessments Source: CSG LMS Interviews, 2013 Least popular: –Wiki –Blog

Integration LMS Source: CSG LMS Interviews, 2013

Training and Support Average number of staff supporting primary LMS: 5.86 FTE Targeted or one-on-one trainings are generally more popular than mass trainings Online documentation is popular Most creative: LMS support hours (NYU, Duke) Source: CSG LMS Interviews, 2013, CSG LMS Survey, 2013

Training and Support (Continued) On average, volume of support calls did not change with transition to new system Notable exception: –“[Our volume of support calls changed] because there are so many more capabilities in Sakai… it’s not about Sakai, it actually has to do with the success of Sakai providing so much functionality” –UVA Source: CSG LMS Interviews, 2013, CSG LMS Survey, 2013 n=8

Student Needs and Satisfaction Students care about reliability Students want faculty to use the LMS more, and use more of the LMS Source: CSG LMS Interviews, 2013, CSG LMS Survey, 2013

Faculty Needs, Satisfaction, and Obstacles Common obstacles: –Grade book –Integration with SIS Source: CSG LMS Interviews, 2013, CSG LMS Survey, 2013

Reliability and Update Cycle System reliability is generally high, with a notable exception –“[Desire2Learn] is wonderful, but it has not been reliable, especially during peak periods.” (University of Colorado) With proper software upgrades, update reliability is high –Most schools update LMSs annually or biannually (based on semester schedules) with patches as needed –For those that delay upgrades, they do so primarily to avoid bugs Source: CSG LMS Interviews, 2013

Hosting Source: CSG LMS Survey, 2013

Ease of migration rated on scale –Average score: 48.5 –Virginia Tech (Bb  Sakai): 9 –NYU (Bb  Sakai): 90 Migration Experiences Source: CSG LMS Survey, 2013

“We see a future with multiple LMS platforms and cloud-based services being integrated using federated identity management and open standards...” –University of Michigan “The Harvard approach… is to offer an ecosystem of carefully curated and supported tools with a simple self-service front-end. Some of these may be locally hosted, some may be cloud based. Some faculty may cluster their work around a single tool, others may use several. The [choice is] not as black and white… at least not for us as a decentralized institution that prioritizes faculty choice within reasonable boundaries.” –Harvard University In the near future, Gartner sees an environment where traditional learning or content management systems are replaced by a middleware layer called a learning platform. Rather than being limited to average quality tools provided by LMS providers, the learning platform will act as a conduit to connect the campus's choice of best of breed services, providing the utmost flexibility to provide high quality end to end services that are custom tailored to the specific needs of the campus. Scanning the Horizon

Cast and Crew USC’s Center for Scholarly Technology BRENDA OSUNA …………………..…Senior Statistics Consultant OTTO KHERA …………………………..Senior Manager, Research and Evaluation MIN KYU KIM …………………………..Post-Doctorate Researcher CARL KUZMICH ………………………..Instructional Designer EDWARD O’NEILL …………………….Instructional Designer PATRICK CRISPEN …………………….Senior Manager, Learning Design and Technology Georgetown University AMY BRUNO ……………………………Project Coordinator ARNIE MILES ……………………………Information Technology Architect LAURA HORTON ………………………Communications Manager

Questions?