As the university’s contract with Blackboard is set to expire in 2013, classes are test-running five different online learning systems in search of a replacement to power the next generation of ELMS.
In the fall, Joseph JaJa, interim vice president and chief information officer of the Office of Information Technology, charged a faculty and student committee with evaluating the possible learning systems to replace the Blackboard Academic Suite. Five different learning management systems were selected and are being piloted by 24 instructors and about 1,200 students for the remainder of the semester.
Chris Higgins, OIT’s interim director of academic support, said the faculty will be meeting in focus groups next week to discuss the high and low points of each system. Student feedback will also be gathered through surveys, one mid-term and one at the end of the semester. A final report will be submitted to the ELMS Evaluation Committee in May. The committee will make its recommendation to the University Senate’s Information Technology Council on June 15.
Higgins said Blackboard’s newest version — Blackboard 9.1 — is being considered as one of the options. The other systems are Desire2Learn, Moodle, Sakai and Canvas.
Economics professor Robert Schwab is piloting the Canvas system with his ECON 414: Game Theory course and said his students have responded positively to the system’s multimedia features.
For instance, Canvas can contact students through Twitter, Facebook or their cell phones when grades or announcements are posted. The system can also be synched with Google Calendar.
But Schwab said he does not think this system -— which is the newest of the five options — is quite ready to be launched. He said class emails have failed to send several times through the system and it is often difficult to find help information on the site.
“I think sometime down the road it could be a strong competitor for Blackboard,” Schwab said. “Right now, it just has a lot of rough edges to it.”
Psychology professor Charles Stangor had nothing but praise for the Moodle system, which he is piloting with his PSYC 221: Social Psychology class. He described it as being more flexible and easy to use.
“I don’t want to go back to Blackboard in the fall!” Stangor wrote in an email, citing the slowness of the online gradebook and the number of mouse clicks required to perform tasks as issues with the existing system.
But some faculty who tried other systems said they preferred Blackboard in spite of its imperfections, with several noting it may be because it is a system they are more familiar with.
Higgins said based on faculty feedback so far, ease of use and access are the most important elements instructors are looking for in the next system.
“The number of clicks really matters to faculty,” Higgins said.
Several faculty echoed this sentiment.
“I don’t care too much if it can track me on Twitter and Facebook,” Schwab said. “I just want it to be really simple and really straightforward. I just want to be able to do things quickly. I think that is by far the most important thing.”
Several students said in spite of some minor issues, Blackboard serviced them fine. The problems came, they said, when the instructors fail to put ELMS to good use or don’t even use it at all.
“It’s like we use only some of what it seems really capable of,” said freshman letters and sciences major Ben Parzow. “I have no classes that use the discussion boards, and some of the tabs have cool-looking stuff like ‘interactive elements,’ and we never use any of it.”
Some students said the system can only improve if their instructors actually make use of it.
“We don’t always want to email our teachers when we want to know our grades,” freshman government and politics Emily Morris said. “So if all the teachers used it, it would be better for everyone.”
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