What factors have driven LMS change at OSU?

Overview

Over the past decade, the Ohio State University has adapted to revolutionary changes in learning technologies. In fact, this was absolutely necessary in order to keep up with the pace of technology in higher education, meet the needs of a diversifying and tech savvy student population, and keep its reputation as a leading land-grant institution.  As technology has progressed, every single activity at the university has undoubtedly changed in some way. But what about the most crucial and foundational activity?

Learning has, for thousands of years, taken place face-to-face, instructor-to-student. But now, with the rapid pace of our world and the information overload that comes with endless access to online resources, learning also takes place in a different space. Learning management systems (LMS) provide a space for learning, sharing information and ultimately, bridge that gap between the instructor, the student, and the boundless web.

Click through the timeline below to see the history of LMS implementation at OSU. Notice that periods of LMS change are hectic on the timeline, reinforcing my curiosity about what happens in the slow periods to necessitate these big changes.

Pre-LMS

Prior to any LMS integration at the university, students and instructors had trouble navigating the rapidly growing web and using its power for education at OSU. Furthermore, the university needed a way to track student activity, grades, and satisfaction that wasn’t the old-fashioned paperbound gradebook of before. The motivations for the development of all LMS were similar, with their target being higher education institutions.

WebCT

OSU’s first LMS, WebCT was created in 1997 by Murray Goldberg, a computer science instructor from the University of British Columbia. In his research and practice, he found that students would benefit from a new type of web platform with “location and time independent delivery of course material, the ability to seve a large number of students at a potentially reduced cost, and a simple, familiar interface” ^[1]. He notes that with the use of already existing educational websites, outcomes are much higher “in departments where there is a high degree of technical familiarity” ^[2] prompting the need for a platform that allows departments to build new courses with no technical expertise. What Goldberg and his team created was WebCT, “an environment that allows educators, with or without technical expertise, to created sophisticated [web] based courses. These courses can incorporate any of our continually growing) set of tools and features” ^[3].

As of Jan 2001, the office of Technology Enhanced Learning and Research (TELR) reported that WebCT usage was 126 courses for winter quarter, including 283 class sections serving about 10,000 student accounts. On the central WebCT server, about 450 faculty and staff accounts are in use. ^[4]

The university anticipated growth back in 2003, projecting a rate of increase of 80% a year with as many as 83,000 student accounts in the system in 2003-2004 academic year. ^[5]

By fiscal year 2004, adoption of OSU’s first LMS had grown to 2,507 courses in 135 departments, managed by 1,643 instructors. ^[6]

To accommodate this growing online presence at OSU, the office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) began a formal evaluation in search of a more advanced, enterprise-level content management system (CMS). The team was looking for “a CMS that can scale to a growing user population, be easy to use, provide content management capabilities, better serve the eLearning needs of the academic community and also functionally integrate with current and future student information system applications” ^[7].

But how did the evaluation team arrive at this comprehensive list of needs for the entire university? They began in 2003 with informal conversations and demos from vendors. At one such event, attendees were asked to complete surveys about tool sets, feature sets, technical considerations, and ease of use. A Request for Proposals (RFP) was outlined and four potential LMS vendors were identified. ^[8]

Separately, OSU Polls conducted by the Center for Survey Research in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences since 2003, provide key data on technology use, among other things. ^[9] This data from 2003 shows the sentiment towards WebCT at the time, foreshadowing a coming change to a more advanced (yet easier to use) LMS.

Are you using WebCT, the university supported course management system?

What is the main reason you are NOT using WebCT?

To refer back to our guiding question: what factors have driven LMS change at OSU? It seems that in the era of WebCT, ease of use and knowledge of the opportunities provided by an LMS were the biggest drivers for change.

WebCT to Desire2Learn

One of the four vendors that was evaluated in the 2003-2005 RFP process was Desire2Learn. Desire2Learn (D2L) was developed in 1999 by a student at the University of Waterloo in Canada. It appeared on the market to compete with Blackboard and WebCT to be perceived as a middle ground in terms of complexity and ease of use. It delivered “more customization and sophisticated delivery than Blackboard and an intuitive interface that was more user-friendly than WebCT” ^[10]. Eventually, Blackboard would absorb WebCT in a merger, but not before D2L was chosen as the new LMS for OSU. Other major adopters of D2L included the University of Arizona, University of Iowa, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, and many more.

In January of 2005, the “Carmen Project” was launched – an 18 month implementation plan with an end date to align with the expiration of the current WebCT license. An OCIO communication from November of 2005 explains the highlights of this newly branded LMS “Carmen” and the Desire2Learn software behind it. At this point, 779 instructors had used D2L in 913 courses to reach 33,558 students. ^[11]

Those 779 instructors engaged with Carmen this quarter are taking advantage of its eLearning environment to supplement or blend traditional lectures with digital content or even to create fully online courses. They are also administering online tests and surveys, communicating with students through e-mail and online class discussions, and managing digitized rosters and gradebooks.

An entirely new product, D2L is structured like a table of contents, which limits the creativity in structure, but also guarantees the student will be able to navigate their course. 

A file manager allows for storage of various course materials documents or pages which can be linked to multiple times within the course. ^[12]

In a 2005 OSU survey of 100+ instructors using Carmen, 75% rated their experience with Carmen (D2L) as excellent or good. 87% said it was easy to learn. Of those who had used WebCT in the past, 81% preferred Carmen (D2L). Respondents also highlighted perks in a more qualitative fashion. ^[13]

• easy to set up and easy for the students to use
• seems stable and reliable
• is visually attractive
• very flexible in setting up quizzes and grades
• friendlier interface than WebCT
• allows interaction with my students in my large class
• online discussions are easy in Carmen

Adoption numbers of Carmen (D2L) were double what the support team had anticipated at the time and support services were available and being utilized.

Another OSU poll conducted by the Center for Survey Research in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences took place in 2007 and gathered data about the new system. 58% of surveyed faculty reported using Carmen (D2L). The respondents indicated they were curious to use Carmen functions like: rubric-based assessment (23%), ePortfolios (20%), and blogs (17%) ^[14].

D2L to Canvas

A full decade continued with a steady increase of courses using Carmen (D2L) for supplementation, hybrid learning, or fully online classes. During this time, the OCIO’s TELR morphed to become a separate office altogether – now known as the Office of Distance Education and eLearning (ODEE). ODEE became the new specialist for learning technologies at Ohio State and also began to develop fully online degree programs in a variety of fields. The nature of fully online degree programs and courses demanded more robust toolsets, better integrations with external learning technologies, and a visual update from a decade old interface.

In a charge to the newest LMS Evaluation Committee, ODEE posits: “In the past several years, the introduction of Canvas and the formation of Unizin have shaken up the market, causing rapid development and changes in product strategy. It is time to assess our options and determine which LMS will provide the best platform for teaching and learning at Ohio State.” ^[15]

Ultimately, the committee was able to perform an evaluation of the three top LMS on the market – Blackboard, D2L, and Canvas. In the process of evaluation, “ODEE staff organized vendor demonstrations, test sites and communication with vendors, including submitting questionnaires on the committee’s behalf, technical resources to answer questions or resolve issues with test sites, and a compilation of the survey data submitted by the committee” ^[16].

At the conclusion of the process in June of 2015, the recommendation was ultimately to pursue Canvas as the replacement for D2L. This was based on

• high ratings in ease of use and clarity of interface throughout
• inspiring prospects for teaching and learning
• functionality on mobile devices
• collaboration and communication features
• and overall integration

These recommendations, along with cautions and questions to explore, were presented to ODEE leadership and a pilot of Canvas was initiated.

Canvas, synonymous with ed tech company Instructure, was created by BYU graduate students with a vision to turn the LMS market upside down. It was designed to be more user friendly and “integrate and use systems already familiar to students and teachers” ^[17]. Big ideas included a combined news feed for all updates across courses, integration with Google Docs, YouTube videos, electronic rubrics, and a combined course calendar feature. For these reasons and many more, Canvas became the LMS of choice for major universities and ultimately, for OSU.

The first pilot took place in Autumn semester 2015 with just 15 courses using the LMS, spread across a wide variety of academic fields. Another pilot in Spring semester of 2016 featured 50+ courses and returned valuable data. ^[18]

Notice the preferences for D2L amongst upperclassmen in opposition to the underclassmen preferences for Canvas. Why do you think that is?

Favorite features and perks highlighted in the pilot results included:

• clean interface
• easier building experience – for ease and consistency
• SpeedGrader – easier grading and feedback
• Student-focused – designed from a student perspective
• Mobile app – 50% of students access course content from the Canvas app
• hypothetical grade feature – students can input “what-if” grades in the gradebook to calculate final grade
• simplified collaboration – sharing documents, hosting discussions
• combined calendar – displays assignments and due dates across courses
• Unizin collaboration – leverage with other institutions for better features/pricing from Canvas
• cloud based – better performance, less down time

These highlights seemed to blow the competition out of the water, and a plan was put in place to formally adopt Canvas as the LMS at OSU.

Autumn semester 2016 saw 70% of courses in Carmen using the temporary branding “CarmenCanvas” ^[19]. Hosting courses in two LMS would have been confusing if not for a “smart landing page” allowing the user to choose a course and automatically be directed to the correct LMS, or direct themselves to the dashboard for each LMS. By the time of this writing, Canvas is fully integrated with the courseload of the university and D2L will be extinct as of May 14, 2017.

ODEE staff, instructors, and Instructional Designers across the university are exploring the many features of this new LMS, sharing their finds, and building some amazing courses. The user interface of CarmenCanvas is visually pleasing and allows for customization and cool integrations. Below is a sample of screenshots from the CarmenCanvas dashboard and a selected fully online course.

References