Education Perspectives PRIVATE FOR PROFIT CONSIDERATIONS: HOW TO CHOOSE AND IMPLEMENT A NEW LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FEBRUARY 2013
2 FEBRUARY 2013 PRIVATE FOR PROFIT CONSIDERATIONS: HOW TO CHOOSE AND IMPLEMENT A NEW LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM BECAUSE LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ARE MAJOR INVESTMENTS IN TIME AND MONEY, THE PROCESS FOR CHOOSING A NEW LMS SHOULD BE THOROUGH. The broad use of Learning Management Systems 1 (LMSs) across education has become an ingrained component of most educational institutions learning strategy. Educational institutions find the need to move from first generation and even second generation applications to newer systems that provide the latest functionality demanded by an increasingly sophisticated and experienced faculty and user community. The process of choosing a new Learning Management System includes defining business requirements and a realistic projection of costs (in dollars and time) for the new application for present needs and into the future. The following information will walk you and your institution through some of the major decisions that are typically considered during the implementation of a new LMS, including: defining the objectives, strategies, resources, functionality, support and technical aspects required. INSTITUTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS Have the reasons why a new LMS is being considered been clearly identified (i.e., first time acquisitions, the need for expanded functionality, too expensive, dissatisfied with vendor, need to expand current online offerings due to budget constraints, consolidations of multiple systems and/or other similar organizational needs)? What are the key issues, problems, and/or challenges that a new LMS is to address? Have the staff, timeline and budget associated with the task of selecting, implementing, supporting and maintaining a new LMS been identified and earmarked? LEARNING STRATEGY A learning strategy should reflect how you plan on delivering learning programs to the users who need them to accomplish your educational goals. What is the makeup of your learners are they distributed learners or mostly/exclusively on-campus learners? What are the areas of emphases for your LMS? What new learning processes would you like to add? How will you measure the success and calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) of your new LMS? How will you determine whether a LMS improves student retention and student learning outcomes? Furthermore, it is important to focus on pedagogical approaches and models that are important to your institution (e.g., collaborative learning, problem-based learning, case-based learning and experiential or 1 Also called a Virtual Learning Environment or Course Management System.
3 service based learning). Additionally, it is important to determine the emphasis given to student-student interaction and quality teaching materials (i.e., text, audio, video and multimedia). REQUIREMENTS Most successful LMS implementations include a selection process that engages, at some level, the staff that will be most affected by the new initiative. Once the selection committee has been selected, prioritization of requirements can be made in order to find the right LMS that will meet your core needs initially and grow to meet your expanded needs in the future while remaining stable with regard to cost. Requirements will include functional and technical as well as business relationships. This information can be gathered a variety of ways such as holding a series of meetings, conducting focus groups, and/or using a survey. The overall process and broad directives as well as the detailed functionality need to be considered. Clear, unambiguous critical needs statements and highly differentiated qualification checklists and documents are invaluable in this process. It is also helpful to consider the following in the analysis of your requirements: Functional and Technical Requirements Functional What features are mandatory vs. what are optional? How does the system support the learner, instructor, administration and the overall learning process? Are grading and reporting formats easy to use, exportable, and support customizable views? Does the system provide a user interface for all level of users to easily interact with LMS? What language support do you need? Does the LMS support a variety of pedagogical approaches to instruction and assessment including social learning/media? Is instructional design guidance available to aid in the creation and sharing of content? Does the LMS support the alignment of educational standards to key teaching and learning outcomes? Is the solution supported by an active community of users? How important are accessibility guidelines and compliance? Is a mobile application available so that learners can access their courses anytime, anywhere? How does the system save faculty time and increase efficiency? Does the system promote personalized learning and student engagement? Administration What administrative and reporting/analytics capabilities do you need? Can the solution be tailored to meet your institution s specific organizational needs and branding requirements? Does the LMS provide administrative functions to customize permissions and securities at various organization levels? How scalable is the solution? How reliable is the solution? Is SaaS/Cloud available? How is SaaS environment configured shared or dedicated or both; clustered, high availability? Do multi-institutional and/or multi-tenant capabilities exist? How interoperable is the solution?
4 How important is the ability to migrate/convert existing courses/course content? And how easy is it to exit the system? Regarding analytics capabilities, does the system provide outcome alignment, curriculum mapping and academic risk reports? What academic continuity options are available mirrored, redundant, active/active? Training and Support Will your institution provide its own help desk support or will this need to be provided by the vendor or third party? If by the vendor or third party, what are their response and resolution times? How is the Service Level Agreement structured? What kind of training is provided by the vendor? How easy is the new LMS to understand and use? What personnel does the institution have to have in place? What equipment needs to be purchased? Technical Will the solution be self-hosted or vendor-hosted? Is the vendor s SaaS environment secure and reliable? Does the vendor offer a cloud solution? How easy is the solution to upgrade and maintain? How efficient is the implementation of the solution? With what standards does the LMS comply? What are the dependencies on and support for other learning or administrative systems? What are your institution s disaster recovery policies and can the new LMS comply with these policies? What third party integrations are available and how easy are they to accomplish (e.g., SIS, Central Authentication Service, single sign on, portal, library, content providers)? What additional products and services does the vendor offer? Business Relationship Requirements How committed is the vendor to supporting the educational community? How responsive is the vendor? Can you obtain and review current client testimonials? Does the value of the solution justify the cost? Does the vendor welcome client input into the R&D process? What is the vendor s history in the educational software market? What is the vendor s history with the private-for profit segment of the education market? Is the vendor financially stable? Is the vendor likely to be a reliable partner for the foreseeable future? What will be the initial investment and long-term Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)? How will the new LMS affect the alignment, development, engagement and retention of staff and students specifically think about the impact the LMS will have with respect to productivity, revenue, satisfaction and compliance.
5 PROJECT MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES While there are many important decisions to consider during the evaluation process, it is equally important to have a good overall project plan for the LMS implementation. There are several proven steps to follow: 1. Formation of a steering group to manage the entire initiative including vision and strategy 2. Formation of a management team for day-to-day operations and administration 3. Development of a comprehensive project plan, deliverables, timeline, and ownership 4. Management of budgets 5. Management of technology, including the software to be implemented and the hardware on which it will be installed 6. Management of the training, expectations, upgrades and support of end users 7. Planning for the uploading of content into the LMS or migrating/ converting of existing content 8. Content creation standards, process, and approval 9. Development of both print and online help and documentation for the system 10. Change management procedures while the implementation is underway 11. Management and training of all personnel involved in the project 12. Testing, measurement and quality assurance procedures 13. Process to expand and scale program through growth or inclusion/ creation of additional programs as success is experienced CONCLUSION Choosing and implementing a new LMS is a long-term, mission-critical commitment. The LMS needs to be an extensible product that can scale to keep pace with your growing enrollments. It should be an adaptable and complete solution that is flexible and customizable enough to meet your unique needs yet also be affordable. Careful planning and review of vendors solutions can result in an LMS implementation that can serve your stakeholders for years to come. And, if you are not sure where to start or need examples, there are plenty of project plans and templates that can be shared to help get the process started. RESOURCES b online learning, LMS Evaluator Tool, http://www.bonlinelearning.com.au Charter for Enterprise Learning Systems and Applications Procurement (ELSAP), April 16, 2009. IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. elearning. 2012. Business of Learning: Four Considerations Before You Buy Your Next LMS. Retrieved from http://www.2elearning.com/voices/article/business-of-learning-fourconsiderations-before-you-buy-your-next-lms-2.html e-learning Engineering, Learning Management System Selection, http://www.elearning-engineering.com/lms/index.htm Ivertech Software Central, Learning Management Systems: What You Need to Know before Choosing a Learning Management System, http://software.ivertech.com/_ivertecharticle27841_learningmanage mentsystemswhatyouneedtoknowbeforechoosingalearning managementsystem.htm LMS KnowledgeBase 2011, http://www.brandon-hall.com/store/knowledgebases.html Michael Feldstein blog, The. http://mfeldstein.com/advice-for-small-schools-on-the-lms-selection-process/
6 LIST OF COMMONLY REQUESTED LMS FEATURES Support of educational and technical standards Course Development, Content Authoring and Curriculum Design Tools Course Management eportfolios Collaborative Learning Content Distribution Features Customization Features Web 2.0 integration File Management Foreign Language Support Accessibility for People with Disabilities Communication Features (e.g., discussion forums, post first capability, web conferencing, chat, notifications, wikis, blogs, etc.) Assessment Features and Learning Outcome Management (LOM) (e.g., quizzes, competencies, rubrics, eportfolios, mobile assignment grader, import/export rubrics, SCORM scores, etc.) (manage learning outcomes on student, course and institutional levels) Assignment/Dropbox Reporting Student Tracking Academic Analytics Capabilities Conditional/Adaptive Release Gradebook; Offline Grading Social Networking Integration which enables relationship building Mobile Application Help Search Easy and straightforward System Administration User Data Scalability Security Maintenance Backup/Restore/Upgrades Software as a Service (SaaS) Vendor Infrastructure Requirements Institution s Architecture providing the vendor with a clear understanding of the architecture in which their product will function Ability to integrate with third party systems (e.g., SIS, LDAP, library systems, content providers, etc.)
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