For this assignment we were tasked with creating a Higher Education scenario, and developing an evaluation rubric for the selection of a Learning Management System for that scenario. We developed a scenario that is likely to occur at UBC based on the current experience of the Covid-19 response a review of it’s current LMS, Canvas. We took the perspective of a committee that was tasked with this review.

We started with an in-depth evaluation rubric that we developed based upon our own experiences, reflection, the MIT framework (Osterweil et al., 2015) , and the Anstey & Watson (2018) Educause article. We ultimately condensed our full rubric to show just the “meets” criteria descriptions, with check boxes for how Moodle fit within each criteria. This simplification streamlined our analysis, but I think our original rubric would be valuable for others conducting a similar analysis. We then did quite detailed reviews and evaluations of several Learning Management Systems including: Canvas, Open EdX, and Moodle. These detailed reviews lead us to selecting Moodle as a comparison LMS for the potential of replacing Canvas at UBC.

The University of British Columbia developed an “Academic Continuity” response when the Covid-19 pandemic moved the university to remote teaching. This sudden shift forced massive and quick adoption of existing and new tools. As a student and employee at UBC this catalyst makes me glad that we had adopted Canvas in 2016 (University of British Columbia, n.d.). I wonder how this “forced change” will influence how the university evaluates Canvas when it is time for the tool to be reviewed, considering it was at least good enough to get us through the year so far. On the one hand, we now have a much larger teaching body using Canvas, who have dedicated a lot of time this year to create content. However, we also know more about how to engage faculty and share resources to help instructors become comfortable, if not proficient with new technology.

In our review of various LMS systems, it seems that most of them share a lot of features that make them appropriate for a large university: including having both on-premise and cloud instances, opportunities to adapt the tool to fit the institutions security and privacy policy, extendable interfaces either through LTI or plugins. All of these things come at a cost, but at their core vendors have recognized the “selling points” that are necessary in the technology. If it is generally true that the infrastructure of an LMS can be adapted to fit the institution, then it suggests it is the culture or readiness of the institution and its people that is the important factor.

While I think the overall analysis was appropriately technical, one area that I would suggest we include as more prominent if there was the opportunity (more words available) is a discussion about the important overlap of technology and institutional culture/readiness for adoption of new technology. It was impossible to develop a rubric and evaluation that did not consider what the university was ready for, and I found myself thinking back to the assignments in #ETEC520 “Planning and Managing Learning Technologies in Higher Education”.

References

Anstey, L., Watson, G. (2018). A rubric for evaluating E-Learning Tools in Higher Education. Educause. Retrieved June 3, 2021, from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/9/a-rubric-for-evaluating-e-learning-tools-in-higher-education

Osterweil, S., Shah, P., Allen, S., Groff, J., & Sai Kodidala, P., & Schoenfeld, I. (2015). Summary report: A framework for evaluating appropriateness of educational technology use in global development programs. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts & The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. Retrieved from https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/115340/Summary%20Report_A%20Framework%20for%20Evaluating%20Appropriateness%20of%20Educational%20Technology%20Use%20in%20Global%20Development%20Programs.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

University of British Columbia. (n.d.). Needs Assessment 2016. Retrieved June 3, 2021, from https://lthub.ubc.ca/initiatives/lte-renewal/needs-assessment/