Not Just Online: Why Every Student Is a Digital Learner

Tony Sovak, Ph.D. Director LMS and eLearning Quality, Pima Community College

Tony Sovak, Ph.D. Director LMS and eLearning Quality, Pima Community College

Dr. Tony Sovak is an experienced academic leader with over 20 years in higher education and more than a decade in academic administration. He currently serves as Director of LMS & eLearning Quality at Pima Community College, where he oversees collegewide academic technology systems and leads strategic initiatives to support instructional quality, faculty development, and student success.

Tony manages operations for Brightspace D2L, supporting over 43,000 unique users, and collaborates with faculty and deans to promote instructional consistency, accessibility, and effective online pedagogy. A champion of inclusive and data-informed practices, Tony has advanced OER adoption, dual enrollment pathways, and quality assurance systems that improve student outcomes. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Stony Brook University. He shared his expert insights for the 2025 edition of Education Technology Insights.

At a recent task force meeting, our new chancellor asked for ideas on how to reduce the number of students who dropped for non-payment. The problem was urgent: too many students were losing their seats before classes even began, often without realizing why. The timing of the drop-for-nonpayment process makes it especially tricky. It happens between semesters, when students have finished summer classes and are not yet in fall classes, so they have little reason to check their email. I was not there, so I do not know whom to thank, but someone suggested sending a global announcement through the learning management system.

For years, we have used this tool to communicate with students because it connects with the Brightspace Pulse app and bypasses email to reach them directly. That functionality has also been the cornerstone of several of our quality processes at the college, and it offered a promising way to solve this problem as well.

The message was sent, and within an hour, the bursar reported that more than $11,000 had been paid. What could have been a 9 percent drop in student registration shrank to 5 percent in one hour. For the students, the difference was more than financial; what might have been a confusing and frustrating loss of enrollment was reduced to a simple notification on their phone.

That single announcement confirmed what I had long believed: the LMS is a powerful tool that can make a measurable difference in student outcomes. If one message can reduce drops and stabilize enrollment, imagine what calendars, grade books, announcements, and syllabi (used across every course) could do for student learning. The challenge has never been whether the system works. The challenge has been helping faculty see these practices as meaningful for their students, rather than as another compliance mandate.

The Vision: The LMS as the Backbone of Every Course

Every student today is, in some sense, a digital learning student. Even those who never take a fully online class rely on the LMS to find their syllabus, check grades, or track due dates. Brightspace D2L, the system we use at Pima Community College, comes with a mobile app that students are encouraged to download. In theory, this gives them a single point of access for every due date, every graded item, messages from their faculty, and their syllabus.

But that vision only works if faculty consistently use the LMS. Those teaching online courses see the value, and many hybrid instructors do as well. The challenge is reaching the traditional face-to-face instructors who, because they do the work in the classroom, do not necessarily see the value of extending beyond it. For a long time, the baseline assumption has been that if you are teaching in person, the classroom experience itself is automatically engaging enough on its own. I think that assumption is increasingly faulty.

Part of the reason for me is that, as employees, using the LMS consistently in every class can reduce the burden on students. Rather than having every student in every class reproduce a printed calendar on their phones, a faculty member can enter it once in the LMS and instantly create clarity for 20 or 30 learners per section. It makes sense to me that the person paid to do the work provides clarity for those paying the opportunity to learn.

“Strategic use of the LMS ensures that the class goes with them when they leave. In some way, I think it levels the playing field”

But part of the reason is cultural. Technology has fundamentally shifted expectations, and society has shifted post-COVID. Students’ time has been reduced and fragmented. If we are truly going to meet students where they are, sometimes that means recognizing that they are not always in the classroom, even in a face-to-face class. The traditional notion that “I’m engaging with my students because I see them for an hour and a half twice a week” no longer feels like enough. Even if they make every class, and very few do, the entire internet comes in with them on their phones. Strategic use of the LMS ensures that the class goes with them when they leave. In some way, I think it levels the playing field.

When the LMS is treated as the backbone of every course, not just “the online ones,” it becomes a platform for equity, consistency, and connection across the college. That is why our quality initiatives emphasize four simple, high-impact practices: consistent use of calendars, grade books, syllabi, and announcements in every course, regardless of modality. These practices give students a reliable single point of access and allow faculty to provide clarity at scale. But consistent adoption will not come from broad mandates alone. The real driver of improvement is helping faculty connect the dots between what students expect from their classroom and technology, seeing how their peers use the LMS effectively for their students, and understanding the “how” and “why” behind them.

This is where our approach moves beyond compliance toward culture, using strategies like the LMS Review and quality review spot checks to give faculty authentic feedback and a clearer sense of what works.

The Problem with Compliance-Only

It can be tempting, when we see an intervention that we think will benefit students, to reach for compliance as the solution. Administrators might be quick to say, “Okay, let’s make a rule that everyone has to do it.” The trouble is that compliance by itself rarely moves the needle. Faculty will do what the rule requires, but without the why and the how, they will not take ownership of it, and they will not use it in pedagogically creative ways that connect with students.

I once worked at an institution that mandated two live, 45-minute online lectures per week in every online course. The intent was understandable: create interactive presence. But the result was predictable. Many faculties spoke to empty rooms. Few students watched the recordings. The mandate checked a compliance box, but it did not accomplish its purpose.

What got lost was the recognition that interactive presence looks different depending on the discipline. In math, it might mean students bring problem sets and the professor works through them on the board. In literature, it could be a collaborative close reading of a text. In another field, it might be guided case studies, small group discussions, or interactive labs. There are many pedagogically sound ways to achieve interactivity, but a blanket requirement for “two live lectures” flattened that entire nuance.

That is the danger of compliance-only approaches. They risk creating activity without impact, regulation without relevance. Mandates can require activity, but without ownership, they rarely create the kinds of engagement we know are possible when faculty adapt practices to their own disciplines.

The Solution: Frameworks that Build Culture

The alternative to compliance is building systems that make sense to both faculty and students. In an era when a student may take face-to-face, hybrid, and online classes in the same semester, inconsistent use of the LMS is not just inconvenient; it is inequitable. The student experience should not depend on which course modality they happen to enroll in.

At my institution, we have tried to focus less on mandates and more on frameworks that encourage clarity, consistency, and continuous improvement across all modalities. Three areas have made a difference:

1.The LMS Review

The LMS Review asks department heads to look at one representative course per modality for each faculty member. While the reviewer is a supervisor, they are encouraged to approach the process in the spirit of a colleague: focusing less on oversight and more on practices that matter to students. The review centers on questions like: Are calendars comprehensive? Is the grade book in use? Is feedback timely? Are students finding predictable points of engagement? By emphasizing discipline-relevant practices and the student experience, the review becomes a conversation about teaching quality rather than a checklist. The Faculty leaders are encouraged to help celebrate Innovative uses of it and spread it throughout the department. It's about what they're seeing that's working, not just about what's missing and what they don't see.

2. Quality Review “Secret Shopper” Spot Checks

To give faculty authentic and actionable feedback, we use a team of trained student workers known as Quality Specialists. Temporarily enrolled in courses as students, they review from the learner’s perspective using a framework grounded in our institutional quality design standards. Think of it as a structured “secret shopper” check: can a student easily find the syllabus and office hours, locate points of engagement, and access key links without friction? After each review, we send a brief report directly to the instructor, not to supervisors, with suggestions to improve the student experience. This matters because most feedback about broken links or confusing navigation arrives mid-course and in frustration. These spot checks provide timely, low-stakes, constructive input instead, helping faculty see their courses through student eyes without the emotional weight of a complaint. (Quality Specialists see only what any student would see, do not access confidential data, and removed from the course after the review.)

3. Engagement Dashboards for Just-in-Time Support

To better support instructional consistency and student experience across modalities, we developed faculty engagement dashboards that give department heads timely indicators of LMS-based teaching presence, such as announcement frequency, grading timeliness, calendar use, and course access patterns. However, the goal is not surveillance. These dashboards are explicitly framed as tools for support and dialogue, not evaluation. They are used in conjunction with our D2L Review process and were shaped by a faculty-led quality review work group to ensure they would be faculty-friendly, transparent, and actionable.

Instead of waiting for end-of-term feedback or student complaints, academic leaders can now spot gaps while a course is in progress and proactively offer support. For example, if multiple students report confusion about due dates, a department head can quickly check the dashboard, identify where calendars are missing or inactive, and reach out to offer coaching or a quick training, before the problem snowballs. This system helps turn data into dialogue, giving faculty timely, targeted support that ultimately strengthens student engagement and success.

Together, these frameworks shift the emphasis from compliance to culture. They give faculty the feedback and resources they need to improve, they give students a more consistent learning environment, and they give leaders a way to support rather than punish.

Alignment as the Secret Sauce

At the end of the day, compliance can check boxes, but it rarely wins hearts and minds. What can connect faculty to the purpose behind the practice and ground that purpose in what matters most to students?

That is the secret sauce: ask students what problems they want technology to solve for them. Do they need clarity on due dates? Faster feedback on grades? More consistent communication? When faculty see how their efforts directly address those needs, the work feels meaningful instead of mechanical.

The challenge for academic leaders is weaving these perspectives together, bringing student priorities, faculty professional development, and institutional resources into alignment. Done well, the result is not just compliance or even a one-off initiative. It is alignment, a culture where technology, pedagogy, and leadership all point toward the same goal: helping students succeed.