| | February - March - 20189LMS was used in only approximately 40 per cent of courses, and that the community used only a small subset of its available features. In addition, faculty and student surveys showed that a significant percentage of the faculty was frustrated with the old system and did not know how to use it well. Students communicated that they did not really care if the old system remained in place or if a new one was adopted; they just asked that faculty actually use the LMS. The data analysis was presented to two advisory committees created for the project: one for faculty and staff, and one for students. Work with the committees resulted in choosing to pilot three different LMSs over a calendar year and compare the findings of the pilots with the primary system already in place. The advisory committees were given the opportunity to use all of the systems being evaluated in sandbox spaces and also invited to attend vendor presentations. As a result, two systems emerged as being preferable to the old system, and one of those ranked highest in ease of use and student satisfaction. At the end of the evaluation, data was collected from faculty and students, LMS administrators, and instructional designers and summarized in a 50-page report that included surveys, usage data, pilots, reactions to vendor demonstrations, and sandbox uses of the systems. Due to the thorough and inclusive nature of the project, what initially seemed like an almost impossible task ­ gaining campus-wide buy-in to move to a new system, became an easy conversation within the university's governance model. Not only did the Faculty Senate vote unanimously to move to the recommended new LMS, they also provided their endorsement encouraging faculty to use the new system for the benefit of the students. Other distributed LMSs are being phased out.A Quick Transition Benefits Students and StaffFinally, the Faculty Senate agreed with the recommendation from advisory committees to make the transition quick: the decision to move to a new system was made in late September of 2016, and the following spring and summer semesters became the only optional semesters for faculty to use the old system. Therefore, by the fall of 2017, all students had all courses in the new LMS greatly reducing their confusion from having courses in two or more systems. As an added benefit, the quick transition allowed the LMS team to focus on communication and training to help faculty make the move as painlessly as possible, as opposed to having to split their time in supporting two systems over a number of semesters.While the end result was successful, it must be noted that such a monumental project is time-consuming and can involve some difficult conversations with team members eager to make progress. At times during the project, the team grew tired, and vendors found the in-depth evaluation process to be long. However, the thanks and accolades from the campus community gave a great deal of satisfaction to the project team and also eased the transition to a new system. Taking time to build relationships and get buy-in paid off in spades during the implementation.The transition has been relatively quick and smooth. While the new system is not perfect, CWRU achieved its goals for the project and realized a 140 per cent increase in the use of the enterprise LMS, lower campus costs, and a simplified LMS landscape. Students are thankful that their needs have been addressed and more faculty are using the enterprise LMS to share important class information with them. The thorough nature of the project turned the task of gaining campus-wide buy-in to move to a new LMS into an easy conversation within the university's governance model.Sue Workman
< Page 8 | Page 10 >