The Future of the LMS at Portland State University

Canvas Comes to PSU

February 22, 2021

OAA and the PSU LMS Committee are pleased to announce that the final decision has been made regarding the future of D2L at PSU. The feedback we received and the evidence we reviewed over the course of our nearly two-year project made it clear: Canvas is a better fit for PSU. A move to Canvas will provide a Learning Management System that:

creates a consistent, accessible experience
promotes student-centered learning and student engagement
supports high-quality course design features for instructors
offers an intuitive interface for faculty and students
is a wise investment for the future

The challenges our community has faced teaching and learning remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic have further underscored the urgency of providing PSU faculty and students with the best possible learning management system, and we are pleased to provide our community with the opportunity to achieve this. We realize that there are many implications of this decision and are grateful for the patience and collaboration you have brought to this process.

In light of the last year of remote teaching, it is more clear than ever that we rely on our campus academic technology environment to support faculty and students in the most straightforward, flexible, and robust manner possible. A move to Canvas will allow for a higher diversity of learning experiences and teaching innovations at Portland State. According to the 2020 ECAR survey, PSU students want a high quality and consistent digital learning experience with course materials online and accessible from any device. After engaging with faculty, students, and staff, the committee found that D2L is not meeting this need and presents many significant barriers to successful teaching and learning. In contrast, PSU students participating in the Canvas pilot program described Canvas as “very intuitive” and easier to access and navigate. As one student put it, “Every time I was using D2L I just wished it was Canvas.” With this move, PSU will be on the industry-standard Learning Management System used by our regional competitors.

Susan Jeffords, Ph.D.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Proposed Timeline

Selection

Fall Term 2019: Project Planning, Committee Forms
Winter Term 2020: LMS Alternative Pilots, Evaluation
Spring Term 2020: LMS Alternative Pilots, Evaluation and Selection

Migration

Winter Term 2021: Evaluation and selection
Spring Term 2021: Configuration and course migration planning
Summer Term 2021: Course migration, opt-in/early adopter, faculty Canvas course
Fall Term 2021: Course migration cont., faculty Canvas course cont.
Winter Term 2021: Fully on new LMS

The most important part of this migration plan will be a plan and resources for supporting faculty. If a transition occurs, OAI plans to devote almost all of its resources and staff to support faculty! This means migrating courses for faculty, providing hands-on help and trainings, communicating with the community about the transition, and providing student resources.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS NOW?

The timing is right: our contract with D2L expires in mid June 2021. Our research and experience suggests that a comfortable LMS transition takes about one full year. Therefore, if we are going to transition, we need to start that process in Summer of 2020. This means a decision needs to be made no later than June of 2020.

Provost Jeffords is keenly interested in increasing student engagement and student success in the Digital Learning Environment, starting with the LMS. Her interest has sparked a pilot of two different student engagement tools, and has generated campus-wide interest in making sure engagement and student-centered practices are central to the LMS.

We need to make sure we future-proof our Learning Management System. This means assessing our current LMS, Brightspace, for key features like interoperability (how the system interacts with other tools like Turnitin), data and reporting capabilities, and overall company health and market share.

Providing faculty, students, and decision-makers with timely, easy-to-interpret data is extremely important to PSU’s future. We need to make sure we provide an LMS that is as user-friendly as possible, while still being feature rich. There is overwhelming feedback from PSU faculty and students that Brightspace is confusing and sometimes difficult to use. Other institutions who have switched from Brightspace report a significant (50% or more) decrease in support tickets after the switch. We owe it to our campus community to look closely at this.

It’s no secret that PSU is in a constrained budgetary environment. As with every major investment, we need to look closely at the costs associated with all of our LMS options.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

The Learning Management System (LMS) is one of the foundations of learning at PSU. Over 14,000 of our students use our current LMS, Brightspace, on a daily basis to complete coursework.

Read the LMS Report

Just like any other part of our infrastructure, it is imperative that we make sure our LMS is the best possible learning environment for our students. Recent student feedback collected by OAI, as well as a 2017 survey of PSU students by Educause, voices a strong desire for more consistency in their digital learning experiences.

The purpose of this project is to determine whether Brightspace can support the student engagement and success goals PSU has established for its future, and if not, whether one of the LMS alternatives (Canvas and Aula) being piloted during Winter and Spring terms 2020 is better poised to do so.

1.

Beginning January 2019, an LMS Advisory Committee of representatives from all of the Colleges, Student Services, the Library, OIT, and Faculty Senate convened to consider this question, and to advise campus leadership on how to proceed.

2.

During the six months between January and June, the committee met regularly to review existing data, and to assess LMS alternatives.

3.

OAI hosted demonstrations of the LMS options under consideration, with an opportunity for the campus community to provide feedback. Committee members assessed each of these LMS options carefully, using standardized assessment rubrics and methods.

4.

OAI ran pilots of two alternative Learning Management Systems- Aula and Canvas- and hosted public “Show and Ask” sessions with faculty and students who participated in those pilots.

5.

OAI collected public feedback from the campus community via a Google Form Survey.

6.

The committee delivered a set of recommendations to the Provost, Chief Information Officer, and Executive Director of OAI, on June 1st, 2020.

WHO IS MAKING THIS DECISION?

Our process for evaluating, selecting, and migrating learning management systems is collaborative. For the past several years, OAI has engaged in research on best practices in technology selection and maintenance. It indicates that in order to select the best enterprise-level system, stakeholders and subject matter experts should be engaged in an inclusive and transparent way, in order to advise IT and Academic leaders on the best option for the campus community.

OAI formed a committee of representatives of all of the Colleges, as well as offices that provide student services. On approval from Deans, members were selected who are knowledgeable about technology, passionate about teaching and learning, and who can also represent the faculty experience in terms of workload. The membership roster can be found on the Project Charter.