Members Present: Amy Flint, Richard Nafshun, Robert Reff, Stuart Sarbacker, Victor Hsu
Ex-officio Members Present: David Barber, Lois Brooks
Guest: Lucas Turpin
1. Updates on Blackboard
- Mobile app (personal license) available
- Crosslisting of new courses is now enhanced
- SafeAssign has been implemented and is active
2. Discussion of emergent LMS issues with Cheryl Middleton and Dianna Fischer
Background: two review groups looking at suite of instructional systems
Dianna: Benchmarking task force
- Question of tools used (including but not only LMS)
- Critical perspectives on Blackboard system
- Recommendations/Trends
Cheryl: Series of faculty forums distilled “ten expectations”
- “next generation technology task force” document started process of bringing vendors (pre-RFP)
- questions of path forward, beginning with broader discussion of technology needs and larger goals of educational process
Dianna: Process is underway with vendors
- Developing webpage and blog for updates
- Studies have drawn from data from other LMS and tech, drawing down from 40 to 4/5 of top
- Reps in to have conversation, narrow the list, and identify “dealbreakers”
Cheryl: Core working group plus invested faculty across campus participating (Center for Teaching & Learning, Agricultural Sciences, Business, etc.)
- Blackboard, Desire to Learn, Moodle, and Canvas appear top rated
- Issues include Open vs. Closed-Source, Cloud vs. Local Data, which affect support and development issues
- We have lots of useful data from other Universities
3. Issues identified as of significant import for the CRC:
- Migration (easier the better, but not a dealbreaker)
- Support (internal, external)
- Relative “bugginess” of platforms
- Keeping pace with process (half-life of platform?)
- Integration with other tools, modularity
- Shift to different LMS? (ease vs. difficulty)
- Why stay with blackboard vs. why go with another platform?
- Open vs. non-open source
- Companies that support open source platforms
- Security
- Development, apps, webtools, etc.
- Ecourse support
- FERPA
- Support for teaching, service, and research respectively
- Traditional vs. non-traditional modes of learning supported integration with other tools, technologies (apps, webtools)