EDT-8140: LMS Evaluation

WEEK 7-FINAL RECOMMENDATION

LMS AND QUALITY MATTERS EVALUATION INTRODUCTION

WELCOME

As Vice President of Distance Learning, I was tasked to conduct a six-week evaluation between two Learning Management Systems (LMS), Desire2Learn (D2L) and COURSEsites by Blackboard. The evaluation includes 25 tools, behind the scene research, best practices, and a final recommendation that results in an increase in our distance learning program's rating.

Along with the LMS evaluation, I evaluated the benefits of subscribing to Quality Matters (QM) in an effort to assure a minimum level of quality that results in a higher retention rate and an overall effectiveness of our courses.

LMS FINAL RECOMMENDATION

COURSEsites by Blackboard

My final recommendation is to implement COURSEsites by Blackboard in our institution. This decision focuses on five areas reviewed in my evaluation. The first area is ease of use and quality of results. CourseSites performs better in this area due to the ease of setting up the course, creating modules, adding third-party content, and the functionality of the HTML Editor. The second area is the ability to create a better social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence allowing for a more enjoyable learning experience for both the instructor and the

student. Although the gradebook is not the most effective for a Learning Managment System, it can download the information to an excel file giving it the same functionality. The creation of quality academic posts using the HTML Editor, creating study groups to share information, posting on discussion boards, and synchronous web conferencing allow for social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence. The third area is the ability to create quality assignments that quickly and easily assess the students. COURSEsites is superior in creating categories and changing settings in the Grading Center, creating Dropbox assignments, Safe Assign uploads, rubrics and setting up a quiz library. The fourth area is the accessibility functions that allow for students with disabilities to have more time to complete their homework and quizzes and the ability to upload multimedia as an alternative for students. Although Desire2Learn has more strength and focus in this area, COURSEsites does have many functions that allow more time and the ease of uploading multimedia is superior. The fifth area is the ability to make an excellent first impression that helps the students to feel welcome and excited about taking the class and gives them explicit instruction on how to succeed throughout the course. COURSEsites offer many design templates that focus on teaching styles. Creating content and audio to get the student started and customizing the navigation bar allows students to become immediately engaged in the course. The final area looks at functionality based on its stable parent company, strong support, and excellent customer satisfaction. COURSEsites is dropping in market share but is the leading LMS around the globe. Their analytic data is comparable to D2L. The overall cost is a little higher that D2L, however, it has a built-in web conferencing system and is cloud-based which adds value. Overall my recommendation is COURSEsites by Blackboard. To view more details for both Learning Management Systems, review each weeks evaluation.

QUALITY MATTERS RECOMMENDATION

SUBSCRIBE TO QUALITY MATTERS AND REQUIRE APPQMR TRAINING

With the rising complaints from students in our online distance learning courses, I would recommend subscribing to Quality Matters (QM). QM leads the quality assurance efforts in the online learning industry. It focuses on a peer review approach with the principle of continuous improvement that ensures the quality of online courses creating a positive outcome for student learning. It is essential to develop consistency in our online courses by establishing a minimum level of quality in all our online courses. The Higher Education QM Rubric has developed a set of standards that can be used in the development and design of our distance education classes to assure the minimum level of quality. The faculty and staff can use the QM Rubric to

guide them using eight general principles which include, Course Overview and Introduction, Learning Objectives and Competencies, Assessments & Measurements, Resources and Materials, Course activities, Technology, Accessibility and Usability. And, 43 specific standards that use a point system based on the importance of supporting the student's learning. The faculty and staff and conduct a self-review of the course and make improvements. By subscribing to QM, the faculty and staff have access to web-conferencing, online workshops and in-person training material to help them develop and design quality distance education courses. To ensure to the satisfaction of our faculty and students, I would recommend requiring the faculty and staff to complete the APPQMR training. By setting a high standard internally in our organization, creating a faculty-to-faculty peer review, each course should quickly go through an official QM Peer Review and obtain an official QM rating. Recognizing our courses as exemplary will benefit both students and faculty. With the increase in distance learning course demand, it is so important to be in a position to gain and retain students and support the facilities allowing them to better engage with the student.

EVALUATOR BACKGROUND

For the past nine years, I have been working in the workforce development field. I work with job seekers and employers to design training plans to meet the needs of the local workforce. I have a degree in Economics from Wright State University, completed the APPQMR Certification and working towards a graduate certificate in Instructional Design for Digital Learning 1.

Google Sites

Report abuse