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To accomplish this charge, the eLearning Strategic Committee formed two advisory committees (pedagogical and technical) to explore the capabilities of several existing and emergent LMS products. Membership of the strategic and two advisory committees is provided at Appendix A. The LMS products explored were Blackboard, Desire2Learn (D2L), Moodle and Sakai. The advisory committees developed scorecards (criteria) and evaluated areas such as features, functionality, the user-interface, scalability, performance, security, etc., and reported their findings back to the eLearning Strategic Committee. The eLearning Strategic Committee recommended ITS pilot three LMS products: Moodle and Desire2Learn (D2L) in the fall 2010 semester and, Blackboard in spring 2011. The total number of course sections and students in the pilots are provided below. To read a complete list of the courses and faculty who have / are participating in the pilots select it from the About tab drop down menu located in the navigation bar at the top of the page.
The assessment strategy for the three products piloted included the methodological triangulation approach of collecting data through surveys, direct observations, and focus groups.
The review of the data collected during the fall and spring pilots indicated no preference when it came to the core functionalities of each product. Based on the analysis of all three platforms, the eLearning Strategic Committee has concluded that a request for purchase (RFP) should be completed by all vendors (Moodlerooms, Desire2Learn, and Blackboard). This approach will allow the university the opportunity to further evaluate each product as far as its future direction, infrastructure, hosting, and cost of ownership as well as our potential business relationship with each company.
