Data On Average Age Of Current LMS Implementation

This week Jim Julius asked on Twitter if anyone had data on average length of time US higher ed institutions have had their current LMS.

@PhilOnEdTech Do you know of any stats on avg length of time US colleges/unis have been using their current primary LMS?

— Jim Julius (@jjulius) February 23, 2016

That’s an interesting question, as it should give insight into whether schools are unusual in how long or short they’ve been using one solution. It should also give some insight into the market itself.

I have previously shared how we are getting great new ed tech market data from non-survey methods – primarily LISTedTECH and Edutechnica. Michael and I have been working more deeply with the LISTedTECH guys on a new project1 we plan to roll out soon, taking advantage of the rich data that includes current and historical adoption information on LMS solutions. Thanks to this work, we can start to answer Jim’s question about the age of current LMS implementations, based on primary institutional adoption.

The horizontal bars on the left show average implementation time across US and Canadian higher ed institutions (the LISTedTECH guys are from Ottawa, so I’m sure Jim will forgive the reinterpretation of the question).Update: Average time is in years. The bars are the right side are for the number of institutions on each system.

We have additional data showing the distribution of these implementation times but have yet to figure out the presentation in a non-cluttered, intuitive manner. But we’re working on it.

I hope this helps answer the question and provide new data on the market. And expect to see more market data and analysis.