e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: ANGEL

  • State of the Higher Education LMS Market: A Graphical View

    The transformation of the higher education LMS market continues, and I expect more changes over the next 2 – 3 years. However, it seems time to capture the state of the market based on changes over the past year or two.

    I shared the most recent graphic summarizing the market in mid 2011. As with all previous versions, the 2005 – 2009 data points are based on the Campus Computing Project, and therefore is based on US adoption from non-profit institutions. This set of longitudinal data provides an anchor for the summary.

    The most significant changes over the past two years include the following.

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  • ANGEL LMS: Dead or Alive?

    After the recent news of two significant ANGEL LMS customers leaving for other vendors – Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges selected Instructure’s Canvas LMS in the spring, and Michigan State University selected Desire2Learn’s Learning Suite in the summer – there is an interesting question of whether ANGEL is still a viable LMS solution, at least for current clients.

    ANGEL was created at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis in 2000, and after a successful 9 years Angel Learning, the company behind ANGEL, was purchased by Blackboard in May 2009. Shortly after the purchase, Blackboard announced they would place ANGEL in end-of-life status by 2014. This decision to end ANGEL, along with a similar decision for WebCT product lines, has been fueling a large percentage of the LMS market churn over the past 2 – 3 years (more from WebCT than from ANGEL, however).

    In March 2012 Blackboard changed their strategy – no longer pushing all new “acquired” customers to migrate to the Learn 9.x platform, and instead looking to support multiple LMS solutions. The least discussed part of the March announcements was the decision to cancel the end-of-life notice for ANGEL. As described in an open letter to the community from Blackboard:

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  • Michigan State University Moves from Blackboard’s ANGEL LMS to Desire2Learn’s Learning Suite

    Michigan State University has been one of the most well-known implementations of the ANGEL LMS for the past 9 years. Penn State selected ANGEL in 2001 under an agreement that also provided the school perpetual access to the source code. The next major higher education institution to select the LMS was Michigan State in 2003, essentially putting ANGEL on the map as a significant LMS solution to compete with Blackboard, WebCT and Desire2Learn (which won the University of Wisconsin System contract in the same year).

    After a selection process triggered by the 2009 Blackboard acquisition of Angel Learning (parent company of ANGEL), Michigan State announced a decision at the end of July 2012 that the school will migrate to Desire2Learn’s Learning Suite as the new LMS. As described in The State News article:

    After many technical difficulties, lost homework assignments, complaints and deliberation, MSU announced Tuesday the selection of Desire2Learn, or D2L, as the university’s new online learning management system, or LMS.

    Blackboard’s purchase of the company that built ANGEL in 2009 was the push for MSU to officially start looking for a new LMS, Brendan Guenther, director of teaching and learning support teams in MSU Information Technology, said.

    MSU considered proposals from two systems to potentially replace ANGEL: Blackboard and D2L.

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  • Recent LMS Selections Hint at Continuing Market Changes

    Now that we’re in the middle of June – near the end of the fiscal year for many schools and leading up to user conferences for many LMS vendors – we are starting to see some significant LMS and learning platform announcements. While we typically have a surge in announcements this time of year, this year there are indications from the recent decisions on the continuing changes to the LMS market.

    San Jose State University selects Instructure Canvas to replace Desire2Learn

    According to this article from the student newspaper in February, initial indications were that SJSU might leave Desire2Learn for Moodle, primarily based on cost considerations.

    Students who have learned Desire2Learn, D2L, over the past three years may have to learn a new learning management system next fall.

    In the Academic Senate meeting on Feb. 13, Provost Ellen Junn announced that SJSU may be moving to a new system, called Moodle, after the spring semester.[snip]

    According to Provost Junn, SJSU’s contract with D2L cost $361,198.31 each year, while Fresno State spends about $75,000 on Moodle.

    “(The price) varies from institution to institution,” Junn said.  “The more students you have, the more (the learning management system’s) charge.”

    Update: Fresno State uses Blackboard, not Moodle, as their campus LMS, so direct comparison of costs does not make sense as reported. The relevant point is that cost was a driver for the SJSU re-evaluation.

    The task force mentioned in the article has now finished their work, and the decision was made to switch, not to Moodle but to Instructure’s Canvas LMS. In a letter to the campus last week, the provost notified of the decision.

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