e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Canvas

  • UT Austin and SMOCs: What do we know about whether they work?

    In episode 1, we looked at an effort by the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin to develop SMOCs – Synchronous Massive Online Courses – where the core of the redesign centers on the synchronous online experience for large lecture courses (1000+ students in some cases) courses. ((Disclosure: Our e-Literate TV series of video case studies and explainer videos is funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)) In episode 2, we took a deeper look at how SMOCs work as well as a discussion of high-level course design costs. In this concluding episode, we ask the question of whether SMOCs work, in terms of improved learning outcomes and / or learning experiences.

    (Video source: https://youtu.be/yoIppZ97Ko4)

     

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  • UT Austin and SMOCs: What these synchronous courses look like and cost

    Last month we shared a video describing how the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin is taking a different approach than some of the courseware-based or other course redesign efforts. ((Disclosure: Our e-Literate TV series of video case studies and explainer videos is funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)) In many of these other redesigns, there is an emphasis on the asynchronous elements of lab section and lecture preparation and even fully flipping the classroom (no lectures in class on the course content). In contrast, the UT Austin approach to improving the large lecture course centers on SMOCs – Synchronous Massive Online Courses – where the core of the redesign centers on the synchronous course lecture. Watch episode 1 to get a better feel of what problem they are trying to solve and how this SMOC approach appears to keep faculty in their traditional role, albeit with additional preparation time and video production.

    In this episode, we’re taking a deeper look at how SMOCs work as well as high-level course design costs.

    (Video source: https://youtu.be/MAHm_JU6upU)

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  • New Release of European LMS Market Report

    New Release of European LMS Market Report

    Our Spring 2016 LMS Market Report from our new LMS subscription service focused mostly on the United States and Canada. The LMS market, however is increasingly global in nature. LMS suppliers rely on markets outside of US and Canada for growth, and Moodle in particular has a long history of global adoption. Maintaining a US/Canadian view without additional data can be misleading when forecasting the roadmaps and future states of various LMS solutions.

    What we haven’t had until now is a view of the LMS market in Europe. Thanks to our partnership with LISTedTECH, we can now share data from more than 1,600 higher education institutions throughout Europe and provide the first independent market analysis for this region. While this report and future analysis is part of the LMS subscription service, we are sharing the initial version freely with a CC-BY license. (more…)

  • Update: LMS Usage In Large Online Programs (Top 50 in US)

    By: Phil Hill and Justin Menard. Cross-posted at LISTedTECH

    Three and a half years ago Phil wrote a post “Snapshot of LMS Market for Large Online Programs in the US” giving a view into this growing segment of higher education.  Large online enrollment institutions typically mean a centrally-coordinated provision of online courses, often with duplicate course sections, and these programs tend to use more of the LMS than ad hoc online courses or blended courses. Further, these programs are dynamic – they are far more likely to grow significantly or shrink significantly than face-to-face or blended programs. As such, this segment can have different usage patterns than the broader market. Thanks to the partnership between e-Literate and LISTedTECH for our LMS subscription service, we have a much richer data set now. One of our subscribers asked a question over the weekend about this subject, so it seemed time to update this view.

    What we are showing below are the 50 institutions with the greatest number of students taking at least one online class based on the IPEDS database, for graduate and undergraduate combined. The most recent enrollment data set was for Fall 2014, so the enrollment data is slightly out of date. But the LMS listings should be up-to-date. In fact, we are showing some leading data, such as the University of Phoenix usage of Blackboard Learn and Kaplan University usage of D2L Brightspace – neither school has fully transitioned to the new LMS, but they have made official decisions and begun deployment. We have grouped the schools by sector, as well. (more…)

  • Quick Update On LMS Subscription Service

    Our LMS Subscription Service has been out for more than three months now, and we’d like to give a quick update(see this page for details, pricing, online signup; or sign up on right column of blog site for listserv to find out more information).

    The e–Literate Big Picture subscription services are designed to help you track the changing landscape in important educational technology topics and make sure that the decisions you make today will still make sense tomorrow.

    Based on our joint research with LISTedTECH and market analysis, we just published an article in TechCrunch titled “The LMS Market Glacier Is Melting”. (more…)

  • Changes at D2L: A second-hand view from users conference

    As I have described to several executives at D2L, there is an interesting gap between the progress we have seen with the company’s product improvements and the reaction we hear from many of their customers. With the tighter integration with LeaP and the improved usability, particularly in content authoring, I would have expected to hear more customers react to the changes. But when talking directly to many of the institutions using the Brightspace LMS, staff describe D2L as if the company and product line had not changed in several years. What is not clear is whether this gap is due the company missing the mark (and my judgement of improvements not aligning with what colleges and universities want) or whether there is just a lag where it will take time for most customers to believe in and take advantage the new product designs and features.

    2016 has been an eventful year for D2L. COO Cheryl Ainoa, a longtime veteran of Yahoo! and most recently Intuit, joined the company in April. Although this move was not advertised through press releases or even blog posts, I believe this is a significant change to how the company operates. This is not the first time that D2L has reached outside the industry for a top executive, as they employed Dennis Kavelman from RIM / Blackberry as COO from 2012 – 2014 (the period where D2L raised $165 million in two mammoth funding rounds). But I have heard that the addition of Ainoa has already seen results internally. And in the ‘keeping work in perspective’ category, founder and CEO John Baker and his wife had their first child right before the Fusion Users Conference. (more…)

  • Schoology: The strongest LMS you’ve never seen

    LMS evaluations are typically painful ordeals for not just committee members but also for the vendors. They have to provide multiple demos, have lots of Q&A, and write 100+ page proposals based on extensive feature requirements and perhaps even more painful terms and conditions. But there is one case that might be worse – not even getting to compete when your product appears to be an excellent fit. And that is the situation that Schoology finds it in for the majority of higher ed evaluations.

    Schoology’s original market was aimed US-based K-12 institutions, and for paying school or district LMS selections Schoology is probably one of the two strongest competitors, along with Canvas. Schoology does have an international presence and over the past year and a half have targeted an expansion into higher ed. Michael wrote a post after the company raised $32 million in new funding last fall, largely to fund this expansion. I described the institution-wide adoption by Wheaton College in Spring 2016, following the Colorado State University Global Campus adoption in early 2015. But what I don’t see is a real acceleration in the higher ed market yet. There are a few significant LMS active evaluations that include Schoology, but the majority of higher ed LMS evaluations over the past two years have not treated Schoology as a real competitor. Based on what I’ve seen, this lack of evaluation is not based on the product itself. (more…)