LMS Evaluation & Selection

We have the great fortune of having some talented developers on staff. Many of our ICT platforms over the years have been custom developed to suit our needs at any given time. However, the reality of this current landscape, whilst operational, utilizes many disparate systems that lack cohesiveness, integration and certainly timely access to student data profiles.

Our College ICT Strategic Plan outlines the provision of a secure and integrated student information system that provides access to student learning information throughout a student’s life at the school, including learning pathways, assessment, reporting and data on student wellbeing. A recent review led to the development of a strategic intent that supports the internal business drivers and demands from external influences, but also sees us aim to increase the knowledge we have of our students, to increase the level of communication between home and school and to gain efficiencies by reducing the overall complexity of our systems and processes.

This has meant us adopting a new Learning Management System (LMS) for 2018. Our LMS evaluation and selection process took place over a twelve-month period (yes you read that right) and involved five major steps: needs analysis, requirements definition, product evaluation, staff consultation and product selection.

The market is saturated with different products including Schoolbox, Canvas, Schoology, Edumate, Moodle & SEQTA. We have decided to go with SEQTA.

All staff across our College had the opportunity to view a demonstration of different platforms on multiple occasions. This followed by opportunities to provide feedback that has informed the process at different levels. Although this is a time consuming process, involving staff in the evaluation process results in them having greater ownership of the resulting decision. No matter how much you communicate and consult however, you will still have some staff who are critical of the process. Identifying and engaging with critical staff and having them involved right from the outset is something I would definitely advocate for those going down a similar path.

These platforms often promote conformity and tie you to a single way of doing things. This is problematic considering that my modus operandi is to promote bottom-up innovation and to encourage people to use the tools and resources that work best for them. That being said, I think there is a nice middle ground when an LMS provides a central repository for attendance, welfare, analytics & continuous reporting, but doesn’t require the use of the course creation modules.

For those going down a similar path I have included below a copy of our LMS Research Timeline and proposed implementation plan for our preferred platform SEQTA.

Reach out for a discussion if you are doing something similar.