When was the final time your establishment thought-about the effectiveness of your studying administration system (LMS)? In case you are like most faculties, your LMS was put to the check in the previous couple of years attributable to speedy shifts to on-line studying. Your establishment could profit from a radical LMS analysis, a course of that analyzes college, scholar physique and course wants and determines if a brand new system would higher match present calls for.

If you happen to resolve on a brand new LMS, the method of migrating to the brand new system will be overwhelming, particularly within the tight timeframe that the majority establishments face. Usually, beginning the LMS migration reveals different wants, reminiscent of archiving historic course content material and scholar information or changing video file hyperlinks in case your establishment can also be shifting to a brand new video platform supplier. This transition requires extra time and dealing capability. Coaching college and college students on the brand new system solely provides to the stress of the enterprise.

When Bradley Denison, director of the tutorial expertise companies of the College of the Mainland (COM), was tasked with facilitating an LMS analysis, he understood the significance of listening to stakeholder wants, fastidiously analyzing priorities and devising a transparent plan to satisfy the establishment’s calls for. And as a communication specialist, Denison additionally acknowledged the importance of protecting college knowledgeable all through the transition. Lately, EdSurge sat down with Denison to debate his expertise with K16 Solutions, a frontrunner in LMS migration, archiving and integration.

EdSurge: Why did you select K16 Options in your LMS migration course of?

Denison: A few years in the past, we started an LMS analysis, which was assisted by a faculty-led committee. My function was to facilitate college information and search for gaps or wants within the transition if we modified methods. And after the year-long analysis, we decided we wanted to alter methods and selected Brightspace by D2L. Talking with any of the key LMS gamers, K16 Options got here up at nearly each flip as the first possibility for course conversions performed proper and well timed. On a bigger scale, such because the one we confronted at COM, K16 Options was actually the only option.

Did K16 Options supply an indication of the tip product earlier than you began the migration?

Sure, we had been really capable of demo K16 Options earlier than making a choice about our LMS transition. They confirmed us how the programs would look in Brightspace, which was reassuring to our college. K16 shared how all the course of would unfold, and it was very simple to comply with their meant path.

What challenges did your establishment face with the LMS migration?

The Faculty of the Mainland wanted emigrate 1000’s of programs in a compressed timeframe. We selected a brand new LMS and started working within the new system a month later—it was very quick. Inside two months of the choice, K16 started the conversion course of.

Our programs are a mixture of on-line, hybrid and face-to-face. The faculty did a few of the extra easy conversions in-house, however we rapidly realized we wanted assist to do all the migration within the given timeframe.

K16 was extremely useful in assembly our deadlines. Their potential emigrate the more difficult course shells was key, particularly for our college who train hybrid or solely in-person programs, equating to far more content material. In these complicated circumstances, we had been impressed with the automated conversions from K16. Our college additionally acknowledged the distinction with K16’s migration. K16 provided speedy turnaround and far much less cleanup.

How do you measure your partnership success with K16 Options?

K16 Options was incredible at listening to our wants. We confirmed them an instance of what we wished the tip product to seem like in Brightspace and defined how our school operates on the system. We gave them suggestions all through the method, they usually improved upon it. Having the chance to tweak the process with them was very useful.

Late into the conversion course of, we discovered some points with a handful of programs. K16 helped work by means of these obstacles, regardless that the programs had already accomplished the conversion. Their buyer assist was nice. I solely want we’d have invested triple the quantity with K16 Options. They simplified the method for us, particularly with the much less technology-forward programs. We had been capable of arrange programs how we wished in a difficult timeframe.