LMS Review

On January 25, 2024 Cuyahoga College (Tri-C^®) approved D2L's Brightspace as the College's new Learning Management System (LMS). Please visit Tri-C's Brightspace webpage for LMS related information and links to faculty and student specific support pages.

Cuyahoga Community College’s 2021 Transformation Plan positions the College for a successful future in the area of innovation, teaching, and learning. In alignment with the Transformation Plan’s goal to “leverage people and technology to improve course delivery, enhance our virtual infrastructure and improve support for students and faculty”, Tri-C is embarking on a learning management systems (LMS) review project. The LMS review project aims to find the best technology solution to connect students, faculty, and content as it becomes more important to integrate modern teaching technology. The overall project goal is for the Online Learning and Academic Technology (OLAT) team to collaborate with a cross-functional faculty, staff, student, and administrative team to research, test, select, and implement an LMS for Tri-C by Summer 2025.

Dear Tri-C students,  

We are excited to announce that Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C®) is switching to a new learning management system (LMS). D2L’s Brightspace will replace our current system, Blackboard Learn. We know you're going to love the many features that D2L’s Brightspace has to offer, such as easy navigation, cool customized course designs and personalized communication.

What’s Next?

Your courses will begin to move to D2L’s Brightspace over three semesters, starting in Summer 2024. During this time, you may have courses in both systems. By Spring 2025, D2L’s Brightspace will be used for all courses.

Be sure to check your Tri-C email before the start of each semester for directions on accessing your courses.

D2L Brightspace Resources 

Please visit www.tri-c.edu/brightspacestudents for more information and to access learner video tutorials. Additionally, we encourage you to take the updated My Online Readiness Experience (M.O.R.E.) in Fall 2024 to learn how to use D2L’s Brightspace. If you have immediate questions about D2L’s Brightspace, email our team.

We would like to thank all the students involved in the LMS Review — your voice and feedback were especially important in choosing the new LMS. We can't wait to hear about how you like D2L's Brightspace!

Best regards, 

Karen Miller, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice
President Cuyahoga Community College

Dear Tri-C Colleagues,  

Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C^®) is pleased to announce that today, Jan. 25, the Board of Trustees approved a four-year agreement making D2L’s Brightspace the College’s new Learning Management System (LMS). 

I would like to thank the Online Learning and Academic Technology (OLAT) team, the Distance Learning Steering Committee, LMS faculty reviewers, LMS executive sponsors and all the faculty, staff and students involved in the LMS review.

Over the past few years, this massive project has involved preparing, teaching and engineering three pilot systems — Anthology’s Blackboard Ultra, Canvas by Instructure and D2L’s Brightspace. I am proud of the collaboration of all the stakeholders involved in this project.

Visit the College's D2L's Brightspace website for more information and details specific to faculty or students.

LMS Review Process  

For two years, OLAT conducted an LMS review to evaluate platforms. The review began by researching various vendors and identifying the features requested by students and faculty.

Blackboard Ultra, Canvas and D2L’s Brightspace were tested extensively over six semesters, with a core group of 24 faculty teaching live courses in each of the three platforms.

D2L’s Brightspace was selected based on scorecards and feedback forms submitted by faculty, students, administration and staff.

LMS Review Town Hall - 02/01/2024

LMS Review and Implementation Update - 12/07/2023

2023 Convocation LMS Review Update - Faculty Presentation

2022 Convocation LMS Review Presentation

History

Tri-C has utilized the Blackboard Learn LMS (Learning Management System) since 2003. The last time the College undertook an LMS review was in 2013-2014 when the College was using a self-hosted version of Blackboard Learn. During that review, Tri-C evaluated three platforms: (1) Desire2Learn (D2L) Brightspace, (2) Instructure Canvas and (3) Blackboard Learn Ultra. The process for selection was based on vendor presentations, end-user tools and features checklists, reviews from faculty and student feedback on sandbox sites. According to the faculty and administrators that were present for the last LMS review, Tri-C was only hosting 800 to 900 courses overall in the LMS at the time of the last review in 2014. 

Since then, our faculty and student community are now more experienced and more deeply rely on technology to support teaching and learning. When all courses moved to a virtual environment in March 2020, our Tri-C faculty and student immersion and knowledge of the LMS grew exponentially. By comparison from our last LMS review, Tri-C currently hosts approximately 8,404 individual courses in Blackboard Learn, a 950% increase from 2014. In fall 2021, OLAT is supporting 4,033 courses.

How

A Call for faculty LMS Reviewers went out during the fall 2021 semester. After the final deadline (1/14/22), twenty-four faculty were chosen to participate as LMS Reviewers to teach in each of the three systems – Blackboard Ultra (Summer 22), D2L Brightspace (Spring 23) and Instructure Canvas (Fall 23). To compensate faculty for participating in the review, 3 ESUs per course (only one per system) were offered to faculty to prep, teach and review one course in each LMS. In this way, the LMS review process will involve evaluating the actual teaching and learning experience in each platform. Throughout this process, OLAT is providing significant training and support resources in conjunction with organizing training directly with each LMS vendor.

The evaluation process will collect feedback from faculty, students and other key stakeholders to help identify Tri-C’s next LMS. Each LMS will be evaluated based on these criteria:

• User Experience/User Interface
• Content
• Assessment
• Communication
• Accessibility
• Adaptability
• Analytics/Reporting

Who

The overall project goal is for the Online Learning and Academic Technology (OLAT) team to collaborate with a cross-functional faculty, staff, student and administrative team to research, test, select and implement a learning management system (LMS) for Cuyahoga Community College by Summer 2025. There are numerous key audiences with whom regular communication before, during, and after the review process (implementation of the new LMS) is vital. These include:

• Faculty
• Administration
• Key Administrators (Provost, Deans)
• Staff Supporting the review process
• Students
• ITS (Information Technology Services)
• CLE (Center for Learning Excellence)
• Faculty Development
• Distance Learning Steering Committee
• CLOA (Committee on Learning Outcomes Assessment)
• LTI Vendors
• CBE Committee
• Representatives of the three systems

Resources

OLAT recognizes that faculty and students participating in the LMS Review will have questions about Blackboard Learn Ultra, D2L Brightspace and Instructure Canvas during the semesters they are being used for teaching and learning. It is important that both faculty and students experience each LMS so that we can accurately evaluate each one. To support these faculty and students, OLAT has prepared the following resources specifically for them to access whenever questions arise:

• Live Chat with specially trained Tri-C staff
• The LMS Review Course Support Help Desk email address
• LMS Review Faculty and Student Video Tutorial
• The LMS Review Help Page