Contents |
LMS Technology Refresh
Background
UNSW’s primary Learning Management System (LMS) and supporting infrastructure is approaching end of life. The current LMS (My eLearning Vista) was released in 2003, and evidence gathered from surveys and anecdotally indicate that it does not meet staff and student expectations for usability, functionality and reliability and does not enable UNSW to achieve its strategic objectives for technology enabled learning and teaching (TELT). From a cost and risk management perspective the reduced level of vendor support for software and increasing cost of infrastructure support makes a refresh of the platform essential in the short term.
Purpose
The LMS software refresh aims to:
1. Implement learning and teaching software that enables UNSW TELT strategic priorities by:
- meeting student and staff expectations for usability
- delivering new tools and functionality
- providing a platform for simpler integration of other learning and teaching applications
2. Establish a technical infrastructure that
- meets student and staff expectations for reliability and performance
- is scalable to meet expected growth over a 3-5 year timeframe
- reduces risk and cost associated with hosting of learning and teaching software
- is aligned with UNSW standards and strategy for technical infrastructure
Process
1. Refresh of LMS software
1.1 Blackboard will release the Blackboard 9 (Bb9) version of its software in January, 2009
1.2 IT at UNSW will implement Bb9 in an evaluation environment to:
- enable discovery and trial of the new tools, features and functionality available by learning & teaching support staff, trainers and software developers
- provide preliminary access to participants in the Faculties of Excellence Initiative (FEI) to develop plans for their respective FEI projects
1.3 IT at UNSW will implement Bb9 in a pre-production environment to:
- enable the FEI participants to participate in training and development opportunities
- enable the FEI participants to commence development of their respective projects
1.4 IT at UNSW will implement Bb9 in a full production environment to support the commencement of teaching of FEI projects
2. Establishment of technical infrastructure
2.1 IT at UNSW in collaboration with Blackboard consultants will design a technical architecture meeting reliability and performance needs for the Bb9 software
2.2 IT at UNSW will establish a number of hosting environments for the Bb9 software including
- a temporary evaluation environment for initial discovery and trial of tools
- temporary migration staging post(s) to support the migration of learning content from the ‘legacy’ LMS to Bb9
- a set of environments to support development and testing activities, and
- a high-availability environment for course development and teaching that meets defined performance standards
2.3 Blackboard consultants in collaboration with IT at UNSW staff will conduct a performance audit and health check and subsequent performance tuning activities to ensure that the technical infrastructure will meet defined performance and availability standards
2.4 The Project Team with Blackboard consultants will provision for support of My eLearning Vista during 2009 to ensure continuity during a period of limited vendor support
Ongoing benefits of the Refreshed LMS Software to UNSW
1. Refresh of LMS Software
- The new software not only improves functionality and usability of the existing LMS solution, but is more open to integration of other learning tools and systems. This will enable UNSW to use special-purpose tools and even other LMS systems to meet specific teaching needs within a consistent platform thereby increasing flexibility while minimising confusion to students
- By removing many identified technology obstacles UNSW will not only improve the user experience for those courses currently using Vista but will enable greater take-up of TELT tools by the teaching community in general
2. Establishment of Technical Infrastructure
- By migrating to standardised infrastructure aligned with IT at UNSW infrastructure strategy ongoing maintenance costs and risks will be reduced
- the new infrastructure will enable greater flexibility and scalability over current infrastructure without increasing costs
