A new learning management system will soon be provided for students and faculty to take the place of Blackboard, the Sacramento State iteration of which is called SacCT.
After nearly a year of trials and testing, the Next-Generation LMS Steering Committee, which is spearheading this transition, has narrowed down the options to two top contenders — D2L Brightspace and Instructure Canvas.
The change was prompted, in part, by changes happening with Blackboard as a company and the properties of its LMS.
According to Jen Schwedler, Director of the Technology Learning Center, the current version of Blackboard is a self-hosted system that uses local servers that are supported on campus. Soon, Blackboard will switch to Blackboard Ultra and utilize cloud-hosted servers located off-site.
“At the same time as these changes were going on, the chancellor’s office for the entire system was going through a process of looking at all of the various learning systems out there and making a recommendation for each campus,” said Schwedler. “We decided that it was just a good time to consider a change and take a look at new systems.”
The vendors of each platform came to campus during the beginning of the semester and presented demonstrations of all of their products to the LMS Steering Committee to show the technology behind their products and the experience the average user would have.
“The feedback we got from the demonstrations told us that D2L Brightspace and Instructure Canvas were the only two choices that anyone was really interested in,” said Schwedler.
Both platforms are currently in software testing phase known as the “sandbox.” Schwedler says that this phase is when a broad range of testing is done both internally and by users in order to determine the pros and cons of each system and figure if any changes need to be made to fit specific needs of the user.
“Any new LMS offers new features that can be tailored to whatever the students and faculty need,” said Schwedler. “One thing I really like about D2L is that many of the community colleges in the area use it and that means that there will be one less barrier for transfer students will have to worry about in their transition to our school.”
In the end, the goal of both systems is to make communication between students and instructors easier and facilitate a more streamlined learning environment.
“I really like what I’ve seen so far,” student Rebecca McCurry said. “I think I prefer D2L right now simply because it feels a lot easier to use and straight to the point. SacCT always felt cumbersome to me and I feel like it was holding me back.”
Joseph Lunsford agreed that D2L would be preferable.
“Right now either system would be a big improvement over what we have now,” Lunsford said. “I transferred from American River College and we had D2L there. You’d be surprised how much something as simple as a notification system can help, so I’m looking forward to the change.”
Students are invited to test the sandbox themselves and give feedback by taking a guided tour in AIRC room 2015, or by logging in with their regular Sac State credentials and choosing which platform they’d like to test first.
Public testing ends on Friday, April 14, and the new LMS will be finalized shortly afterward.
