Palo Alto University is a private, nonprofit institution in California with a heavy research emphasis and faculty throughout the world. For five years, Palo Alto used Pearson LearningStudio for its learning management system (LMS), mostly as a reporting tool for accreditation. Scott Hines, who directs academic technology at the university, said the system was reliable but fell short in its ease of use and interface, and it lacked a way to measure student success. “It was the unspoken promises that they didn't keep. The unspoken promise of, ‘Hey, this can be an exciting LMS.’ We really wanted that. But they weren't fulfilling it,” said Hines. What’s more, Pearson decided to get out of the LMS business and left Palo Alto, and other schools, hanging. “We were looking to break up with our old LMS for a long time. And then all of the sudden our old LMS broke up with us!” said Hines.
“We were looking to break up with our old LMS for a long time. And then all of the sudden our old LMS broke up with us!”
Many teachers were apprehensive about picking up a new platform and potentially losing features they’d used before. However, a trial run of the Canvas LMS, with help from current Canvas customers and peer institutions, showed that Palo Alto could migrate its content and data smoothly. Most of all, it was ease of use—especially the ease of navigation and the ease of teaching others to use it—that brought everything together and prompted Palo Alto to switch to Canvas.
Check out the other reasons that Palo Alto says it can "be the university we've always wanted to be" at https://www.canvaslms.com/change.
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