Located in the heart of downtown Tampa, Florida, The University of Tampa (UTampa) is a private university that serves a diverse and dynamic learning community across four colleges. After 20+ years of using Blackboard Learn as its learning management system (LMS), Blackboard announced in Fall 2021 that future efforts would be concentrated on another platform. Enhancements and bug fixes would no longer be made to Blackboard Learn, the platform that housed all of UTampa’s courses at the time.
With these changes, UTampa would need to complete a full course migration to Blackboard Learn Ultra, Blackboard’s newer module-based LMS, which was equivalent to the process of migrating to a new LMS. Recognizing the drastic changes that had taken place in the LMS market, UTampa saw this as an opportunity to explore other LMS solutions that would better suit its cloud-first strategy and growing course needs.
The Challenge
In response to the pandemic, UTampa began rapidly developing online courses and in Fall 2020 its Faculty Senate approved a new core curriculum, Spartan Studies. The timing of this newly-approved curriculum presented a unique opportunity. Changing to a new LMS while rolling out new curriculum and courses would allow UTampa’s faculty to build courses within a new system, instead of creating courses in Blackboard Learn that would eventually need to be moved to a new LMS. By selecting an LMS that could be live by Fall 2023, UTampa could combine two of the university’s largest efforts.
Key Insights
Rolling out new curriculum while adopting a new LMS brought UTampa a key advantage: streamlined course migration
Incorporating faculty in the LMS selection process helped faculty see the value in migrating to Canvas
Having faculty buy-in was not only vital for UTampa, but a major driver in gaining approval from Academic Leadership
A new and centrally-located technology building provided a vital hub for Canvas training
Flexible learning opportunities and multiple training resources supported faculty from start to finish
The Solution
In 2022, under the support and guidance of Tammy Loper, Vice President of Information Technology and Security, created SpartanLearn, an initiative to select an effective LMS. The new system would need to meet the diverse needs of faculty and students, providing features and capabilities that support a positive experience with technology and courses that are engaging and accessible. From the initiative and collaborative efforts across campus, the SpartanLearn Committee was established to select an LMS with an intuitive, user-friendly interface and rich toolset that delivers innovative course delivery for students. Feedback from faculty, staff, and students was of utmost importance in the selection process, as well as data-driven analytics, data security and accessibility evaluations, LMS market research, and rigorous testing of integration capabilities. In the end, the SpartanLearn Committee recommended Canvas to executive leaders for approval and adoption.
For years,ITS had to contend with growing dissatisfaction over previous LMS limitations or perceived user difficulties with using it effectively in teaching and learning.Instructure's Canvas LMS application has fostered a quite different and pleasing reaction among our UTampa faculty–excitement and satisfaction has resulted in promoting effective use ofthe LMS in teaching and learning onsite and online. Canvas instructors were at UTampa to help faculty through their initial implementation stages.It's been a wonderful experience!
Tammy Loper,
Vice President of Information Technology and Security (ITS), University of Tampa
Backed by Faculty
The SpartanLearn Committee knew that their LMS recommendation to Academic Leadership had to be backed by faculty and the committee saw the vendor demonstrations as a way to involve more faculty in the early decision-making. Vendors from both Canvas and Blackboard Ultra were invited to campus for a three-day vendor demonstration in which the vendors hosted separate sessions for faculty and students.
To garner as much participation as possible, the committee created the SpartanLearn website to post the vendor demonstration schedule, provided letters to faculty from the Provost regarding the committee’s vision and goals, and to share opportunities for involvement. Faculty were given the opportunity to sign-up for access to the sandbox demo courses, demo day recordings, and LMS post-demo feedback surveys. Feedback from the surveys were collected over the course of several weeks, with the preferred LMS choice being clear.
Comparing the Canvas and Ultra responses, the committee found that 86% of Canvas survey respondents recommended the adoption of Canvas. Alternatively, only 24% of respondents on the Blackboard Ultra survey recommended its adoption. The survey responses revealed that faculty and students strongly preferred the adoption of Canvas, which was further supported by the feature rankings that were much more favorable to the features of Canvas than to Ultra.
Survey feedback led a large majority of the committee to vote in favor of Canvas, and UTampa’s Academic Leadership approved the selection of Canvas in January of 2023.
UTampa not only offered Canvas training to faculty and students but also brought its three biggest publishers—Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Cengage—to campus to conduct training sessions and answer questions such as how to link books to courses, incorporate content, or sync grades.
Our faculty deserve a round of applause for all oftheir accomplishments any given semester. We understood that even ifthey strongly wanted to change to a new LMS, there had to be partnership and assistance to getit accomplished on a quick timeline. That’s where our team came in. Working with the committee and our faculty throughoutthe process was an absolute pleasure! We hope to continue working closely with our faculty moving forward through the support we provide on other academic applications and trainings hosted in the ITS Training Center.
Jenna Lash,
Director of Academic Solutions, Information Technology and Security, University of Tampa
Support for All Involved
Having a new centrally-located technology building built on campus presented UTampa with a timely opportunity to offer in-person training sessions and migration workshops. Numerous in-person, hybrid, and Zoom training sessions, workshops, and 1:1 assistance were made available to faculty to make the transition as seamless as possible. To help faculty be fully prepared for launch, the Academic Solutions team held drop-in sessions and office hours, provided self-service and on-demand opportunities, and created a dedicated course – one for faculty and one for students – to help develop Canvas skills. The team held Canvas Coaching Sessions at the start of the term to assist faculty with all of their questions. More than 40 faculty attended those drop-in sessions.
To avoid building from scratch and to augment faculty training offerings, Information Technology and Security at UTampa leveraged resources already available, including the Canvas Faculty Training Course, Instructor Guide, consulting hours for Canvas Coaching sessions, and video training series.
Over 145 faculty members also self-enrolled in online courses that the Academic Solutions team offered. “To see so many of our faculty self-enroll into that course was fantastic,” Lash said.
“We invited Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Cengage, our top three incorporated publishers because we receive numerous incidents that we can’t fully assist with since our team doesn’t have administrative access,” Lash said. “We also set up Zoom sessions with the publisher and a faculty member, facilitating troubleshooting meetings as needed.”
Resources and training are offered for students through UTampa’s Advanced Digital Literacy Center. Additionally, there is an online course available to students seeking Canvas support, to ensure everyone at UTampa has access to the support they need.
The Results
UTampa has found Canvas to be the most suitable LMS for its community. According to the SpartanLearn Committee LMS Final Recommendation Report, Canvas provides significant improvement in usability, student engagement, a rich toolset inclusive of diverse student learning modalities, and improved course analytics and reporting. While the university initially experienced hesitation around migrating to a new LMS, responses from feedback surveys and the overall selection process revealed a strong preference for the features and capabilities of Canvas.
During migration, UTampa’s core Academic Solutions team consisted of 5 people–Jenna Lash, Nick Chevalier, Sharon Austin, Cristiane Vicentini, and Gigi DeJesus– who were fully trained on Canvas. Together, they hosted over 100 one-on-one sessions for faculty, in addition to offering other training resources.
Before fully launching Canvas in Fall 2023, UTampa’s Academic Solutions team already had 360 requests for prep courses and more than 1,900 courses were created in the new system for Fall 2023. The ITS Academic Solutions team received roughly 930 RSVPs from faculty for over 150 events hosted by their team throughout the selection and migration process. Students and faculty quickly embraced the joint endeavor of rolling out a new curriculum and LMS simultaneously, and today the university has a robust digital foundation for teaching and learning. To learn more about how UTampa continues to build on its mission to deliver high-quality educational experiences, visit SpartanLearn.
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