Southeast to implement new online sytem in 2021

Southeast Missouri State University will adopt Canvas as its new learning management system starting in the spring, said Floyd Davenport, assistant vice president of Information Technology.

Canvas, a product of Instructure, will replace the current learning platform Moodle, which has been utilized by the university for the past eight years. Davenport said the change came from a need for expanded capabilities as well as performance issues when combined with campus online infrastructure.

A task force of some 15 students, faculty and staff formed to evaluate other learning managements systems last fall and submitted a request for proposal. An RFP committee of the same size was then formed to further explore alternate platform options, Davenport said.

LMS vendors Blackboard, D2L (formerly Desire2Learn), and Canvas were invited to present in on-campus forums in addition to committee presentations, Davenport said. Two representatives from Moodle products were also invited to present to the RFP committee but did not participate, he said.

Prospective learning platforms were judged in five categories: usability, design, mobility, grading and engagement. Ultimately, Davenport said Canvas scored higher in every category and consistently across student, staff and faculty groups.

Vice provost Doug Koch said the new change was focused on providing better service and ease of use to students, who will be the heavy users of the product. As Southeast currently hosts around 2,000 individual course sections each semester, Koch said the change will have a far-reaching impact.

"The learning management system, probably anywhere on campus, is used more than any other software," Davenport said. "It's core to what we do as an educational institution."

As Canvas provides better user interface and better communication capabilities, Koch said the new learning platform may better support online classes or remote learning. Students also have the option to use Canvas across mobile devices and may also utilize special features, such as the ability to calculate course grades in the future.

Canvas is expected to cost the university around $150,000 the first year, but those costs may be absorbed by savings from Moodle, Koch said. While the Moodle product software was free, it required university support staffing and on-site equipment. Canvas is hosted in the cloud, and all hardware costs are bundled in the yearly subscription fee, Davenport said, cutting those specific costs.

Faculty will be trained in the new LMS in the fall, with full implementation expected in the spring.