LMS Application Springboard! Ready to Launch
UA students and faculty can look forward to a kick-off event for Springboard! in the next few days. Dr. John Savery, Director of Learning Technology and Scholar Learning Services, said the the system was in place by Monday, December 3, which marks the end of the learning management system search.
The next few weeks will involve “answering student and faculty questions, getting the word out and making announcements about training programs,” said Savery. The committee is currently working on a printed flyer in The Buchtelite that will explain key points and important information.
“Making contact with part-time instructors” is one of the challenges involved with this project according to Savery. In addition to training sessions for full-time faculty, evening meetings will be held in both December and January in order to support as many UA professors as possible.
Careful timing of the launch of the application has been an essential consideration. Glitches during the migration of course content from WebCT needed to be smoothed out, and a premature activation of the program could cause many problems. Savery said the next few weeks serve as an opportune time to introduce Springboard!, mainly because “it allows instructors to have enough time to get their courses ready.” Students and faculty will both benefit from being able to acclimate themselves with the software before the beginning of the next semester.
Springboard! is the name the University has adapted for this system otherwise known as Desire2Learn. Online resources are available at the Desire2Learn website and by visiting the ITS Training Materials page. Video demonstrations on almost every aspect of working with the program can be found at Atomic Learning via Zipline.
Although the committee to find a replacement program was formed last spring, WebCT has been destined for replacement since 2004, when it was acquired by Blackboard. According to Savery, this purchase led to a variety of issues including that “there were no new versions of the product, no significant improvements or patches provided and support became increasingly difficult to find.” In addition to these problems, the fact that the software was developed in the late ’90s meant that significant improvements were available in newer systems.
The search involved several weeks of gathering input from students and faculty as well as participating in vendor demonstrations. More details about this process can be found by visiting the Learning Management System Search website, which has documented each step of the project. Desire2Learn was officially recommended by the search committee in July and has since been approved by the Board of Trustees. The University of Akron will be implementing version 8.2, under the name Springboard!.