Sachet Lawrence

MEDT 7492
Professor Smolka
April 21, 2020
A5: Your LMS Dream Team

The Learning Management System (LMS) is a major part of the e-learning process. The e-

learning process has seven stages and I need team members to operate at each stage, in order to

facilitate a successful selection, installation and implementation of a new LMS. Some members

will wear multiple hats, operating at multiple stages and having many responsibilities. The stages

are planning, design, production, evaluation, delivery and maintenance, instruction, and

marketing. I want my team to have a wide variety of people so that everyone can pull their skills

and efforts together and bring a broad view of expertise to the planning and implementation

process to ensure the best results. At the same time, I do not want too many people to do the job

that one person can do, lest it get overwhelming and expensive.

The instructional designer will be in almost all of the stages in order to work with others to create

and design what is needed. Some roles may be needed at different stages but primarily, I would

have a project manager and instructional designer for the planning phase. The project manager

has to make sure everything goes smoothly, communicating with all team members, managing

deadlines, making sure everyone stays motivated and focused on our goal and discussing

possible solutions with the team if there is a problem. The instructional designer will have an in-

depth knowledge about many instructional models and authoring tools that we can use to fulfil

our objectives. They will understand how to create and manage learning content and design

learning management systems.

For the design phase, I would have an instructional designer, subject matter experts, and course

authoring specialist. The course authoring specialist is key to pulling the LMS together and

putting final touches on courses, making sure links, software and content layout are compatible

and functioning. For production, I would have the course authoring specialist to make sure the

system is running smoothly as well as the quality assurance tester to make sure everything is on

point and in compliance, checking for errors and typos. At the evaluation stage, I would need

pretty much the whole team to determine the efficacy of the LMS from their view of expertise as

they may be able to identify and solve problems from their point of view that others cannot. For

delivery and maintenance, I need pilot subjects, a technical support specialist to help with any

glitches or technical support issues and the instructional designer. Of course, I need an instructor

for the instruction phase and I need a business developer for marketing. They can also give

advice on the best route to take financially and strategically to achieve our goals

All of the stakeholders are as follows: The university that I am working at is a stakeholder whose

goal is to integrate technology into classrooms, to create distance learning opportunities and

create access to a more students. The perspective of the college will influence the discussions

and decisions of my team in that they will be highly concerned with budgets and financial gains.

This may prove challenging as there may not be enough funds to support the e-solutions we need

campus wide. They will be concerned about the effectiveness of the LMS and whether learning

took place.

Students are the consumers of e-learning. They are motivated by gaining access to higher

education. E-learning also presents a new learning environment that requires new skills. They

have to take charge of their own learning as the teacher is no longer there, except as a guide.

Students who are digital natives will seek a higher level or interactivity in order to remain
engaged in course content. Because of these things, some students may perform just as well in an

online course as in a classroom, but they may also have higher drop out rates.

Instructors guide the educational experience of students. The delivery of instruction may change

based on whether its face-to-face, blended, or fully online. Instructors too, have to learn new

skills and adjust to the online environment. They may want to reach more students and try new

things or they may not feel confident in using new online platforms and tools. Creating and

delivering online courses also takes up twice as much time as a traditional course and they may

be resistant to the workload.

Faculty and staff may view the introduction of technologies into teaching as time-consuming and

unpaid work that diverts them from actual teaching and attaining school goals. Faculty may feel

that the LMS may not align with the school vision or strategy and that they are being burdened

with the need to learn how to use complex new tools, and/or the need to redesign change their

teaching habits and practices, without any advantage or reward. Information technology

managers and staff similarly are most likely to assess proposals for new technology innovations

from the perspective of workload and technical compatibility with existing systems and have an

even smaller investment in student learning outcomes (Khan, 2004).

Content providers provide content for online courses, they want their content to result in

effective learning that is easily adaptable across institutions. They are motivated by making a

profit and this will influence their decisions and discussions with my team. Retaining copyrights

of their product so that they can sell it to other customers is important to them. Technology

providers such as companies that provide an LMS are stakeholders as well. They develop the

technology that enables e-learning delivery. They, like content providers, want to provide an

effective learning environment for students. They are under pressure because customers are
looking to them to provide personalize learning experiences for students that many companies

lack and to stay up to date with the ever-changing innovations and hardware that customers

expect.

To review and select our LMS, we have to consider the administrative structure and culture of

our institution. First, we need to have a selection committee which will consist of the same team

members I already have. Some students also have to be included in this committee because they

will be the primary users other than instructors, and we have to know the issues they will

encounter and what they want out of their learning system. A faculty member from each

department will be a part of the committee as well. An outline will be made to inform each

person what their commitment in time and resources is and the expected outcome. We will

determine how decisions will be made, which will be by consensus.

Second, we have to have an effective and transparent selection process in order to take into

account the needs of all stakeholders. To achieve transparency, I will have information on the

school website detailing who is on the committee, what phase we are in, what deadlines, are

coming up, our goals, activities, and meeting recordings. Educational community members will

be able to offer feedback as well. To make sure educational community members are involved in

the selection process, we will have town hall and face to face meetings, webinars, focus groups,

and sandboxes, which are opportunities to try different LMS and give feedback.

Finally, we have to set criteria for selecting the LMS that aligns with the goals and needs of our

institutions and with the teaching and learning processes we want it to support. Once we have

our criteria, we can assemble a short list of LMS vendors and compare the features they provide,

then narrow it down. Vendors will be invited to present their LMS to the selection committee

and other educational community members. The committee and educational community will
need to pilot each LMS to ensure that it meets our desired criteria and vote on the one that is

most suitable and meets our needs.

An effective LMS enables users to participate in the co-creation, production and usage of

knowledge through social and technology tools. It will help promote skills and competencies,

such as creativity, adaptability, communication and higher-order thinking. The most important

features I need to support my organization are: course design features that allow instructional

designers and faculty to easily adapt to the new LMS and develop courses from scratch.

Teaching and learning tools to facilitate instructional and learning activities such as synchronous

and asynchronous communication and collaboration. Assessment features to assist with

designing and administering assignments. Accessibility features that ensure compliance with

current accessibility laws. Administrative features in order to manage data and reporting and help

users administer their courses. Technical aspects that cover basic software, hardware and

network requirements. Finally, it is important that it is cost effective to maintain the LMS for a

3-5-year period or longer.

After we select our LMS, I will assemble my implementation team and develop a 6-month plan.

The LMS Process will involve 6 major steps and I will allocate a month for each step, that

should be adequate. The 6 steps are: planning, configuration, integration, migration, testing and

going live. In the installation phase, we will use a project plan template that the LMS vendor

provides in order to set the system set up and we will modify it as needed for our institution. Our

team will need to understand and make configuration decisions about the data and operations of

the LMS and the system’s data fields, functionality and capabilities. With the help of the

informational technologist, we will integrate a number of systems including user accounts and

profiles, single sign on method, linking courses, and search engines. Once that is finished, we
can migrate all our information in preparation for a test run. Students and instructors will be part

of the test run in order to get a realistic perspective of the LMS performance. The sole goal of the

test run is to identify glitches and areas of improvement. Once that has been completed, the LMS

is ready to go live. At that point, continual evaluations will be done by my team and stakeholders

to provide ongoing support and improvements to the LMS.

Resources
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www.jstor.org/stable/44428934
Leah P. Macfadyen, & Shane Dawson. (2012). Numbers Are Not Enough. Why e-Learning
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Technology in the Information-Age Paradigm of Education: Learning Management
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Selecting a Learning Management System: Advice from an Academic Perspective. (2014, April
21). Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2014/4/selecting-a-learning-management-
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