Supersize Your LMS Migration Support

In their 2017 annual report, the Instructional Technology Council (ITC), part of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), noted that roughly 24% of community colleges surveyed were planning on changing their learning management system (LMS; https://news.elearninginside.com/community-colleges-lms/). There are a number of reasons as to why an institution may change LMSs including:

• End of life (platforms are bought by another company or are no longer available)
• Costs
• Navigation and ease of use
• Better integration with other institutional systems (SIS, data analytics, etc)
• Need more options or tools than what current platform offers
• Dissatisfaction with the current platform
• Coordination with other institutions

Given that institutions need to periodically change their LMSs, support for these changes is critical to ensuring that faculty, staff, and students can seamlessly continue their work. When the decision is made to move to a new LMS, numerous stakeholders within the institution need to be engaged to clarify what work needs to be done and by whom. When Valencia College moved from Blackboard to Canvas this past academic year, representatives from multiple departments collectively worked together to prepare for and to execute the needed support processes. These departments included the Office for Information Technology (OIT), Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, the Library, Student Support Services, Faculty and Instructional Development, the Office for Students with Disabilities, Faculty Council, the Dean Council, Senior Team, Campus Presidents, Institutional Research, Curriculum and Assessment, and technical staff from all over the college. In addition to these people, another group was created to help advise the migration process: the Canvas Migration Advisory Team (CMAT). This team was created with faculty members and deans appointed through their respective councils as well as staff members. CMAT was headed by the past president of Faculty Council, the chief LMS administrator, and the Director of Online Teaching and Learning. In this way, feedback and concerns could be brought forward and discussed as needed in their monthly meetings as well as sending out direct requests for support to the appropriate channels.

Once the Canvas LMS was acquired, campus presidents, deans, and faculty were consulted per when they wished to migrate their courses from Blackboard to Canvas. The migration timeline ran from August 2017 to April 2018. Deans were the point people for migration updates on their faculty progress. In addition to the overall migration plan, pilot courses were determined in conjunction with deans and faculty members. Pilot courses were run in Fall 2017 and Spring 2018 to ensure the LMS worked and to allow Valencia to integrate other systems (Banner, homegrown systems, SSO, etc) into it. On May 2, Canvas was opened to the entire college and all online and mixed-mode courses had to use it. Blackboard access was stopped on May 31 to give faculty more time to migrate any needed content. Blackboard archives will be available for a 3-year period to match requirements per grade disputes and recordkeeping.

Once the overall migration timeline was set, multiple avenues were explored to determine which support mechanisms would be the most beneficial for each audience affected by the LMS change: faculty, staff, and students. Most of the support came from the Faculty and Instructional Development department since they had both expertise and sufficient personnel. This department coordinated all faculty support and also helped in supporting students and staff as needed. Student and staff support was headed by OIT. The support was coordinated by the CMAT heads as well as other staff. The timeline for support was also shared between these groups to help coordinate efforts and minimize overlap.

For the Canvas migration, the following types of support were implemented:

• Webinars provided by Canvas were purchased and provided to faculty and staff
• A Canvas Essentials course was created for faculty and for staff
• Our “Boot Camp for Online Instruction” was revised for Canvas
• A Canvas 101 course was created for students to self-enroll and complete prior to starting courses in Canvas
• Sessions on multiple Canvas topics (gradebook, collaboration, communication, starting right, using publisher materials, and organization) were presented by Canvas pilot faculty (Canvassadors)
• Specialized staff training sessions for those who needed to use Canvas (advisors, tutors, etc)
• Department or division meetings featured short, specialized training in Canvas
• Canvas open lab sessions (Coffee and Canvas, Cookies and Canvas) were offered in our Centers for Teaching/Learning Innovation throughout the migration year
• Canvas-specific websites for faculty/staff and students which contained links to training
• Resources were posted to Valencia’s Canvas Commons such as sample courses
• Resources spaces created for divisions or departments
• Two webinars hosted by the Canvas pilot faculty about design and delivery of their online courses in Canvas
• Destination track on using Canvas in conjunction with other online resources
• Circles of Innovation site for follow-up postings and sharing resources

As part of the Canvas migration, Valencia also developed a rich communication plan to help notify faculty, staff, and students about Canvas. Communication channels were chosen for timeliness and maximum outreach, and included:

• A “Top 5 Things You Need to Know About Canvas Now” article that came out monthly to faculty in their college-wide newsletter
• Canvas and Blackboard announcements to help notify staff, students, and faculty of upcoming changes
• Canvas-specific websites for faculty/staff and students which contained links to FAQs and support information
• Emails sent to students just prior to the start of terms to help them move to Canvas and enroll in Canvas 101
• Messages posted on TVs and computer terminals throughout the College to let students know Canvas was coming
• Specialized emails sent to faculty prior to teaching online and mixed-mode courses to help them connect with support
• Messages shared with the Dean and Faculty Council to help answer questions and mitigate problems

As part of this presentation, we will share specific examples of how we fully supported our LMS migration while actively working together and sharing our challenges and triumphs. We will also share our migration assessment plan and what the final results were. Through interactive questioning, we will also help you examine at your own migration plans to see where different and additional support can help you reach your target audience and have the best LMS migration possible.

Goals: By the end of the presentation, participants will:

• Identify the approaches taken to providing college-wide support for faculty, staff, and students
• Identify the formats used to provide support and communication
• Determine whether these approaches and formats could be used at their institution or site
• Plan to implement specific changes in their migration support process (as appropriate)