Transitioning the Academic Learning Environment: Adopting a New Learning Management System

Workshop Presentation
Holly Owens,  Rivka Molinsky  

Touro College and University System (TCUS) is a dynamic and complex system of undergraduate and graduate schools. In spring 2018, several schools within the piloted a new learning management system (LMS), Canvas. This pilot was conducted in the Nursing program which is in the School of Health Sciences (SHS). Following a successful pilot, all SHS courses had to be moved from Blackboard to Canvas and redesigned to meet school policy standards. To successfully accomplish this, coordination, communication from the central IT department to local support (e.g. Instructional Designers) established transition framework. The goals of this transition included: Supporting teaching and learning with the necessary tools to support, design, build and deliver courses in multiple delivery modes (face-to-face, hybrid & online); Giving faculty time to acclimate to a new environment; Providing additional tools for teaching and learning to facilitate communication, assessment and reporting; Building a technically reliable system that can be integrated with other campus and third-party systems. This session is ideal for administrators, technical staff, system administrators, instructional designers, support staff, and faculty champions who engage the campus community on topics related to the learning management system, instructional design, online learning, and help desk support. Presenters will review effective project planning and communication strategies, support and outreach tips, technical challenges, and customized integrations as well as best practices, pitfalls, and lessons learned, including an interactive polling session comparing participants’ views and current trends at their respective institutions.