As educational technologies continue to evolve, it is important to regularly reflect and review our tools, strategies and infrastructure to ensure we are creating the best possible learning environment for our students. In the coming months, as part of Carleton’s regular review process, we will be conducting a review of our current learning management system (LMS) – cuLearn. Powered by the Moodle platform, cuLearn has been the university’s LMS for the past seven years. This review is needed to determine if Moodle is able to meet the requirements of the Carleton community today and into the future.
The review will include significant consultations with users, specifically instructors, students, teaching assistants, staff and administrators. As part of our review process, we will examine other LMS platforms so that we can better understand how Moodle, as we have it currently configured, compares to its competitors. We will also speak to our colleagues at other institutions to learn from their experiences. Our goal is to develop a deep understanding of our requirements that reflect the current and future needs of our community.
It is possible that this review will indicate that there are changes that need to be made to improve cuLearn. If significant change is required, the window of opportunity to implement a new platform would be May 2020. It is important to stress that conducting a review does NOT necessarily mean moving to a new product. It could mean that we choose to stay on Moodle, but we choose to change aspects of it to ensure it meets the needs of our teaching and learning community.
More information about the review and consultation process will be made available shortly via a dedicated webspace. Questions and feedback can be directed to oavptl@carleton.ca.