Week 6: LMS Evaluation
Course Management
LMS-D2L Tools Review - Strengths:
1. It was nice to have the ability in D2L to deactivate specific tools that are not in use to decrease student confusion in an online course.
2. Viewing the entire classlist and having the ability to print a class roster was easy in D2L and would be useful in designing discussion groups and break-out rooms.
3. I also liked that a designer can easily see student progress through the course, change student roles, and check enrollment statistics, all from the classlist page.
4. D2L allows instructors to automatically calculate and adjust final grades for all students in the course, making the grading process easier for instructors.
LMS-D2L Tools Review - Weaknesses:
1. It took several steps to deactivate a class in D2L, which might be difficult for a new designer to figure out. This process was not as intuitive in D2L as in Canvas. For example, deactivating the course required clicking on the "course admin" tab followed by "course offering information", and then looking for the small "course is active" button towards the bottom of the page.
2. I really didn't like the Course Admin tab in D2L since all the functions are buried within it and can be hard to find. It is really not very user friendly and leads to frustration each time I have to hunt through the options. For example, when copying course components, I had to hunt through the Course Admin menu to find the "import/export/copy components" function, and then go through several additional steps to copy course content.
3. Although the system provided robust course usage data and individual statistics, it was somewhat hard to access these functions without the step-by-step instructions. For example, when accessing user content statistics, I had to go to "content" in the navigation bar, followed by "table of contents", "related tools", and finally "view reports" to figure out how much time a student spent viewing a content area.
4. There were many options for setting roles for individuals in D2L, which would help restrict access to certain areas of the course. However, I personally found the list of options confusing without any clear indicators of what they might mean. For example, the differences in LMS access for faculty versus co-faculty when changing grading schemes was not intuitive, and I would not have figured it out without clear directions.
5. Setting and changing grading schemes was quite complicated in D2L. Specifically, with respect to defining grade ranges, the fact that the first range starts at 0 makes it harder to set grading percentages. It would have been easier if the system allowed the designer to set starting and ending ranges for each grade symbol.
6. Although the process of automatically calculating final and adjusted grades for all students was simple in D2L, the process of releasing the final grades and exporting them to Banner required many additional steps, and seemed unnecessarily complicated.
LMS-Canvas Tools Review- Strengths:
1. It was very easy to publish and unpublish content in Canvas using the "publish" button on the home page. It was easily visible and a single click was all it took to limit course access.
2. Canvas offered all the major functions needed this week under a single tab- course settings. I loved how this displayed all needed options for a course designer on the right navigation menu including options for copying the course, closing the course, and accessing course statistics.
3. Accessing course statistics was also straightforward in Canvas and only required clicking on one tab (settings) to access as opposed to the complicated Course Admin page in D2L
4. Canvas is a very intuitive LMS as a novice designer in that I could easily access individual student data by clicking on the "people" link which provided user statistics. In the same area, I could restrict user access to only certain parts of the course through the "privileges" link.
5. Setting a grading scheme was simple in Canvas and conveniently located under the "grades" tab. In the same area, it is possible to limit student access to the course before the course start date and after the end date.
6. Similarly, exporting final grades to the university system was easy in Canvas by using the download and upload scores buttons. The overall layout of the Canvas pages makes it easier to access specific content than the Course Admin menu in D2L.
LMS-Canvas Tools Review- Weaknesses:
1. There were fewer options for restricting student access to certain parts of the course in Canvas than what I found in D2L. While this made the process easier to set up, it was harder to be more specific in limiting content access.
LMS Comparison & Recommendation:
Based on the ease of accessibility, user friendly layout, and easy navigation when it comes to accessing course management tools, I recommend Canvas as the LMS this week. D2L offers similar functions and more robust restriction options; however, in my opinion, the multiple and complicated steps required in D2L for deactivating a class, accessing course usage statistics, setting grading schemes, exporting grades, and copying course content are too cumbersome for a new designer.