As WebCT 4.1 approaches its end-of-life date, the LTRC has embarked on a Learning Management System (LMS) selection and evaluation process to procure a system that best meets the needs of McMaster University.

In December of 2006, the LTRC issued a Request for Information (RFI) as an international public open call to Learning Management System (LMS) vendors and channel partners (private and open-source). Twelve submissions were received.

The first objective was to reduce the number of submissions to a manageable number in order to proceed with the Request for Proposal (RFP) and hands-on trials/assessments.

In order to narrow down the product list to continue to the next phase of evaluation, faculty, staff, and students were sent surveys on feature preferences; current WebCT usage was analyzed; discussions with faculty and staff were conducted, and continued investigations into current literature and processes at other educational institutions were conducted.

The surveys and usage analysis reveal that it is difficult to determine what is important because what is important is context-dependent. The survey data, the WebCT usage data and the experience of the LMS staff show that there is a high degree of diversity in the teaching, learning, administrative and management needs.

Consideration of the technology adoption model in the context of current WebCT use illustrates that the best way to facilitate current integration is to ensure a similar level of functionality to WebCT 4.1.

Exploring the diversity of needs shows that the best way to provide flexibility is to look for the largest possible range of options.

Finally, there are certain technical and administrative constraints that need to be met in order to facilitate teaching and learning innovations and to function within the context of the University's infrastructure, policies and direction.

Looking at the available data in multiple contexts can provide an insight into which products are better suited to our institution. Each of the 12 RFI returns was scored based in three major ways and compared.

First, each product was analyzed with respect to how closely it matched current WebCT functionality. Second, each product was analyzed with respect to the degree to which it provided options for course and program management as well as flexibility. Third, the products were ranked against key technical, administrative, and management criteria.

The initial report presented to the LMS Selection/Evaluation Committee for discussion on Sept. 26 recommended seven RFP submissions. The committee, however, agreed that sending RFPs to seven vendors was too many to effectively and efficiently evaluate.

Instead, a maximum of five products were picked for RFP based on the following criteria: pick the top three products based on the analysis in Section 6 of the report; include Moodle as the open-source option if Moodle is not one of the top three products (as it consistently scored the highest among the open-source returns); include the top FirstClass product as the FirstClass option, if either FirstClass product is not part of the top three.

The LTRC issued five RFPs on Oct. 15 for the following five products: Learning Environment (Desire2Learn), eLearning Server (Intrafinity), Vista (Blackboard), Moodle (Open Knowledge Technologies) and FirstClass (Palantir Information Systems). The full report can be found at the LTRC LMS Selection/Evaluation website.