Florida State College Faculty Vote Against New LMS
Following a pilot program to test a new learning management system (LMS), faculty at Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ) have voted to stick with their existing LMS.
This spring, faculty and students at FSCJ participated in a pilot implementation of the Canvas LMS from Instructure and compared it to the college's existing LMS, Blackboard Learn. Following the pilot, the college conducted a vote of all full-time and adjunct faculty, and they chose to keep Blackboard Learn at FSCJ's four physical campuses and one online campus.
According to a news release from Blackboard, FSCJ faculty voted for Blackboard Learn because of its digital content integration, assessment capabilities, instructional tools, customization options, and product roadmap, as well as better customer service and system uptime.
"A high quality experience for faculty and students is our highest priority," said Dr. Robert Rennie, CIO and vice president, technology at FSCJ, in a prepared statement. "Blackboard is meeting our need to deliver students an exceptional experience. From a business perspective, the evaluation confirmed for us that Blackboard has the ability to deliver at scale to best meet our requirements."
The college plans to use Blackboard Learn for blended learning at its four physical campuses and to provide fully online courses through its virtual campus. Campus organizations and committees, as well as faculty on different campuses, will use the LMS's online collaboration and communication features to work together and stay connected.
FSCJ faculty who participated in the Canvas pilot are now migrating their courses to Blackboard Learn.
Florida State College at Jacksonville is operates four campuses in Duval and Nassau counties in northeastern Florida and one online campus. It serves approximately 67,000 students and employs more than 1,200 full-time and adjunct faculty members.
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Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].