News

Fanshawe College Integrates SIS and Desire2Learn

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 09/01/09

In an effort to streamline processes, respond to student inquiries faster, and optimize staff time, Fanshawe College in London, Ontario has integrated its student information system with its Desire2Learn course management system. The college has been exploring its options for synchronizing course enrollments between the two systems since Spring 2008. The previous process involved the time-consuming process of manually enrolling students into individual courses.

By fall 2008 the college had completed the integration work with the help of Desire2Learn. Then began a second phase to transfer student grades automatically from the Desire2Learn system into the student information system.

According to Linda Young, manager for Learning Systems Services at the college, the success of the SIS course enrollment integration paved the way for the grade transfer functionality. "Faculty engagement has been tremendous and 200 percent greater than expected at the onset," she said. "Professors were very quick to realize the time savings with automated grade transfers, which had been a cumbersome, manual process."

"This integration has saved Fanshawe College a tremendous amount of time and expense," said CIO Bob Beatty. "Desire2Learn's collaborative approach with our team resulted in an effortless experience for our end users. Department chairs were delighted with the trouble-free transition."

Fanshawe has 14,000 full-time students and 35,000 part-time and continuing education students at five locations.