UK's U Surrey Chooses Desire2Learn
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 10/20/11
After two years of consideration, a major British university will soon shift off of its current learning management system and onto Desire2Learn's Learning Suite. Surrey University, which has nearly 18,000 students, has signed a six-year agreement with the UK division of the LMS company. Implementation begins this month, and the system is expected to go live in August 2012 for the subsequent academic year.
A major driver for the selection was Surrey's desire to provide a more personalized learning environment to students, to allow them to collaborate more easily, and to enable them to work on both computers and mobile devices. The current "virtual learning environment," as the university refers to it, suffered from periods of unreliable service, which undermined staff confidence in it and dampened its use by faculty. U Surrey is hoping for greater pickup among faculty with the shift to the newer LMS platform.
"This is an exciting innovation for the students and the university to let everyone use the latest technology to further their studies and enjoyment of learning," said Vice Chancellor Christopher Snowden. "The system enables us to enhance the teaching and learning process and provides us the flexibility to allow students to learn in personalized ways."
In August the company released an update to Learning Suite that adds improvements in the areas of assessment, grading, and social networking.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.