Learning Management Systems

Instructure and Echo360 To Get Tighter Integration for Student Activity Reporting

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 01/28/16

A company that synchronizes video and audio course presentations has committed to a deeper partnership with Instructure, which produces the Canvas learning management system. Echo360, which has become a "premier" partner with the LMS company, said it would be integrating Canvas' learning analytics into its "active learning" platform. Instructors working on Canvas will be able to view analytics about student engagement, reported by Echo360 in a data dashboard.

Echo360 is an online application that allows users to simultaneously record the audio of a lecture, the content on the computer and video of the instructor at the front of the room. The recording can be done by a preset schedule or used ad hoc. Students can take time-synchronized notes with what's displayed, ask questions at specific points in the content, review lectures and collaborate with each other during or after the class.

The program also includes analytics and dashboards that report on how students have worked with the content — monitoring views, questions asked, responses to in-class quizzes and other forms of interactivity with the digital content.

Canvas' partner program has five tiers in it. The level at which Echo360 is participating pulls the two firms together to work on a tighter integration between their respective products. The new integration is expected to improve the tools and data delivered to the instructors by both companies.

"We're excited about what this partnership says about both the future of the LMS and the future of learning analytics," said Echo360 CEO, Fred Singer. "Our integration with Instructure ushers in a new era of learning management — giving faculty access to real-time data that gives them important insight into a student's level of engagement, which we know is an important indicator of student success."