Why Durham Tech is Evaluating Alternatives to Sakai, and What to Expect
Welcome to the new Instructional Technologies Blog.
The Instructional Technologies team created this blog to keep instructors informed about technology tools at Durham Tech and best practices for using them with students.
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In the 2022-23 academic year, our blog will focus on an important project that greatly affects faculty and students – specifically, the project to recommend and implement a new learning management system (LMS) to replace Sakai at Durham Tech. We know there’s still a chance you may not have heard about this project or that you likely have some questions, so in this first blog post, we will explain why, when, and how the college is looking to make this major change.
Why is Durham Tech considering moving to another learning management system?
Watch the video below to learn why Durham Tech is considering moving to another learning management system (approximately 17 minutes).
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How will the decision be made?
- An LMS Evaluation Task Force has been formed to study the issue and to recommend a new learning management system to replace Sakai.
- Task force members represent nearly all of the college’s pathways, Faculty Association, Center for the Global Learner, Instructional Technologies, and Student Government Association. For a list of members, see LMS Evaluation Task Force Membership (PDF).
- The Distance Learning Committee will provide input to the task force on the selection of the new learning management system.
- The LMS Evaluation Task Force met first on September 23 and will meet through mid-November.
- The task force plans make a recommendation to senior leadership regarding a new learning management system by December 1, 2022.
- The final decision will be made by the college President and Vice-Presidents.
When will faculty and students begin using the new LMS?
- If all goes as planned, instructors will begin teaching on the new learning management system in Summer 2023. (If all doesn’t go as planned, it might be later. But it won’t be earlier!)
- Training for faculty is expected to begin in mid-Spring 2023.
Thanks for reading our first blog post. We hope it answers a few of your questions about the learning management system transition.
We know you have lots more questions, and we hope to address many of those in future posts. Our plan is to provide a new post approximately every two weeks. Remember to enter your email address in the box on the right and click subscribe to be notified each time a new blog article is posted!
Upcoming blog posts will address these topics:
- LMS Faculty Survey Results – Learn what Durham Tech instructors had to say about Sakai and about changing the college’s learning management system
- Top faculty concern: What will happen to my content on Sakai?
- Updates from the LMS Evaluation Task Force
- And more…