As North Carolina State University transitions from a proprietary to an open source Learning Management System (LMS), our students are once again being asked to learn a new system in support of their learning in an era of ever changing learning environments. Depending on the experience of the student "driver" and the instructor's "track design," the LMS can serve as the invisible vehicle that gets the students where they need to go, or become stalled on the information highway. Just as trading in your favorite car for a new model can be difficult, so is trading in your old LMS. There is anxiety of learning the "controls," about being able to navigate to the correct destinations (via course design), and about "vehicle" efficiency. For students at a distance, the LMS is in many ways, the primary conduit between instructor and learner and leaner and instruction. Instructors using a new LMS have to learn how to design their courses using new tools, many of which do not bear close resemblance to old tools. As an experienced instructor knows, a bad LMS experience, whether the result of course design or lack of training, can result in poor student learning experiences. In this session, two experienced online instructors will discuss their own experiences and the results of a survey given to students who are in the midst of this transition. Thirty-five students in an online graduate degree program responded to a survey which asked them to rate their experiences with both Blackboard Vista and Moodle. Additional questions addressed their advice for students and instructors who are embarking on the transition and their opinions on what aspects of online courses most affect their abilities to learn. Specific issues to be addressed include managing student LMS preferences, difficulties in getting "up-to-speed," resource and training support, and impact of the LMS upon learning. The session will include student advice for faculty who are asking students to take a drive in the new LMS and for students who are being asked to use the new LMS. In addition, comparison of the ratings of aspects of both LMSs will be reviewed. Transitions to new LMSs are a part of organizational life. It does not matter whether the change is the result of new contracts, system upgrades, or adoption of open-source technologies, a tremendous impact upon the learners still exists. While we cannot eliminate the changes, we can adopt better strategies for dealing with them and be better at anticipating problems. Attendees to this session will leave with an understanding of the issues that affect successful transition s from one LMS to another. Instructors, designers, technical support personnel and program administrators will learn what they can do to better support a successful change.
