LMS Review and Evaluation Surveys

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I have been spending some time looking at surveys employed by institutions during their LMS review and evaluation projects. While some might find immersing oneself in both LMSs and surveys to be dull, I must confess that I genuinely find enjoyment in both. However, it's important to note that I also derive pleasure from watching Test Cricket on television, which can make paint drying seem action-packed by comparison. But even though my personal bar for excitement may be low, we strongly encourage institutions to use surveys in the LMS reviews and evaluations as, when designed well, they can be a powerful and positive tool.

As part of our upcoming LMS toolkit we will include a resource to help colleges and universities develop surveys to identify stakeholder usage, priorities, and barriers for their LMS reviews and evaluations. This is the third in a series of posts over the next month or two looking at evaluation material - review sites, RFPs, rubrics, etc. - for EdTech evaluation projects at colleges and universities. Naturally, we are starting with LMS projects, although much of the material could easily be repurposed for other EdTech systems.

The toolkit will be part of our suite of offerings in this space, released as part of the On EdTech Enterprise subscription, but we will also reference and include parts of the toolkit in the On EdTech+ subscription that you are all part of. The toolkit will allow a quicker and cheaper method to share this information than has been available in custom consulting engagements, and our consulting clients will benefit from easier access to the templates.

Surveys as part of your LMS review or selection process

From an informal review of websites and end of project reports, about half the colleges and universities doing an LMS reviews choose to do a survey. This is lower than I would have thought, as institutions that don’t do surveys are missing an important opportunity to engage with users about the LMS, how they use the platform, and what can be done better to support end users. The fact that response rates are usually pretty high for these surveys – I regularly see rates between 30-50% and even higher - is a testament to the fact that stakeholders see these as a valuable exercise. For context, internet surveys are found to have response rates of 25% but I regularly see much lower.

Types of LMS review surveys and why they are useful

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