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LMS Review

LMS Review

Moodle Replacement Project

In December 2022, the Ed Tech team began an exploration of Learning Management Systems to potentially replace Moodle, which NMC has had as its LMS for more than 15 years. While Moodle has served the NMC community well, increasingly, the team has come up against challenges with integrating third-party applications and a frequent need to make significant changes to our theme and customizations with each release of new versions of Moodle. Fifteen years of customizations and code-tweaks equals more and more “fixes” that add up to more “fixes” with each upgrade. Third-party services are thinking of Canvas, D2L Brightspace, and Blackboard first when they create integration tools and Moodle is becoming more and more of an afterthought. To that end, after a year of sitting through vendor demonstrations and getting student and faculty feedback through surveys and a PD Day workshop/study session, we decided to pursue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a replacement for Moodle. This page will serve as one of the many communication methods to update the NMC community about the Request for Proposal process and implementation of a new LMS once a decision has been made and the Board of Trustees approves the purchase. The RFP was sent out to D2L Brightspace, Instructure Canvas, and Moodle Hosted (stay with Moodle but move our storage to a cloud solution). 

Draft RFP Timeline

  • Review of Proposals; Vendor Presentations with Feedback Survey – January 22, 2024 – February 14, 2024
  • LMS Pilot Sandbox Evaluations – February 14, 2024 – March 14, 2024
  • Evaluation of Feedback Surveys and Sandbox Evaluations – March 14, 2024 – April 5, 2024
  • Finalize Recommendation – April 10, 2024
  • Send Recommendation to Board of Trustees – April 15, 2024** (Current stage)
  • Board of Trustees Meeting – April 22, 2024
  • New LMS Vendor Finalized – April 22, 2024

Draft Implementation Timeline

  • Pilot with new LMS – Fall 2024
  • Open use of new LMS; Moodle still available – Spring 2025
  • Open use of new LMS; Moodle still available but instructors encouraged to switch to new LMS – Summer 2025
  • New LMS fully integrated for all NMC courses; Moodle no longer available – Fall 2025

Fall 2024 Pilot

If NMC moves forward with a new LMS, the Ed Tech team is looking for up to 15 faculty volunteers to participate in a pilot in the new LMS for the Fall 2024 semester. Faculty participating in the pilot will need to transition their courses or a course to the new LMS during Summer 2024. The Ed Tech and LMS support teams will work hand in hand with the faculty to perform the migration and get the content, gradebook, and other resources ready. 

LMS Pilot Sandbox Evaluations – Completed

If you want to participate in the Sandbox evaluation of Instructure Canvas or D2L Brightspace, please contact Ben Post (bpost@nmc.edu), to request access and receive instructions. 

Vendor Demonstrations – Completed