I also agree with ease of use and cost. Being a very small school this will be the main topic in the board meeting(s).
Second will be user friendly. The last thing you want is a student not understanding how to navigate around your site. I personally would like to see something that is well adapted for someone that has basic knowledge of a computer. Like I have stated before, adult learners/students are not usually as savy as younger adults.
#1 the CMS has to be easy to use. If I have people in place that are good educators and are not the best at computer usage neither are doing the company any good.
#2 It has to be affordable. I know most of the time...you get what you pay for...but now a days you can pay less for the same quality or in some cases less for better...(not just paying for name)If the price is not good it would be hsrd to keep the program going.
To me there are three... Ease, flow and cost.
IT support and hardware installation and knowledgeable faculty in online based teaching methodology.
Personally, I like Adobe Connect / Breeze. Due to the fact of the grade book, student roster and Student Assignment section where you can actually see who has turned in assignments or not.
Instructor imput / ease of management and the total cost for the system. I want to make sure that all my instructors can easily maintain grades and online curriculum as well as not breaking the bank for the corporate decision makers.
We do not have any on-line courses yet, so I feel that cost would be the foremost consideration.
Second, the available options of a LMS system in comparison to other LMS systems which potentially increase the attractiveness of your school over other schools to prospective students.
Although new to online courses myself, I am gaining a wealth of information about on-line learning from the experiences of co-workers and friends. Their personal experiences are the best or worst advertisement a LMS system can have. These personal comparisons are having an impact on choices by prospective students.
The first important criteria for me in the selection criteria would be if the product is user friendly not only for the students but also for the faculty and the development of classes. The second component would be the ability to audit classes and look for specific componets such as grade books up to date, participation of instructor, chat times being maintained and the availability to look at these components in a report rather than going into each class individually to audit the class.
Should be cost effective, user friendly and with a good technical support staff.
While I don't have the final say on which system to use, I think that cost & ease of use (both for student & staff) would be at the top of the list for me.
We have not gotten to the point where online courses are used but I believe we will need to be there soon to compete.
I would like to see others input on this.
Easy to understand how to use, and features that would benefit students first, then instructors second. I say understand how to use because a system can look and seem easy at first, but then using some of the features correctly is something else.
The criteria for selecting a LMS is cost and ease of use by the end user.
Cost. As a technical school we should be able to manage the system internally. Servers, networks and content can be managed in house.
The more important criteria is ease of use by the students and faculty. My expereince is if the system is complicated, too many features people get frustrated and will not use the LMS as it should be.
A simple entry point, portal, is very important. A lot of times you need multiple IDs and passwords.
The screen should be clean,easy to read and navigate.
I feel that an inhouse system with a very simple portal would be the best LMS for us here.
I would say ease of use and cost. If the students and the faculty do not find it easy to use, there will be tremendous resistance I think to the idea of online teaching.... and it should also have a great tutorial by the way...That helped me tremendously when I first started working at my institution and was told that I had to post my syllabus, assignments, grades, etc. on a "portal". I had no idea what they meant until I actually logged on and much to my relief there was a fantastic tutorial available that walked me through every step of the way and now I am a huge fan of the portal and even incorporate its electronic forum into every one of my face to face classes. We do not, as yet, offer any of our classes online.
The first factor to consider is the cost of the product. I work in a private institution and I am certain that the administrators would not find it worth investing in a system if the cost exceeds the benefits of the system to the administrators, faculty and the students as well. Secondly, the system must be user friendly-easy to navigate; teaching online must be a replica of the regular classroom/teaching environment; and the technical support must be readily available to online
faculty members and to the students.
I would say that cost and how user friendly a CMS is are the 2 most important selection criteria.
Easy of use for both student and instructors as well as cost. I guess we cannot get away from budget concerns. But if the students do not like it, neither will anyone else.
-Chris
1. Ease of Use
2. Cost
Ease of Use is actually a surrogate for many clusters of other qualities that are important including features, navigation, support, reporting, etc. Different stakeholders (administrators, faculty, and students) will all consider different elements when talking about ease of use. For students, a media-rich environment is difficult to use if they are using dial-up and paying per minute for access (whether through their ISP or for long distance or cell charges). Faculty will appreciate auto-grading features, discussion forum management tools, and the ergonomically placed controls in determining ease of use. Ultimately, no LMS is easy to use if it is not stable. Students and faculty will become quickly frustrated if posting or assignment submissions are delayed, held in an outbox, or missed completely. Finally, using standard web conventions such as underline hyperlinks can improve ease of use. One LMS that I have used had controls appear grayed-out (unavailable) when they were live and active because a designer thought it looked nice.
Mark York
I agree moodle must be mentioned more in this module
Security and uptime. Of course support come to a close second to me.
At my institution, ease and budget have been and continue to be the most important criteria for selection on a LMS. We are in the midst of finalizing two Learning Management Systems and by next week we will have our selection.
