LMS Replacement Project

The LMS (bSpace) Replacement Project was a two-year initiative led by ETS to replace our current LMS, bSpace, with a new system that better meets the needs of our campus. Our priorities for the replacement include:

Have a best-of-breed feature set that enhances teaching and learning
Be open source and promote a community of learning and innovation among its users, developers and designers
Afford for interoperability so that we (and our users) can leverage third-party tools for teaching

With this in mind, and having completed a survey of the market and our peers’ systems, we piloted Instructure’s Canvas LMS in Summer 2013 and supported a limited rollout in Fall 2013. Approximately one third of Spring 2014 classes were created using bCourses, UC Berkeley's version of Canvas.

Project Timeline

Summer 2013 - Summer 2015

Project Manager & Contact

Rich Meyer

Pilot and Evaluation

During the Summer and Fall 2013 semesters, we engaged closely with our faculty and student users to assess their experience. Our evaluation plan included user surveys, focus groups, and the review of an evaluation matrix by key campus stakeholders.

Governance

Educational Technology Services is primarily responsible for implementation, support and evaluation of bCourses. The project is sponsored by the Student Systems Executive Steering Committee (SSESC).

A Project Steering Committee(link is external) and advisory groups for faculty, students, staff and campus partners has been formed so that all relevant perspectives are considered as we define our rollout and implementation plans.

Why bCourses

bCourses is squarely focused on supporting teaching and learning: It has developed a deep set of tools and technologies that enhance the academic process for instructors and students alike. In particular, these features lend a strong argument for bCourses as the choice for Berkeley:

Superior user experience
Users find bCourses intuitive and easy to navigate
Supports range of pedagogical uses cases
Including best-of-breed feedback and assessment tools
Open and extensible
External, 3rd party tools can be added for whole campus, for departments, by users. Integrates easily with campus data systems
Instructure is a strong, stable vendor
Founded 2008; millions of users; over 400 participating universities; reputed to be great partners. Other early adopters: Penn, Brown, University of Washington, UT Austin.

bSpace Replacement Project Timeline

ETS began with a limited rollout of bCourses in the Fall 2013. The rollout was expanded significantly in Spring 2014, and continued to expand through Spring 2015, when all courses were transitioned to bCourses. By the end of the Spring 2015 semester, bSpace became a read only archive. After Fall 2014 no new bSpace sites could be created. bSpace closed on September 30, 2015.

What about bSpace project sites?

The replacement of our LMS is a large change management effort: We currently have approximately 50,000 users on bSpace. And while we have chosen bCourses for its ability to support Berkeley’s courses, we realize that the needs of other users--campus staff, most notably, may not be met by the bCourses LMS. We are committed to making sure that as we phase-out bSpace, we design a transition plan that includes the campus staff who use bSpace so widely for collaborative work. ETS staff are delving into bCourses features and partnering with IS&T to identify the best replacement for our campus’ group/project sites. We will update you here and through various outreach activities to get staff input on this process.

Project Documentation

Document	Media Used	Storage Location
Project Charter	Google Drive	ITFR Project Charter(link is external)
Project Funding Milestones	Google Drive	ITFR Funding Milestones (request access(link sends e-mail))
Project Sponsors and Steering Committee	Google Drive	Project Governance
System Architecture	Confluence Wiki	CalCentral Technical Overview(link is external)
LMS Functional Parity Document	Google Drive	bSpace to bCourses Functional Mapping(link is external)
Custom LTI Tools, Training, Services, and Support Report	Google Drive	bCourses Tools and Services(link is external)
bSpace Decommissioning Plan	Google Drive	bSpace Content Retrieval Timeline(link is external)
Interim Deliverable Presentation	Google Drive	Presentation of Interim Deliverables(link is external)
Interim Deliverable Acceptance	Google Drive	Interim Deliverable Sign Off(link is external)
Project Closeout Budget Summary	Google Drive	Project Closeout Budget Summary (request access(link sends e-mail))
Lessons Learned	Google Drive	Project Lessons Learned(link is external)
User Advisory Group		User Advisory Group for ETS(link is external)

Reports

Fall 2013 (Pilot) Assessment(link is external) (PDF)
Fall 2014 Project Update Report (link is external)(PDF)
Fall 2015 Project Closeout Report (PDF)