To the SPARK community:
Blackboard Inc., the company that provides Blackboard Vista–the software behind the SPARK Learning Management System (LMS) at UMass Amherst–has announced that they will discontinue support for this software as of January 2013. This product derived from our original WebCT software which Blackboard acquired a few years ago. There is no option to upgrade or stay put, and conversion to Blackboard’s new offering is tantamount to a new implementation. Therefore, we must review available options and choose a new system to underlie SPARK.
SPARK is now used in over 1400 courses by nearly 1000 instructors in 93 departments across campus. There are about 70,300 “seats” in SPARK occupied by over 21,000 individual students (including undergraduate, graduate, and continuing studies students). Because of its ubiquity, changing the software that underlies SPARK requires careful consideration.
There are many possibilities available to us, including open source options and the new product offered by Blackboard. The final decision for our future direction will be made based on recommendations by an advisory committee made up of faculty and staff who will meet to review the options available and collect input from the community.
UMassOnline, which provides the LMS for many of our Continuing & Professional Education courses, currently uses the same software that we do and faces a similar decision. They have initiated a parallel review; we will keep in touch with their efforts.
In order to have a swift but orderly conversion to the new system, our advisory committee will begin work immediately and provide recommendations as soon as possible. The goal is to have a decision in place by early Fall 2010 so that we can get started with testing, pilots, and eventual full conversion to the new system.
There will be many opportunities for the community to review our options and provide feedback. If you have thoughts on this issue and would like to submit them now, please send an email to futurelms@oit.umass.edu. Updates on this project will be posted here on the “Future LMS” blog.
Thank you for your attention to and input on this important matter.
James V. Staros
Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
John F. Dubach
Chief Information Officer