Process – Future LMS

Future LMS Committee Members

The committee at the core of this search is a mix of faculty and instructional support staff from across campus. This group will also be soliciting feedback from other groups on campus with an interested the future of SPARK. If you have something you would like to contribute to this discussion, send email to futurelms@oit.umass.edu.

Faculty:
Carolyn Cave, Psychology
Helene Cunningham, Nursing
Linda Enghagen, Hospitality and Tourism Management
Kyle Frackman, German & Scandinavian Studies
John Gerber, Plant, Soil and Insect Science
Susan Han, Plant, Soil and Insect Science
Richard Rogers, Resource Economics
Pam Trafford, Accounting and Information Systems
Wilmore Wembly, Microbiology

Support Staff:
Copper Giloth – Director, OIT Academic Computing
Bo Mack – Director, OIT Administrative Computing Support
Karin Moyano Camihort – Center for Teaching
Daniel Nelson – OIT SPARK Administrator
David Powicki – OIT Network Systems and Support
Marcie Savoie – Continuing and Professional Education
Tony Sindelar – OIT Academic Computing
Longfei Yu – OIT SPARK Administrator
Andrew Vernon – OIT Help Desk
Fred Zinn – OIT Academic Computing

Committee Charge

Here is a written version of the charge Chief Information Officer John Dubach delivered to the Future LMS committee at our first meeting on June 23, 2010:

“Recommend to me and the Provost the next LMS for UMass Amherst. You may recommend one or more, ranked or unranked. In your evaluations, focus on finding the LMS with the broadest feature set balanced with ease of use.

In your discussions, focus on the tools and their features; avoid getting bogged down in essentially philosophical discussions such as “open source vs. commercial” or “the corporate culture of Blackboard”. Also, although UMassOnline is currently going through a similar selection process, and there is a strong interest in how our systems will synch, I want you to recommend the tool(s) that you believe are best for this campus. The provost and I will take responsibility for considering these issues when we make our choice.

Final point: there are essentially three types of options available to us. A commercial LMS, an open source LMS, or an option referred to as “Best of Breed” in which there is no single tool, but rather a collection of tools–each chosen for what they do best. Each of these options costs money and resources; just because open source does not involve licensing fees, does not mean we will save money. Compared to the commercial option, open source and best of breed can cost as much or more in staffing. Again, when you make your choice, do not get bogged down in discussion of resources; recommend what is best and the provost and I will attend to this issue.

Thank you for your time and attention to this important choice.”