Desire2Learn representatives discussed new features and initiatives for the company's learning management system at their Regional Information Session held at the Alumni House on Thursday.
Cory Gaber, the account manager for Desire2Learn, and David Horne, the technical solutions engineer for the company, each gave presentations on the new technical aspects of the company and its plans of development going forward.
Desire2Learn was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario. Gaber, who has been with the company for eight years, spoke about its growth.
"When I started, we had 30 employees, now we have 300," Gaber said of the system that now sports 6 million users.
Both Gaber and Horne spoke in length about developments in mobile browsing, analytics, learning repository, ePortfolios and the new features in the learning environment system most commonly used by faculty and students at Slippery Rock University.
New features such as an interactive seating chart that tracks grades, participation and attendance will be available in the updated version of the system which will be ready for use by the spring semester.
SRU has been solely using the system since their contract with Blackboard expired in June 2010.
"In 2005, 83 faculty members were using Blackboard, today about two-thirds are using Desire2Learn," Brian Danielson, SRU's director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Educational Technology, said at the session.
The transition from Blackboard to D2L was met with some negative views from students and faculty at first, but things are calming down as members of the university are getting used to the system.
"The first semester we had it was hectic, but anymore there's not a lot of problems with the system itself," Bill Huber, SRU's D2L administrator, said. "The switch to the new password through MySRU caused a lot of problems at first, too, but we're working on it."
The reasoning for the switch from systems was basically economic.
"One of the main reasons for the switch was the contract with Blackboard expired," Danielson said.
Following the contract with Blackboard, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education posted a request for proposals to find the next system provider, in which D2L met the favor of the evaluation committee and was awarded a five-year contract.
Of the multiple reasons why D2L was selected, Danielson feels two stand out as the most prominent.
"Money and functionality were the biggest reasons," Danielson said.
As for the comparisons between D2L and Blackboard, Danielson feels the university's current system is superior, as it is more straightforward than Blackboard and has the same features, such as discussion boards and quizzes.
As for the complaint of having to access MySRU in order to log into D2L, Danielson explained the university's vision on that.
"The idea behind that is a single sign-on," Danielson said. Instead of signing into D2L then, say, Rockmail, this allows users to manage one password and username."
Nancy Barta-Smith, an English professor at the university, was in attendance for the session and has had a favorable experience with the system.
"I like it better [than Blackboard]," Barta-Smith said of D2L. "It may be because I'm using more of the features like blogs and wikis this semester. It seems to have more interaction with students than just the discussion boards, like Blackboard had."
Barta-Smith has also found that the system is fairly simple to use.
"It has an easy interface to use and Bill [Huber] and Brian [Danielson] do a good job responding to questions," she said.
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