Document Version .04
Project Charter
Course and Learning Management System Evaluation
Executive Summary
The current Learning Management System (LMS) has been at use at the University of Texas at Austin since 2000. The majority of courses at the university utilize some aspect of the LMS to provide course content, foster communication and/or assess student work. However, a survey conducted in May 2010 of university faculty, staff and students revealed that the majority of features in the present LMS are not being utilized, which suggests an opportunity for an improved alignment between the features offered by the LMS and those used and desired by the campus community. In addition, it is important to ensure that the LMS is as efficient and cost effective as possible.
The goal of this project is to assess the LMS options currently available and identify the solution that most closely meets the stated business and technical needs of the university community, while providing best value.
Business Need and Background
The university provides thousands of courses, taught by almost 3,000 faculty members, to over 50,000 students every semester. Instructors must provide course syllabi, reading materials, and assignments, which students must be able to access at any time. In turn, students must be able to communicate with their instructors and classmates, upload their assignments, and access their grades. The existing LMS provides this functionality and much more, but only a small portion of the available features are used. Other key features, such as mobile access and cross-browser compatibility, do not satisfy the needs of the campus community. The university requires a LMS that can support existing functionality expected by end users, as well as fulfill the community’s ever-advancing needs.
The university will solicit proposals from LMS vendors via a Request for Proposal (RFP). Vendors of both proprietary and open-source systems, as well as both hosted and non-hosted solutions will be engaged.
Project Goals
Gather requirements from faculty, staff and students.
Conduct a fair and impartial assessment of the LMS options available.
Recommend a LMS that meets the stated business and technical needs of the university community while providing best value.
Schedule and Milestones
Date Task Name Resource Names
March 21, 2011
Student and faculty online survey available CTL, ITS
March 18, 2011
*Milestone 1 - RFQ issued* Purchasing Office
March 30, 2011
Review team for Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is selected; NDAs in place
Project Sponsors Project Team March 28,
2011
RFQ vendor questions due Review Team
Purchasing Office March 30,
2011
RFQ submittal deadline Vendors
April 8, 2011 RFQ evaluation complete RFQ Review Team
April 20-28 Vendor presentations on campus Campus community
April 1 – May 31
Faculty, TA, TSC, and stakeholder focus groups Faculty, TAs, TSCs, stakeholders TBD *Milestone 2 - Present recommendation to Steering
Committee based on requirements gathered*
Project Team Steering Committee
Scope
In ScopeThe following deliverables or tasks are in scope for this project:
Determine LMS business and technical requirements by--
o Hosting focus groups of students, faculty, and staff to determine the most-used features as well as features that are most desired but not available. A corresponding survey will also be issued to gather feedback from those unable to attend the focus groups. o Compiling historical information regarding feature requests.
o Compiling historical information about end-user and administrative technical issues that are consistently reported.
o Determining the criticality of the key business and technical requirements to establish a set of LMS production metrics for use in the RFP.
o Analyzing peer institutions use of LMS systems.
Draft and issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) based on business and technical requirements described above.
Evaluate the RFP responses received and provide a recommendation to the Research and Educational Technology Committee (R&E).
Out of Scope
The following deliverables or tasks are out-of-scope for this project:
Implementation of the recommendation if different from the current LMS. This will be a separate project.
Any upgrade/maintenance of the current LMS.
Retiring any services or systems that could be made obsolete by the outcome of this project. If required, this will be a separate project.
Project Management and Governance
Role Name(s)/Title(s) Responsibilities
Executive Sponsors
Brad Englert, Chief Information Officer Chief Operating Officer, Information
Responsible for the success of the project.
President Project steering
committee
Rachel Barrera, Graduate Student, College of Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Instructional Technology
Robert Bruce, Associate Dean, Continuing and Innovative Education
Pei Chen, Director, Information Technology Services
Pat Davis, Senior Associate Dean and Professor, College of Pharmacy
Andrew Dell’Antonio, Professor, School of Music, College of Fine Arts
Josh Fjelstul, Undergraduate Student, School of Business
Chad Fulton, Program Coordinator, Learning Technology Center, College of Education
Betsy Greenberg, Associate Professor, Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management, School of Business
Mike Harvey, Assistant Dean of
Information Technology, School of Law
Sara Hawkins, Graduate Student, School of Information
Mike Scott, Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, College of Natural Sciences
Jane Shaughness, Training
Coordinator, University Compliance Services
Michael Sweet, Director of
Instructional Development, Center for Teaching and Learning
Angela Svoboda, Director, Office of Admissions
Joe Tenbarge, Assistant Dean, Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services, College of Liberal Arts
Yuezhi Zhan, Undergraduate Student, School of Business/College of Natural Sciences
Strategic project guidance and validation, management support, and resource allocation. Make
recommendations to the Research and Educational Technology Committee (R&E).
coordination, and
communications. Provide overall status reporting of deliverables to the project team and identified stakeholders. Track progress toward completion of the identified project goals. Meeting organization and overall meeting facilitation. Subject Matter
Expert(s)
Michael Sweet, CTL Provide expertise to be utilized for project initiation, planning, design and execution.
Communications Jennifer Jobst, ITS Generate documentation and
communication. Technical Team Clifton Brown, ITS
Mario Guerra, CTL Karron Lewis, CTL Sejal Shah, CTL Matt Wedgwood, ITS
Confirm solution conforms to the standard operation guidelines of campus services.
Stakeholder(s) University of Texas at Austin faculty, staff and students
Customers utilizing the chosen solution.
Project Facilities and Resources
The following facilities and resources will be required for this project.
Center for Teaching and Learning will be needed to provide direction with respect to faculty interaction (specifically requirements gathering) as well as technical guidance and best practices.
Student IT Advisory Board will be needed to provide input to desired next generation LMS.
Faculty IT Council will be needed to provide input to desired next generation LMS.
The Information Security Office (ISO) will be needed to assess the security impact of any solution.
ITS Networking will be needed to assess the impact on commodity bandwidth for any off-campus solution.
ITS Office of Communications and Strategy Management (OSCM) will be needed to keep campus informed of the project’s progress, communicate changes, and document new procedures. OSCM will also be responsible for coordinating with the IT governance committees.
ITS User Services Tier II Help Desk staff will be needed for support of any new solution.
The Central Business Office (CBO) will be engaged to provide assistance and guidance with the RFP process.
Legal Affairs will need to review any new contract.
Impact Analysis
This project is expected to have the following impacts:
Current faculty and students will be impacted most by this project in the event a transition is made to an alternate LMS. Although one of the selection criteria for a new LMS would be an intuitive interface and design, some level of training will likely be necessary.
Additional customization and development will be needed to integrate a next generation LMS into our existing infrastructure; business level processes may be impacted.
Training will also be likely for technical support staff.
Assumptions
The following assumptions have been made for this project:
The project will adhere to the IT Governance structure.
Project staff resources, including external contract resources, will be available when and as needed.
Constraints
This project has the following constraints:
Delays in the RFP, legal review and/or contract review/negotiation processes may impact the schedule.
Limitations in available staff time due to competing priorities.
Revision History
Version Date Description
v .01 2/4/2011 Initial draft completed.
v. 03 3/29/2011 Includes updates to Schedule and Milestones and Project Management and Governance.
v. 04 5/9/2011 Update in preparation for Steering Committee kick-off meeting.
