{"id":133,"date":"2025-09-17T19:37:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T19:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle-new\/?page_id=133"},"modified":"2025-09-17T19:37:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T19:37:33","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Universities of Wisconsin Move to a New Digital Learning Environment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our contract with our longstanding learning management system partner, D2L, was nearing expiration. \u00a0In order to understand the future learning technology landscape, uncover the needs and requirements for (as well as identify gaps in) academic technologies to support teaching and learning, UW System undertook a multi-step approach. \u00a0After an extensive process of exploring the learning technology landscape as it relates to the UW System, including the 2014 UW System\u00a0Roadmap Project<\/a>, the 2015\u00a0LENA Project, and a rigorous teaching and learning technology requirements gathering process in 2016, UW System issued a\u00a0Request for Proposal (RFP)\u00a0for a Digital Learning Environment (DLE).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Unique \u201cRFP\u201d Process<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Request for Proposal (RFP)  used by UW System to procure the DLE was very unique in design in two ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) it required proposers to\u00a0demonstrate<\/em>\u00a0(using video) how their product(s) could address the needs expressed in the use cases that were provided in the RFP document, and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) It required proposers to provide access to their digital learning environments in an online \u201csandbox\u201d so that instructors, staff, and students from all institutions could test the proposed products and then provide the formal evaluation team with feedback on the proposed systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ten-person evaluation team and fifteen core subject matter experts from across UW System \u2014 and from a variety of perspectives \u2014 read the proposals, tested the products in the sandbox, and attended product demonstrations. In addition, each institution in the UW System was provided access to the product test \u201csandboxes,\u201d and feedback was collected from hundreds of students, instructors, and administrators.\u00a0 The ten evaluators reviewed feedback from instructors, staff, and students from each institution, carefully considering how suppliers\u2019 products could address the requirements articulated in the eight teaching and learning scenarios outlined in the RFP.\u00a0 All of these elements were scored in the RFP process.\u00a0\u00a0Three suppliers provided proposals, and the high-scoring supplier was Instructure for its Canvas software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Does Canvas Support Universities of Wisconsin DLE?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Instructure\u2019s Canvas platform provides the foundation for our UW System DLE, a federated, online environment that includes services and tools purposefully brought together to support the needs of teaching and learning in all modes (i.e., face-to-face, blended\/hybrid, and fully-online).  The DLE challenges the traditional role of an LMS as \u201cthe\u201d platform for managing course documents, quizzes, videos, and the like.  By shifting our perspective from an LMS-based content platform, to a \u201cdigital environment\u201d that creates information we can act upon, UW System realized the many benefits of an interoperable suite of services and tools that allow us to maximize student access and success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DLE is designed to support student success by creating consistency among institutions along with flexibility to meet institutional needs. The DLE supports \u201cpedagogy first\u201d design that is fully-accessible, thereby supporting increased student retention and improved time to graduation rates.   The initial DLE implementation project was scheduled to be complete by June 30, 2020; however the 2020 pandemic accelerated the project with all courses fully on Canvas in Spring 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DLE, with Canvas as the service and tool \u201chub,\u201d provides a seamless, accessible student experience, as well as an organized and effective approach to managing digital interactions and information exchanges among the institutions, instructors, and students.  Reliable access to data provides UW System with greater capabilities to support the data analysis needed to make improvements to our students\u2019 instruction and educational experience.  Data is used to evolve our DLE strategy in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instructure\u2019s Canvas is a \u201cSoftware as a Service\u201d (SaaS) product, meaning the software is hosted, maintained, and upgraded in Instructure\u2019s cloud-based technology system.  UW System pays for an annual subscription, rather than a licensing fee, to use the system. The Canvas SaaS model provides the opportunity to improve support and training so the needs of students and instructors are met while reducing the overhead of duplicating efforts at each institution. The vendor creates and maintains the training and support materials used for both the initial implementation and the ongoing orientation and training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key highlights of Instructure\u2019s \u201copen source\u201d Canvas platform includes a simple and intuitive interface for ease of use, a grading feature that provides an efficient way for instructors to provide feedback to students, and a collaborative \u201cpeer to peer\u201d environment for students.\u00a0 Canvas uses industry standards to integrate with other software tools, thereby reducing the cost of supporting the technology, and encourages collaboration by providing a means for instructors to easily share course materials across courses, departments, college, and institutions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Universities of Wisconsin Move to a New Digital Learning Environment Our contract with our longstanding learning management system partner, D2L, was nearing expiration. \u00a0In order to understand the future learning technology landscape, uncover the needs and requirements for (as well as identify gaps in) academic technologies to support teaching and learning, UW System undertook a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3198,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-133","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/dle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}