Selection Criteria and Role of the Selection Committee
From a faculty perspective, the criteria for the selection of a CMS or LMS fall into several categories: ease of use, stability, tool set, and support. Other school considerations relate to compatibility or integration and to cost issues that require financial and technical support.32 While faculty can provide valuable insights about what they do best, developing and teaching courses in the area in which they are experts, to be an effective participant in system selection, they should review articles such as “The Top LMS Statistics and 525Facts For 2015 You Need to Know” to gain a big picture perspective.44
• Ease of use. There is a learning curve to using CMS software. The interface should be intuitive to use. Does it use common educational terms to describe tools such as discussion forums or boards? Does its design support distance education or is it an adaptation of other products? Faculty should ask questions and complete typical educational tasks to assess ease of use for grading papers, projects, and tests; returning files; and setting up and using the grading center. Also important are tools such as wikis, blogs, conferencing, and chat that are available for collaboration activities for assignments such as group projects. How easy is it for students and faculty to learn to use these tools? This could include an analysis of the number of clicks it takes to upload content, what file formats are acceptable for upload, and what file size limits are enforced. Another area to analyze is the ease of content movement between courses and between semesters and the ease of archiving and exporting courses. Too many required clicks or difficulty in understanding the screen discourages faculty from using tools. Does the setup reduce time and effort or demand more time and effort in delivering the course? Additional information about usability is included in Chapter 21.