De La Salle University finds itself at the forefront of modern education with the launching of its new Learning Management System (LMS), AnimoSpace, a customized version of the Canvas software developed by the United States-based educational technology company, Instructure.
The new system officially went live at the start of the second term of Academic Year 2018-2019. The platform is now utilized by professors and students for numerous courses, allowing students to access course contents and study materials with ease through the platform, as well as allowing faculty members to better monitor their classes and facilitate discussions.
Easier teaching, learning
Canvas, in its website, boasts itself as the “21st century LMS” given the range of functionalities that contribute to the platform’s adaptability, making it one of the fastest and most deeply adopted among systems.
Vice Chancellor for Academics Dr. Merlin Suarez highlights some of these distinguishing qualities. Among the features available on teachers’ user accounts—which she demonstrated in an interview with The LaSallian—are functions that allow for downloadable text or audio comments and the automatic creation of a gradebook through a “speed grader” tool. This allows for ease of seeing grades once the outputs are rated on the system.
In the forum during the launching of AnimoSpace last January 14, Suarez mentioned that the new LMS allows professors to better manage, monitor, and measure the learning process, given the recent shift to an outcome-based education approach. Aside from this, the use of Canvas, she explained, would allow faculty to engage students online, as she believes that “the best way to enhance learning will be to meet them (students) where they are.”
Facilitating usage
To help faculty members familiarize themselves with the system, the administration, according to Suarez, has sent them to training for three times a week since the previous term. She mentions that statistics from the Academic Support for Instructional Services Technology show that 23 percent of the total faculty in DLSU have undergone the training. As for instructors who opt to learn by themselves, they are given option to take an introductory course hosted on AnimoSpace instead.
Incentives have also been put in place to encourage professors to make use of the LMS. Among these is a financial incentive where a department receives an additional P10,000 for its annual workshop fund if all of its faculty members upload their syllabi to the system.
An instructional incentive also exists to reward those who upload their course materials. Suarez elaborates that this arrangement works similarly to how research incentives amounting to a full month’s pay are awarded to professors if they have their works published or presented in a conference. One other reward that is planned to be given to faculty is an award for leadership and innovation, though such has not yet been approved by the Academics Council.
While keeping faculty up to speed on the new platform has received a major thrust from the administration, Suarez believes that getting students onboard would be simpler. “We were in discussion with [the University Student Government] since last term about the support for students…We felt the students didn’t need too much assistance because [they’re] quite familiar with it,” she remarks.
Drawing comparisons
Although the sudden University-wide implementation of Canvas was recently made known, it was not the first LMS to be used in DLSU. Sakai, another well-known online learning platform, was previously made available to the Lasallian community. After Canvas went live, however, access to the old platform has since been discontinued.
Information Technology Services Office Director Allan Borra considers Sakai a far cry from Canvas, arguing that the former provided an inferior user experience with its clunky interface. He further adds that Canvas allows for a more strategic integration of data.
Jelie Julia (II, ADV) shares that after having experienced both platforms, Canvas was more favorable. “I’ve used Sakai before for my [Educational Technology] class and comparing it to Canvas, I think the latter is more well-developed. I also commend the accessibility that Canvas offers since it also has an app that students can download. Although both of these platforms have the same intent, I think Canvas has better performance in terms of organization, efficiency, and aesthetic,” she elaborates.
Ron* came into DLSU without ever having experienced using Sakai. In place of it, he says that his classes opted to use Facebook groups or Google Classrooms. Otherwise, they used Canvas. “I believe it (Canvas) is efficient since you can check attendance with it while monitoring what time an assignment was passed and if the student doesn’t pass on time; the assignment locks itself past the due time and the student wouldn’t be able to send it,” he explains.
He acknowledges that there are minor bugs, but stresses that they are compensated by the software’s accessibility. “The only time it was a nuisance when passing papers was integrated with Turnitin—which is used for paper plagiarism checking—and for some reason, I couldn’t access the submission form unless I was in incognito,” he cites.
*Names were changed for anonymity.
