ATHABASCA — Long gone are the days of waiting for the distance education package to arrive with the books and learning materials, now students can access education on any device and in an effort to streamline that process Athabasca University (AU) is working on a new integrated learning environment.
In collaboration with D2L and Ellucian, AU is combining D2L’s learning management system and Ellucian’s student information system to make a more seamless experience for learners around the world right from when they apply to AU to course content, explained Deputy Provost Anne-Marie Scott in an interview last week.
“That's the kind of unique piece of it because yes, these are systems and companies that work with lots of educational institutions, but the reason we're calling it our integrated learning environment is because the systems and the activities that students carry out when they're studying in a university do need to be properly joined up,” said Scott.
Students spend a lot of time navigating the complexities of universities, and sometimes it's not easy, so AU has decided to look at how these programs work together and are doing a major overhaul that is both comprehensive and on a tight schedule.
“Most universities will replace one of these things at a time so, they never really look at the big picture,” she said. “They just sort of take one out and plug another one in; for a better or worse job of plugging it in. So, it's like stepping back and saying, ‘How do we make it less complex to navigate the university?’”
Using staff and students to provide input while working on the project with D2L and Ellucian, AU has just started the process and project to have the new system working and installed by mid-2022.
“We've just signed the contracts with them to move ahead now into implementation, and that implementation will take us at least 18 months and actually, that's quite an aggressive thing to do,” said Scott.
Another part of the overhaul was the recent move to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which stores AU’s digital infrastructure in a cloud, with the intention of delivering seamless content to learners.
“For some really practical reason for our computers, we're in a wildland fire region and all of our students study online and if we lose our digital infrastructure, we lose our university,” she said. “We exist in a digital forum, as far as our students are concerned. So, the biggest piece there is about sustainability and about being able to guarantee a robust delivery of service to our students.”
The changes fit into AU’s mandate of being an open university and accessible to all learners, no matter what their previous learning level is, said Scott. A large part of AU’s student body is made up of people who would not be able to access brick and mortar schools because of physical barriers or family and work obligations.
“We exist to remove barriers to education for people, that's the absolute essence,” said Scott. “That's why we don't have an admission policy. That’s why if you didn’t graduate high school, we’re the university you can come to. So, if that's the point that we start from, that we want to facilitate access to education for as many people as possible, and remove as many barriers to education as possible. Absolutely, our focus is on how do we design courses that support non-traditional learners.”
