PGCC sets the standard for LMS migration and adoption

Prince George’s Community College's contract with Blackboard Learn, its Learning Management System (LMS), was ending in Fall 2022, and the search for a new LMS began. After an extensive survey of faculty, staff, and students about what they needed in a new LMS, the majority landed on Canvas by Instructure due to its usability, more modern system, and superior features.

While the idea of an upgraded system excited faculty, the thought of an extensive migration project worried them. They wouldn’t have time to manually move each course one by one and learn how to navigate a new LMS at the same time.

With just two months to migrate 2,000 courses and archive two years’ worth of course data, the college knew that typical migration methods wouldn’t work. That’s when Instructure introduced PGCC to K16 Solutions. With K16’s help, the college completed its large LMS migration project in only two months and received positive feedback from faculty in the process.

While not all LMS migration projects are the same, PGCC provided its most important tips and suggestions for others embarking on their own LMS transition.

1. Don’t run two LMS platforms concurrently

PGCC’s plan from the start was to transition to Canvas as quickly as possible to minimize the need for using two LMS platforms during the migration process. This decision saved the college from paying the exorbitant costs of running two LMSs simultaneously. Even more importantly, it saved students and staff from the confusion of trying to navigate back and forth between two different systems.

2. Create a realistic timeline that allows time for training

The college also wanted to ensure that the new LMS would be ready for the fall, which meant the team had only two months to complete its migration so that faculty and staff could have time to learn the new system before classes began. PGCC knew how crucial this extra training time would be for faculty to have the most success. This accelerated timeline would not be possible with traditional migration methods, so the institution needed an alternative solution

3. Choose automated migration

An automated migration tool like Scaffold Migration by K16 Solutions was the only viable solution on such a tight timeline. Other options, such as bulk migration, involved a much slower, manual process that would have left courses messy and fragmented in the new LMS.

With Scaffold Migration, PGCC was able to migrate 2,000 courses in just two months. Courses remained intact and organized without any copying and pasting required. This automated migration solution freed up staff’s time to focus on higher-level initiatives and saved all faculty and staff from the stress of a manual migration.

“K16 made an LMS migration project not so scary,” says Nadine W. Edwards, Director of eLearning Services at Prince George. “They moved courses over intact, and staff didn’t have to build stuff from scratch.”

"Working with PGCC was an opportunity that required efficiency and delivery of ready-to-teach courses with minimal impact on faculty and staff,” says Sam Yaghoubi, Senior Vice President of Partnerships at K16 Solutions. “We were able to make the transition from Blackboard to Canvas easily with our automated migration technology."

4. Consider cleaning up unnecessary files

In PGCC’s case, many professors mistakenly uploaded duplicate MP4 files during the chaos of the pandemic. These extra files caused the college’s server costs to go up without warning. The process of going through each file individually would be arduous and slow for the small but mighty team. Luckily, Scaffold Migration gives users the option of choosing which file types to transfer during migration.

“It was as simple as clicking a button and saying, ‘I do not want to transfer files of this type,’” says Edwards. “If you work with K16 and have certain file types you need to clean up, Scaffold Migration is the best!”

Scaffold Migration cut PGCC’s server size by 70%, providing significant cost savings.

5. Provide faculty with support resources

Impact by Instructure was exactly what the PGCC team needed to support faculty during the transition. Impact provided in-line, targeted training to guide them through tasks. Even better, PGCC staff members could contact Impact support with their questions 24/7.

6. Seek faculty approval

The most successful LMS migration project is one that doesn’t disrupt learning but, instead, supports it. At the end of the day, new technology is there to help faculty and students.

PGCC saw overwhelmingly positive faculty feedback during and after the migration project was complete. Many who were initially hesitant to migrate were pleasantly surprised at the speed and ease of the transition.

The institution attributes this success to their open communication throughout the process and the aid of Scaffold Migration and Impact by Instructure.

"I would have gone crazy if I didn’t have Impact and K16. Why make a transition hard when it could be so easy?"

Nadine W. Edwards, Director of eLearning Services at Prince George

7. Migrate archived data from the legacy LMS, too

Many institutions migrate live courses to their destination LMS but continue to pay their legacy LMS for read-only access to aging, archived courses. This storage method does not integrate with the new LMS, making information difficult to access. Not to mention, even read-only access to a platform can cost tens of thousands per month.

With Scaffold Archiving, PGCC was able to archive two years’ worth of courses at a fraction of the cost. All data was integrated with Canvas, meaning users have easy and secure access to the archived content through the literal push of a button.

“This archive solution worked well because it moved student data over too. It provided us a way to still have our backup data and easily access it in case of grade challenges and assessment data,” says Edwards. “Technically, you only have 30 days for a grade challenge, so easy access is a must. You normally don’t think about these issues when you migrate, but it’s so important.”

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This content was paid for and created by K16 Solutions. The editorial staff of The Chronicle had no role in its preparation. Find out more about paid content.