Online Education: Emerging Trends in University Learning Management Systems

Transitioning from one online learning management system (LMS) to another is an extraordinarily time-consuming and challenging process for universities. Yet many institutions have taken this step in recent years as platforms continually innovate and tweak their value propositions to compete for clients. Most recently, the City University of New York and Missouri State University have announced plans to switch from Blackboard to D2L Brightspace. The LMS industry was long dominated by Blackboard, though in 2019, Canvas overtook Blackboard as the LMS with the greatest market share. Based on Higher-ed-lms-market-for-us-and-canada-year-end-2022-edition/#:~:text=For%20North%20America%2C%20Canvas%20has,our%20LMS%20Market%20Analysis%20service.” target=”_blank”>enrollment numbers, Canvas owns 44% of the market, followed by Blackboard at 21%, D2L Brightspace at 17%, and Moodle at 9%. However, these percentages can be deceiving because Canvas and Moodle offer free versions, which naturally boosts their enrollments. Perhaps a better gauge of the robustness of each LMS is its number of employees: Blackboard has about 2,404 employees, followed by D2L Brightspace with 1,040, Canvas with 459, and Moodle with 329. While Blackboard and Moodle have declined in market share in recent years, Canvas and Brightspace have seen significant and modest increases, respectively.

Phil Hill, an educational technology consultant, considers some of the trends that he sees in what colleges are currently seeking in LMSs: “For the past dozen years, the defining features of academic LMSs have been intuitive design, cloud hosting & scalability, and open integrations to third-party apps. Those trends remain, but what is emerging is a need for LMSs that make it easier for institutions to go beyond the for-credit course dictated by strict academic term definitions. In other words, support for non-matriculated students in noncredit and feeder programs, courses that can start multiple times per term and adjust length based on learner needs, smooth registration and payments, and an open course catalog.” This observation is in line with increasing enrollment in and demand for certificate programs. “A longer-term trend,” Hill adds, “has been the increase in mastery learning and competency-based education offerings.”

With college enrollments on the decline, the ability of an LMS to aid in student tracking and retention can be crucial. This might mean built-in “early-alert systems, whether AI-based…” or “visualization-based,” whereby “LMSs can make it more apparent, at an earlier date, that instructors and advisors need to reach out to specific students. And increasingly, the LMSs have CRM-type features to make…segmented communication easier,” Hill states.

Colleges must consider the needs and preferences of their population of online learners in selecting an LMS. Voice of the Online Learner, a 2022 survey from Market Insights by Wiley, finds that online learners require mobile-friendly LMSs, with current and recently-graduated students reporting that they did 43% of coursework on their smartphone or tablet. The same survey found that 69% of online learners would prefer an asynchronous format, as well as to be able to complete work “at their own pace rather than having a lockstep cohort program.” Yet 79% of online learners were “open to some form of synchronous online learning.”

The following are some of the key strengths and weaknesses of leading LMSs:

• Canvas: Canvas offers a free and open-source version in addition to its paid version, though as this comparison chart shows, the free version is lacking most of the features and functionalities of the paid version, such as quizzes and templates. Canvas also offers third party authentication with most apps, as well as external tools/Learning Tool Interoperability options, so that, for example, students can select Google Drive files from within a Canvas assignment submission window. Canvas is extremely credential-friendly; Jennifer Durant, the Director of Public Relations at Canvas’s parent company, Instructure, notes that “Canvas Credentials supports colleges’ efforts to deliver non-degree programs and micro-credentials for non-traditional students and lifelong learners.” Where Canvas is lacking is that it may be easy for students to get lost in the interface, and the communication tools are not as granular in terms of tracking student progress as they are in Brightspace.
• Blackboard: Blackboard has a relatively simple and understandable interface, although some users may find it a bit clunky. Blackboard offers some third-party integrations, though not as many as Canvas. Blackboard has a lot of administrative tools, such as a date management tool, though it doesn’t allow faculty to communicate with and track students in as granular and individualized a way as Brightspace. Blackboard also lacks built-in non-credit and credential course offering functions.
• D2L Brightspace: Brightspace gives faculty the ability to give each student individually targeted information. For example, students can select an oral versus a written option for an assignment, and then they will only see the instructions for the format they selected. Brightspace also has visually appealing and informative student tracking tools, including the ability to instant message students, or automatically send out performance-based messages. Like Canvas, Brightspace has built-in functionality for Higher-education/continuing-education/” target=”_blank”>non-credit and credential course offerings, including the ability of students to enroll and pay through the site. In terms of its weaknesses, faculty using Brightspace might find themselves having to spend more time clicking through different options, and reviews frequently complain about difficulty altering grade columns. Also, because Brightspace is a small company compared to Blackboard, it may take longer for bugs to be fixed.
• Moodle: Similar to Canvas, Moodle’s software is free and open-source, with additional paid features. Moodle has an easy to navigate interface. It offers tracking tools to monitor student engagement and performance, including how much time students spend on an activity (when activities are built into the course). Like Canvas, Moodle offers a wide variety of plugins (including close to 2,000 open-source plugins) and integrations with other software. Moodle can work well for non-credit courses, and users can pay upon enrolling through PayPal. However, Moodle, with its small number of employees, offers less robust technical assistance and support, and it isn’t really designed with large institutions in mind the way that Blackboard is, so Moodle may be better suited for small colleges. While Moodle does have accessibility standards, admins would have to be very careful to vet any plugins or interfaces for accessibility. This of course applies to the other LMSs as well.

Overall, on Capterra, a monetized software review site, all of the above LMSs are quite close in their review scores, with Canvas receiving 4.5 out of 5, Moodle 4.3, Brightspace 4.3, and Blackboard 4.1. Ultimately, then, colleges must weigh their institutions’ unique needs and goals against the offerings of each platform. In their current iterations, Brightspace offers the ability to tailor content and communications to each student; Blackboard has well-supported and time-tested tools, including efficient administrative tools; Canvas supports efficient grading/progress tracking processes and non-credit offerings; and Moodle is extraordinarily flexible in its integrations and plugins, though it is not ideal in supporting large institutions.

In terms of what the future holds for LMS development, both Phil Hill and Jennifer Durant hint at the use of AI, with Durant stating that “AI tools can be used to support teacher efficacy, efficiency, and student success.”