Tag: evaluation. ultra

Evaluating VLE change

The University of Edinburgh’s Learn Ultra upgrade aimed to enhance the virtual learning environment (VLE) to better support the diverse student body and align with other strategic initiatives and objectives. 

The Learn platform hosts over 6,000 courses with an average of 39,000 daily logins from students engaged in on-campus, online, and hybrid studies. 

The Learn Ultra upgrade project oversaw the successful upgrade of the University’s VLE from Learn Original to Learn Ultra. It focused on improving usability and accessibility based on feedback from students and faculty, aiming to create a more user-friendly and inclusive learning environment. 

This report presents an evaluation of the key decisions made by the central Project Team that have led to the successful delivery of the upgrade project. 

The evaluation combines qualitative and quantitative data sources to provide a comprehensive analysis of the delivery of the Learn Ultra upgrade project: 

  • A campus-wide student survey that gathered responses from 391 undergraduate students on their experiences with Learn Ultra. 
  • Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, including senior stakeholders, learning technologists, teaching office staff, academic colleagues, and relationship managers. 
  • Focus groups with the project’s implementation and user groups. 
  • Profession-specific focus groups with learning technologists, teaching office staff, and academic colleagues. 
  • Secondary analysis of existing data sources, including user experience (UX) data, Early Adopter feedback, training feedback, and internal project reports.  

 The evaluation identifies eight key overarching decisions made by the Project Team that have led to the success delivery: 

  • Upgrading the existing VLE, rather than procuring a new provider. 
  • Treating the upgrade as a Change project. 
  • Implementing a pluralistic governance framework. 
  • Extensive multimodal communications and engagement. 
  • Establishing the Early Adopter Programme. 
  • Creating an extensive training programme. 
  • Focusing on a user-centred upgrade approach. 
  • Enhanced focus on accessibility. 

Additionally, the evaluation identifies three themes that were found to be important to successful local upgrades: 

  • Pro-active local Change approaches and project ownership. 
  • Effective relationship-building and collaboration. 
  • Tailored local training and ongoing support. 

Our evaluation report makes a number of recommendations to the University for future projects. You can read more on our internal Learn Ultra Evaluation (sharepoint.com)