By Samuel Roth
Georgia State students and faculty will have to depart with Desire2Learn, a website name they’ve grown accustomed to, in order to make way for the university’s newest spring 2015 addition— Brightspace.
Desire2Learn will go offline starting Dec. 19 until Dec. 26 while the system is being updated. Once it relaunches it will come back online as Brightspace, according to the website.
A main concern this could potentially raise is the issue of final grades being posted and distributed once the semester ends.
Justin Lonsbury, Manager of Instructional Design and Training for the Center for Instructional Innovation (CII), said the planned dates for when the website will be down will not affect final grades.
“No, final grades will not be affected by the updates to the learning management system. Grades are due by 5 p.m. on Dec. 18,” Lonsbury said. “The learning management system updates will take place on the following day, Dec. 19. Students will receive their grades on schedule.”
Lonsbury also said the change is occurring because Desire2Learn is changing the name of the management system.
“Desire2Learn, [the vendor], has changed the name of the learning management system that they offer from Desire2Learn to Brightspace… Although the name of the company is not [changing],” he said.
CII will be in charge of updating and creating new online information to help make the transition easily to research, according to Lonsbury.
“CII will provide continuity related to the name change by creating web pages that will come up in searches for either “desire2learn” or “brightspace” and by making sure existing web addresses that bring students to the system today will continue to bring students to the system after the name change,” he said.
Chad Marchong, senior systems engineer in support for the campus learning management system, said the change will be easier on all affected by publicizing the name of the change in advanced.
“Keeping the system name used on campus consistent with the name used by the vendor should also make it easier for students and faculty to find support resources that are available from both Georgia State University and other areas of the web for the Brightspace learning management system,” he said.
Marchong also said the updated version of the learning management system will be beneficial.
“A number of [the] system features will receive incremental updates that provide more flexibility. Additionally, the Center for Instructional Innovation will begin supporting faculty in customizing their courses,” he said. “This will allow faculty to better emphasize the areas of their course that they want to draw attention to and will also allow them to personalize the look and feel of courses.”
Georgia State’s Center for Instructional Innovation’s website states that classes already enrolled in will remain the same for students who have already selected their schedules for Spring 2015.
“This will still be the same learning management system you know today, with some cosmetic improvements and added functionality,” the website states.
Along with faculty personalization, changes will include widgets, navigation bars and homepages, according to the Center for Instructional Innovation website.
Lonsbury said the change will not come at any additional price to the school or for the oncoming semester.
“The name change is simply part of an incremental update to the learning management system that is already being provided to students, and therefore there are no cost increases related to this change,” he said.
