Dive Brief:
- The University of North Carolina System is moving to an "app store" model for education technology for its 17 campuses, giving individual campus leaders more autonomy over the technology used at their institutions.
- Saying the traditional learning management systems (LMS) is an "impediment rather than enabler of digital learning," system vice president of learning technology Matthew Rascoff told Campus Technology that faculty should have greater ability to choose and rate the tools they use in their classrooms.
- Rascoff hopes the new model will boost efficiency and provide greater feedback on what works and what doesn't.
Dive Insight:
Increasing ease of access to a number of tech tools is a good way to encourage faculty who have been historically technology-averse, in order to reformat the way they present their courses. If faculty members have a choice in which platform they use, they may be more likely to experiment with one that feels right for their specific needs.
But with increase in choice comes cost, and this approach may be too costly for smaller systems or individual campuses. Instead, CIOs and others involved in technology decisions should solicit greater feedback from faculty and others around the campus in what is the most user-friendly and engaging, rather than making decisions in silos based on budget or promised incentives.