Miami Dade College selects Canvas for new learning management system
Miami Dade College, which serves more than 120,000 students, this week announced it’s selected Instructure’s Canvas as its new learning management system.
In a press release, the company points to the platform’s ability to support a “diverse student population with a fully mobile and accessible solution” as a key feature of the upgrade. The college serves students from 167 nations, speaking 63 languages, according to the institution.
A spokesperson told EdScoop the college’s existing LMS is Blackboard, a top competitor of Canvas.
Melissa Loble, Instructure’s chief customer experience officer also pointed to “platform reliability” as a selling point of the new technology, particularly amid a health crisis in which students have depended on technology as an often indispensable touchpoint for their coursework and professor support.
“Our mission is to change lives through accessible, high-quality teaching and learning experiences, and using Canvas will help us advance that goal,” Malou Harrison, the college’s provost, said in the press release. “Innovation in higher education has accelerated and evolves each day as we serve more minority students than any other college in the U.S. Finding the right learning management tools that can rise to meet that evolution was imperative, and why we selected Canvas LMS.”
Miami Dade College’s upgrade follows news in September that Tanya Acevedo, previously the chief technology officer for Houston’s airport system, had accepted a position as the college’s new chief information officer.
In addition to updating its LMS, Miami Dade is also developing a new strategy that more heavily relies on data to inform operations and implementing a centralized customer relationship management system. Acevedo told EdScoop in October that she hopes to use data to understand what students “truly” want. She also pointed to College President Madeline Pumariega’s goal of centering the institution’s strategy around customer service and innovation.
