A Design Case of an Enterprise-Wide Learning Management System

Abstract

In this case we describe the in-house design and development of an enterprise learning management system (LMS) at Brigham Young University (BYU). The purpose of the project was to replace a commercially available LMS that was becoming too costly as well as unresponsive to the interests of faculty and other stakeholders. In the case we discuss why administrators made the decision to develop a complex piece of software using university resources instead of relying on other commercially available products. We also describe their goals for the project and how we attempted to meet those goals by designing the new system on a foundation of existing components and by focusing on the most frequently used functions from the previous LMS. A central feature of our discussion is how we and other participants made decisions in a high-stakes environment of multiple stakeholders and a compressed timeline, which had an impact on the emerging design of the product. We also examine some of the challenges that arose among members of the design and development teams during the course of the project as pressure on the team became more intense.