With the support of deans and senior leadership, EdTech Governance members will be collaborating with faculty, staff, and students to define an EdTech strategy that will provide guidance on funding decisions for educational technologies going forward. This strategy will include how to address duplication of these technologies across campus. Duplication increases costs, either for the institution or for students who are charged additional fees and is frequently mentioned by students as something that harms their educational experience.
Until the strategy is defined, these LEARN integration guidelines will be followed by support staff. The guidelines align with the supported direction to address EdTech duplication while recognizing that there are unique situations that a centrally supported tool will not satisfy.
Requests should be submitted at least 2 months in advance.
Step 1: Integration request received
When a request is received to enable an integration between LEARN and a non-centrally supported tool, the requestor must demonstrate the use case that their tool meets, and centrally supported tools do not. Personal preferences, such as user interface, will not be accepted as valid use cases. The tool must perform a required pedagogical function that the centrally supported tools do not. Due to regular improvements to EdTech functionality, this step will be required regardless of whether the requested tool has an existing integration.
Step 2: Check for security and privacy risks
If a valid use case is demonstrated in Step 1, the requested tool must pass an information risk assessment (IRA) before it can be integrated with LEARN. With the speed in which technology changes, such as genAI, this may also include a review and approval of the requested tool’s terms and conditions with Procurement to ensure privacy and intellectual property protection.
Step 3: Decision
If the requested tool does not pass Steps 1 and 2, no integration to LEARN will be configured or enabled. Functionality and technology changes within tools, such as introduction of genAI, can change how the tool is used. For this reason, it is possible that a tool that was previously integrated with LEARN can no longer be integrated, unless changes are made to address the issues found in step 2.
If the requested tool passes Steps 1 and 2, ITMS will configure or enable the LEARN integration. When an integration is configured or an issue arises with an existing configuration, the requestor will be responsible for all testing to verify the integration is working properly (e.g. passing grades to LEARN). ITMS will only be responsible for the configuration and ensuring the authentication credentials are passed properly to access the requested tool.
Support for centrally supported tools is the priority. When support staff capacity is restricted, responses to requests and issues with integrations to non-centrally supported tools may take longer to respond to.