Consistency in LMS sites

ASHLEY: Welcome. We're here today to talk about equity-based practices in education.

I'm here with Angelina Fong, who is an Associate Professor in Anatomy and Physiology, and the Deputy Chair of Learning and Teaching in the School of Biomedical Sciences. Angelina, welcome. Thank you so much for coming today.

ANGELINA: You're welcome, Ash.

ASHLEY: So, before this, we were talking a bit about what practices can make our teaching more accessible or equitable, and we were talking about consistency in the LMS. Can you tell us a little more about that?

ANGELINA: Absolutely. I think when we first started using the LMS, especially this new one, there were these different ways of how it could look. The students got really confused as to where can they find information – how do they access it? And it was just such a mess in terms of their ability to find information and a huge cognitive load every time they engaged with the Canvas pages that some of them just gave us the feedback that this was really, really hard work for them. So, we wanted to do something to improve that for them.

ASHLEY: And what did you end up doing as a response?

ANGELINA: We worked in our team in Physiology, to start with, in coming up with some ideas of how we could make things more consistent from subject to subject, at least subjects that we have management over. We decided that, well, we can start with something fairly simple and just pick one thing that we can make consistent across the board.

ASHLEY: Which was the homepage, wasn't it? The LMS homepage?

ANGELINA: Yeah, absolutely. We decided that if we can make at least their initial experience with the Canvas pages consistent, that would be a really huge starting point and absolutely a great way for them to then feel more engaged and connected across the different subjects as well.

ASHLEY: And it's those key things, isn't it? When you first log in, you want to know where the staff contact is, and you want to know where your assessment information is. Those really big bits of information.

ANGELINA: Yeah, so we thought about, well, what a student wants when they join, when they log onto Canvas and they go to a subject, what are some of the key questions that they might have? And it'll be like, well, who do I contact if I have questions? Where are my subject timetables? When are certain things happening? And that would include their assessments: What are the assessments? When are they? Any information I can get about them? Where are my classes? And then finally: Well, if I am having trouble with some support information, how do I go and find help? Who do I contact? And so on.

ASHLEY: Yeah, those are definitely the Week One sorts of questions you have every semester, aren't they?

ANGELINA: Yeah, absolutely.

ASHLEY: So, did you anticipate – or did you discover – any challenges in implementing this practice?

ANGELINA: I mean, in a way, we were fairly lucky because we had a small team to start with. But even with a small group of individuals, every subject is different, have different requirements, have different types of assessments. And the way we teach is different across different people. And so we figured there is no way that we could have a really rigid structure that applied to everybody, because that will just get pushback, because there'll be people who don't like how this page is set up or how to use modules or whatever it is.

So, we thought, well, let's find a compromise. What can we do? We can at least have just one page. The landing page or homepage has a fairly consistent look and feel across different subjects. There's a little bit of flexibility on that page, but we decided there were those things that we talked about the students really, really want. The students have told us that those are the important information that they want to find. They're non-negotiable. Those are on clear tiles or buttons on the homepage on every subject.

So when [students] log in, regardless of what subject they're going to, they know they can find the information for their subject coordinators or contacts. They know where to find their assessments, they know they can get access to their timetable. And if they need help, they can go and find support.

There is some flexibility after that. There's a few extra tiles that the coordinators can decide what they want to do with those, where they link to lecture information or whatever it is. And they can still put their assignments in whatever format suits them and so on. As long as from that tile, what students know, if I click on this button, it's going to take me to a page or to the module where all my assignments are and where the information is. That was the key thing that we wanted to get across.

So there is still flexibility for the subject coordinators to decide how they want to design things after that page. But at least the first thing that a student sees, in this case, this is the cover. When they go to the cover page for every subject, it looks identical.

ASHLEY: It's funny because it's not something you think of as an equity practice. And yet when I've talked to people who work in Student Equity and Disability Support, it's something that they say students are always asking them for. So I think it's, yeah, it's students with and without disabilities, but I think when you have a disability, it's just that much greater an impact.

ANGELINA: Absolutely, because I think from that point of view, it doesn't hurt anybody in creating something that's simple and easy to navigate. It reduces that cognitive load for everyone, subject coordinators included. Because I know it doesn't matter what subject I look at, I can go and follow the links through to find the pages that I need to embed information.

ASHLEY: That's a really good point, isn't it?

ANGELINA: And when I embed the information, then I still have the choice in how I want to disseminate then share that information. So in my practices now, I'm trying to make sure I put up PDFs, and then next to it, there's an option for whether it's a Word document with the text, or is it a PowerPoint alongside the PDFs. So the students have the choice in how they want to access the information. It's the same thing. It's just different formats.

ASHLEY:  I love that so much, because then students who use assistive technology, they have a good mental map of the page. They can use the PowerPoint. Students who are neurodivergent, we have reduced that executive functioning load, and everyone else benefits as well.

ANGELINA: Exactly.

ASHLEY: It sounds like with a little bit of work to get agreement, it's a really simple change that can make a really big impact. Thanks so much.

ANGELINA: You're welcome, Ash.