All the Ducks kicks a big goal for the University of Newcastle
About two and half years ago, All the Ducks started on a project with the University of Newcastle. The university had been using a piece of middleware that enabled the single point management of course creation, student and staff enrolment and more in their Blackboard environment. The university was migrating its LMS from Blackboard to Canvas and the vendor of the original product had advised that he would no longer be providing support beyond December 2022. All the Ducks was engaged to scope a like-for-like replacement.
On looking into the system, the Ducks proposed a different way of addressing Newcastle’s requirements. The proposal was accepted and a detailed business analysis was undertaken to scope out the new system. This became the basis of the project design. As timelines were short, a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) was agreed with the 'parked' features to be delivered after the MVP went live in early 2023. The complete version (MVP and enhancements) was commissioned at the end of October 2023, slightly ahead of schedule.
The university is very happy with the solution. The staff in Learning Design and Teaching Innovation have been delivered enhanced functionality from a system that is hosted as Software as a Service, with all its inherent stability, running code that utilises a state of the art technology stack.
As All the Ducks is an innovative digital transformation consultancy providing development services to enhance and transform existing core environments or replace legacy environments to address future requirements in the university sector, we were well positioned to capitalise on our skills to deliver this project successfully.
Testimonials from the University of Newcastle:
We developed a great partnership with All the Ducks to design and build a course management system. It was a pleasure working with All The Ducks who consistently demonstrated their commitment to quality, reliability, honest communication, and delivered a solution that perfectly balanced usability with functionality and exceeded expectations.
Kirsten McCann, Service Delivery Manager, Digital Technology Solutions
I am delighted to provide this testimonial about our positive experience working with All the Ducks.
As part of our move to Canvas in 2021, we needed to redesign the management of course sites. This introduced new challenges for how to handle different processes and workflows when creating courses in the LMS. As part of this redesign process, knowing their experience working within the Higher Education sector, we sought the support of All the Ducks.
In the initial design phase, we developed a concept that would provide our Canvas administrators with a more modern, intuitive interface to create, manage, and copy course sites. Our academic staff also use the system to manage staff and publish courses when they are ready. By delivering a MVP, followed by iterative design phases we were able to use the system while testing new and improved features. This allowed us to refine the system as the project progressed.
The team from ATD remained in regular contact throughout the project to discuss challenges and refine the design. We met with the team on a regular basis and they were highly responsive to our input and suggestions.
Although we produced a number of resources to support staff with the change, early indications were that the tool was very intuitive to use with one academic commenting that it was all very straightforward and there was no need for the documentation. We are very happy with the end product and the project met our expectations.
Following the successful rollout of our new system, we have no hesitation in recommending All the Ducks.
Tammy Robinson, Manager, Learning Technologies, Learning Design and Teaching Innovation