Abstract:

The increase in the offer of distance learning courses by Higher Education institutions makes the need to integrate Virtual Learning Environments and Academic Management Systems (VLE-AMS integration) all the more urgent. Some works in literature proposed or described architectures, software models, and other technological solutions to enable integration between these systems. Some solutions propose to meet the strategic requirements of specific institutions. In turn, other studies dedicated to highlighting the possibilities and benefits of VLE-AMS integration, analyze existing integrations, make comparisons between the VLE regarding the integration capacity, and review interoperability standards between existing systems. However, no studies in the literature elucidated how the challenge of VLE-AMS integration has been faced in practice by the institutions, which factors contribute to hinder or prevent an appropriate solution implementation, and what impressions the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) managers have about this issue. This paper describes a study conducted with Brazilian Higher Education institutions to investigate the panorama of VLE-AMS integration through a survey data collection instrument and their responses. Starting from the objective of understanding how those institutions have approached integration in their real contexts, the initial results obtained indicate that the problem of VLE-AMS integration is quite concrete for the institutions' Information and Communication Technology (ICT) teams. Besides, the challenges faced by the teams are not confined to difficulties of a technological nature but extrapolate significantly in administrative, bureaucratic, organizational, and human resources factors present in the HEIs. It was also found that although more than a third of the institutions contacted did not have a VLE-AMS integration solution, the vast majority considered the automation of these processes to be essential for academic management. Among the institutions with an integration solution, more than 90% of them reported that it was necessary to build it on their own. This study expects to expand the attention on VLE-AMS integration by managers and others involved in the teaching-learning process, especially considering the urgency of remote teaching strategies that the world has been experiencing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, that will undoubtedly have a long-term impact. An automated VLE-AMS integration solution allows actors involved in distance or hybrid courses, which should encompass almost all teachers at an educational institution today and in the future, to become exclusively concerned with planning, conducting, and evaluating its courses as the elaboration of educational resources and objects.

Keywords:

Virtual Learning Environments, Academic Management Systems, integration.