Aarhus University

Challenge

Planning For The Future

Aarhus University is Denmark’s second-largest university, with more than 38,000 undergraduate and graduate students attending its campuses in Aarhus, Herning and Emdrup each year. To drive continuous improvements to the learning experience for its students, Aarhus University is investing both in its physical campus locations and its digital tools.  

Alongside this “Campus 2.0” project, which will include extensive renovations, optimisations, and experiments across numerous aspects of campus life, the university also decided to take a fresh look at its learning management system (LMS). 

In the past, relied on a solution to deliver digital course content to students. However, due to the way the platform had been implemented, it was difficult for teachers to ensure that students were progressing through learning activities, provide support to students who needed it, and share detailed feedback on digital assignments. 

AU set out to strengthen communication and collaboration between educators and students, while also paving the way for innovative teaching that combined in- and out-of-class learning. To realize these goals, the university decided to look for a new LMS that would offer greater flexibility around digital course design.

Solution

Selecting A Best-In-Class LMS

After reviewing LMS solutions from several leading vendors, Aarhus University selected Brightspace as the foundation for its new approach to digital learning.  

During the evaluation process, the university was impressed with the user-friendliness of Brightspace. AU saw that the intuitive user interface would make it straightforward for teachers and students alike to get up and running quickly and with minimal training.

In addition, advanced automation ensures that Brightspace is easy to use at scale. Using features such as intelligent agents and release conditions, Aarhus University can trigger actions automatically for individual students. For example, the solution can unlock new content when a student reaches a certain course milestone or send reminder emails if learners have not logged in for a defined period of time. 

Aarhus University was also impressed by D2L’s credentials in the higher education sector. As well as offering a flexible, feature-rich, and easy-to-use solution, D2L demonstrated a strong commitment to helping the university achieve its LMS transformation vision.

Result

Achieving A Seamless Migration

Working together with experts from D2L, Aarhus University has made a smooth transition to Brightspace. Throughout the implementation process, the D2L team worked closely with the university to configure the platform to address the specific needs of stakeholders across its five faculties. 

Aarhus University particularly valued the ability to migrate many of its existing courses from their existing LMS into Brightspace without any manual effort. And in the rare cases where it was not possible to migrate content automatically, D2L set up workshops to share best practices for redesigning courses in the new platform. 

Thanks to its partnership with D2L, Aarhus University is ready to begin the next phase of its transformation journey. The university is confident that Brightspace will enable it to offer innovative digital learning experiences to thousands of students across Denmark—improving engagement and promoting higher attainment.