Edvance360

a lot

We are a small rural School of Nursing with approximately 60-70 students. Today's student population is technologically oriented, and we needed a way to best meet their needs. Approximately 7 years ago we embarked on a journey to find a Learning Management System. We found most of the systems were designed for larger schools and had a cost that was well beyond our reach. I was attending a nursing seminar when I first met a representative from Edvance360. After hearing about the product, I set up a demonstration webinar. All of our Faculty members attended and were immediately impressed by the ease of use and the training and support that was available. At that time, several of our experienced faculty members were not as computer literate as others, so we needed a product all could use. We purchased and implemented Edvance360 with many positive responses from students. Initially we limited the use of some of the features to insure equality for all faculty implementing the technology. Over the following year we expanded the number of features we utilized; this slower introduction to features allowed all faculty to learn and master each feature regardless of their individual computer skills. It did not take long for all faculty to become comfortable with using the product. The system is extremely easy to use and implement. Students and faculty both love the enhanced communication between faculty and users via internal emails, discussion posts, and wikis. Lessons organize the material being presented and empower students to come to class well-prepared. Students appreciate having all course resources available in one location where they can access materials from any computer. Faculty appreciate the survey tools where responses are tallied automatically allowing instant access to results. This provides opportunity for immediate changes if needed before the next semester begins. I cannot say enough good things about Edvance360. The technological support, instant responses to any Help Desk questions, and affordable cost makes this the optimal solution for those wishing to incorporate a high quality web-based Learning Management System in a smaller school!

Our experience was excellent up until the signing of the contract. As soon as Edvance360 received payment, the relationship quickly soured.

In our opinion, the product they delivered was substandard to the product that was demonstrated during the vendor selection process. If you are looking for an LMS that is SCORM compliant, realize that Edvance360 supports SCORM version 1.2, which is extremely outdated -- the company apparently has no intention of upgrading to the latest version of SCORM.

As the administrator and user of this LMS, I found the functionality to be cumbersome and not nearly as intuitive as advertised. The learning curve is very steep, and some of the fields cannot be modified/edited by the administrator, even though we were told that "all fields are editable". This lack of functionality was not only disappointing, it adversely affected our business model.

From the onset, we felt the "implementation" team never really took the time to understand our business or partner with us in any way to resolve some of the issues we encountered. The Edvance360 management team gave us the impression they didn't care about our company or our goals. Perhaps they didn't value us as client because we are a small startup.

We ended up switching to a different platform and delivery system within the first few months of the contract. We submitted a request for a partial refund, but it was denied by the owner.