Making the Most of Our Unizin Membership

In December 2014, The Ohio State University joined nine major research universities as a founding member of Unizin. The goal of Unizin is simple; to improve the learning experience by providing an environment built upon collaboration, data, standards, and scale. Unizin currently has 22 member schools representing more than 730,000 students, and membership continues to grow.

Since joining Unizin, Ohio State has collaborated closely with member schools to develop joint projects and share resources. We are driving the direction of Unizin development through membership on the Unizin Board and advisory groups, and have successfully leveraged Unizin resources during our Canvas pilot, Request for Proposals and implementation. Ohio State is involved extensively in Unizin’s work:

•    Ohio State University CIO, Mike Hofherr and ODEE Associate Vice President, Liv Gjestvang, serve on the Unizin board.
•    In early 2016, Ohio State hosted two town forum meetings to present the Unizin roadmap and opportunities for Ohio State. 
•    Four Ohio State staff serve on the Unizin Teaching and Learning Committee, driving collaboration across four key areas: toolset development, affordable and open content, faculty support, and communications.
•    Five Ohio State staff serve on Unizin advisory workgroups, helping direct Unizin’s development toolset production in areas such as code sharing, data stewardship, analytic dashboards and more.
•    Three Ohio State Library representatives attended the Unizin Library Summit, discussing issues regarding LMS content sharing and IP/copyright concerns. 
•    A team of six Ohio State faculty and staff presented about their work at the Unizin Summit, sharing models for Gen Ed content development, faculty textbook production and student savings, and the power of open collaborative systems like Ximera. 
•    Fourteen Ohio State staff and faculty partner in an Ohio State Analytics workgroup, identifying areas of shared need and opportunity in analytics deployment across the university.

Faculty and students at Ohio State will continue to benefit from Unizin membership as our adoption of the Canvas LMS proceeds. We have leveraged both RFP and contracts for Canvas through Unizin, with reduced pricing due to our membership, and are engaging with Unizin data feeds to access important student learning patterns through Canvas.

New information about Unizin activities on our campus, including faculty communities, is forthcoming. To learn more about Ohio State Unizin events, or the benefits of Canvas adoption as a Unizin member, email Unizin@osu.edu.