The problem this fixes.
The LMS was stood up two platform generations ago. The course architecture doesn't match how the team actually designs learning. The SIS connection breaks twice a year and nobody knows why. Learner data is split across three systems. The person who built it left eighteen months ago.
At Yorkville I built one learning-technology stack for a university and three private colleges, with Moodle carrying online learning. On M.L. Campbell’s LearnDash platform, active-learner attendance grew by an order of magnitude after a full rebuild, at a fraction of the cost of the proprietary system it replaced. The M.L. Campbell case study sets out what was rebuilt, over what timeframe, and what those numbers do and do not mean.
What this work changes.
An LMS your team can administer and your IT department can support, not a system that only one person understands. Learner data that reaches the SIS reliably and doesn’t require a manual fix twice a year. Course architecture that matches how your curriculum is actually designed, not how it was easiest to build at the time.
What I build.
LMS architecture, builds, and migrations
Builds, integrations, and migrations on Moodle, Brightspace, Canvas, and LearnDash, shaped to your learner count, role structure, and access model. Course architecture, group management, prerequisite logic, certificate systems, and the progress tracking that works under load. If you are scoping a build, the eLearning development time calculator gives a defensible starting figure for hours and cost.
SIS integration
Student information system connections that stay connected: enrollment sync, learner provisioning, and progress reporting back to the SIS. Built with the idempotency that makes these integrations reliable rather than fragile.
Curriculum development
Online course design, course shells, assessments, and instructor-facing materials built to measurable learning outcomes. The instructional design work, not just the platform the content sits on.
xAPI / SCORM reporting
xAPI (Tin Can) and SCORM integration for institutions with external reporting requirements. LRS configuration, completion data to your SIS or reporting systems, and the troubleshooting that keeps these connections from silently breaking.
LMS diagnostic review
Seven-day diagnostic of your current LMS architecture. What's fragile, what's misaligned with how learners move through the system, and what the right next steps are. Written report and a 60-minute debrief call. Fee applies toward implementation if you proceed within 90 days.
Organizations I've built for.
- Yorkville University: as Director of Technology at Yorkville University, I built one learning-technology stack for the university (New Brunswick) and three Ontario private colleges (Toronto Film School, RCC Institute of Technology, Academy of Design Toronto), with Moodle for online learning. How the stack was built.
- M.L. Campbell / Sherwin-Williams: distributor training platform (WordPress and LearnDash) for a national sales network. Active-learner attendance grew by an order of magnitude over the platform’s life. Case study.
- Le Château: Moodle-driven staff training for a national retail operation (2016–2020)
Who this is for.
Learning technology leads, teaching and learning centres, and IT teams at colleges, universities, and public institutions, whether you run Moodle, Brightspace, Canvas, or LearnDash, or are deciding between them. If your current LMS is two generations old, held together by a contractor who’s no longer around, or disconnected from your student information system, the problems are fixable and the fix is usually architectural.
If you’re running online programs, a continuing education catalogue, or a professional development platform, the work starts with understanding what your learners need to be able to do, and builds backward from there.
For organizations that also operate an editorial publishing platform alongside the LMS: academic journals, association content hubs, corporate newsrooms. The publishing infrastructure service covers the content platform layer.
If you need instructional design rather than a platform build, that’s available as a standalone service. Ask in the call.
How engagements work.
The call covers what exists: the LMS configuration, the learner base, the student information system it needs to connect to, and what’s been failing. If you’ve had a contractor who built the platform and is no longer available, or a system that works but nobody fully understands, that’s the starting point, not a problem.
Scoping produces a fixed-price brief with deliverables defined before the engagement starts. Architecture decisions are documented in plain language so your teaching team and IT department both understand what was built. No black-box implementations that only the consultant can maintain.
Where the work includes instructional design alongside the technical build, curriculum and platform architecture happen together, not in sequence. The platform should match how your instructors want to teach, not the other way around.
Questions.
- Does the engagement include instructional design as well as the technical build?
Yes, instructional design is included. Curriculum architecture and platform configuration happen together, not in sequence, because the platform needs to match how your instructors want to teach. My MA in Learning and Technology, in progress at Royal Roads, grounds that ID work; the engineering makes the platform function.
- Can you integrate with our student information system?
Yes. Integration work, including student information systems, is part of most builds; the M.L. Campbell engagement integrated the LearnDash platform with their distributor and sales management systems. The approach depends on what your system exposes (REST API, CSV export, webhook, or file-based) and what the platform needs to consume.
- Which LMS platforms do you work with?
Moodle, Brightspace, Canvas, and LearnDash. My track record is on two of them: Moodle, from the Yorkville stack and Le Château’s staff training, and LearnDash, from the M.L. Campbell platform. I haven’t yet shipped a Brightspace or Canvas project. The integration and architecture work carries over, and in scoping I’ll tell you plainly where it doesn’t. If you're evaluating platforms, the call starts with what your learners need to do and works back to which platform fits best.
- How does pricing work for LMS builds?
Fixed-price after a scoping call. The call surfaces what exists, what the learner base needs, and what integration requirements look like. From there, the engagement is scoped with defined deliverables and a price set before work starts.
How this connects to the rest of the system
- A newsroom and an LMS are the same infrastructure problem wearing different clothes, both content systems built to outlast the team that set them up, which is why the publishing work and the learning work share an architecture.
- A course nobody can find teaches nobody, so discoverability is part of the platform itself, and that is what Technical SEO builds in.
- If AI is grading, recommending, or tutoring inside the platform, that use needs to be auditable before it goes anywhere near a learner, which is the accountability layer AI Operations puts in place.
What I do not take on: curriculum development without access to a subject-matter expert, or course builds where the only goal is a completion record rather than learning. If the design starts from a checkbox rather than a learning outcome, that is outside the kind of work I do well.