Course Management Systems (CMS) have been an integral part of higher education teaching and learning since the late 1990s. The rise of the CMS provided the promise of efficient classroom management, where resources could easily be distributed and a slew of additional online resources would ease the burden of classroom management. The CMS has been a great success in universities and colleges worldwide. Research has been conducted on CMS effectiveness and usage. However, much of that research has been dedicated to understanding Early and Middle Adopters of the technology, ignoring Late Adopters. Since the late 1990s the CMS has gone relatively unchanged, allowing for the saturation of a user base of higher education instructors. In 2011, the promise of a transformation in higher education technology, including the CMS, began. New systems are being built and distributed at a rapid pace. Research has documented how Early Adopters will interact with these systems; little is known about the impact on Late Adopters.

This research project sought to better understand the current adopters of an established CMS in a higher education institution, why and how these users adopt and interact with the system, and how they interact with the system over their first session of instruction. Analyzed were the usage traits of sixteen apparent Late Adopters of an established CMS via survey, interview and course site analysis. Findings suggest that not all new users of an established CMS have traits of Everett Rogers' description of Late Adopters, users have similar traits and tactics during their first quarter of instruction, most users are influenced and rely on non-educational technologies for assistance, and these users were not an additional strain on support services.