Ocotillo Position Paper 2002-2003: Learning Management Systems

What is a Learning Management System (LMS)?

A Learning Management System (LMS) is the infrastructure on which e-learning can be built and delivered. It is an applications software package that contains instructional materials, and manages, tracks and deploys all learning across the extended enterprise.

Within a higher education environment, the LMS usually focuses on the support and integration of teaching and learning. Specific functions include: Course Development, Content Management, Course/Curriculum Management, Course Delivery, Assessment/Skills-Gap Analysis (pre, ongoing, self, etc.), Communication (individual and group), Tracking/Reporting (across a degree or program or department, participation), Tutor Support, Skills and Records Management, Student Interfaces to all components of the LMS, Administration Processes/Requirements/Registration, etc. Conceivably, an institution can easily deploy thousands of distinct e-learning offerings, hybrid courses, and instructor-led classes and manage them all from one place, the LMS.

Expected Benefits of a LMS

Depending on your perspective, a LMS should provide the following benefits:

From the Administrator perspective, a LMS should:

Allow the institution to serve a greater number of students
Improve student performance tracking
Increase student retention
Increase the opportunity for additional tuition dollars
Increase administrative efficiency and decrease expenses
Shorten the ROI payback timeframe

From the Faculty perspective, a LMS should:

Increase the efficiency and effectiveness of course/content management efforts
Improve assessment capability
Increase assessment opportunities
Decrease course preparation time
Improve content availability
Improve content sharing within the course, among instructors, and across disciplines
Improve intraclass and interclass communications
Increase overall productivity of faculty

From the Student perspective, a LMS should:

Enhance the personalized nature of the learning experience
Provide additional, timely, convenient academic support
Provide personalized academic support opportunities
Increase course completion opportunity/capability
Improve overall learning

From the IT Professional perspective, a LMS should:

Be scalable and reliable in terms of performance
Promote standards compliance, quality control, and integration across product and vendors
Allow for easy campus-wide deployment and management
Increase IT operational efficiency

Evaluation Criteria for LMS

The degree to which an LMS will successfully meet an institution's teaching and learning needs depends on the following:

Instructional competence. The system should be built on a strong pedagogical foundation. The system should promote successful interactions between learners and content and among learners, instructors, and content. The LMS should provide extensive support for content management and content delivery.
Ease of use. The system must be highly intuitive. Access, delivery, and presentation of learning materials must be transparent. The learning experience must be automated and personalized to the needs of the individual learner.
Scalability. The infrastructure must scale easily and incrementally to meet growth in both increased instruction capacity/bandwidth and user volume.
Administrative capability. The LMS includes registration, tracking, curriculum management, and feedback mechanisms.
Service and vendor stability. The LMS provider is financially sound and is expected to stay in business long-term. Further, the vendor has a proven track record for superior support after the sale.
Compatibility and interoperability. The system must integrate well with third-party content providers and multiple vendors' hardware/software solutions. The LMS should comply with open industry standards for Web deployments (XML, SOAP or AQ) and support the major learning standards (AICC, SCORM, IMS and IEEE).
Pricing. The level of investment required to purchase a system must be economically feasible and must meet the institution's educational needs.
High availability and product stability. The LMS is based on an infrastructure that can reliably manage a large institutional implementation running 24x7. The LMS is robust enough to simultaneously serve the diverse needs of instructors, learners, and administrators.
Security. The LMS selectively controls access to system assets like content, services, course offerings, learning objects, student records, and so on.

Trends in LMS

The major trend in Learning Management Systems (LMS) is a move from searching for THE ONE commercial-off-the-shelf vendor solution that serves all the needs of the entire institution to finding numerous component solutions that easily integrate. As part of this marketplace shift, reusable learning objects and adherence to learning standards take on even greater importance. For example, compliance with standards for data exchange makes system integration across vendor solutions no only doable, but ultimately maintainable.

What's next? Return to LMS paper or join the online discussion

References

Feldman, Michael. LMS breakdown. (Media Reviews). (learning management system). October 2002. T & D.

Training, August 2002 v39 i8 p16(1). The luster of an LMS. (Top 100 - STS Systems). (learning management system by Thinq Learning Solutions Ltd.) (Statistical Data Included) (Brief Article) Heather Johnson.

T&D, March 2002 v56 i3 p73(4) LCMS, LMS--They're not just acronyms but powerful systems for learning. (E-Learning). (learning content management system) Kevin Oakes.Computerworld, July 16, 2001 p52 Making E-Learning Effective. (Industry Trend or Event) Kym Gilhooly.