We Have the Technology
Synthesis of a listserv discussion

In December, prompted by news of a college that has decided to build its own learning management system (LMS) rather than buy from a commercial provider, the Sloan-C listserv discussed options from several perspectives.

Administratively, institutions find commercial LMSs attractive because vendors promise longevity, stability, reliability, technical support, comprehensive packages for communications, student-and-faculty-friendly design, and compatibility with central data systems for automated integration with records, accounts, and registration. However, administrative drawbacks include costs and a complex selection process for choosing an affordable LMS. For example, eArmyU cited 15 categories with nearly 50 desirable functions as the minimum LMS features. A useful service at http://www.edutools.info/course/
productinfo/index.jsp compares 35 LMSs in 10 categories and 33 features. Yet, although "cost" is a comparison basis, not many LMS providers estimate cost up front. In fact, even as LMS providers busily respond to growing markets, administrators complain about having trained faculty and put courses into LMSs that are increasingly expensive and non-responsive. Switching to a new LMS may be analogous to divorce—an institution that wants to change LMSs faces the significant burdens of retraining faculty and reconstructing courses. In The Ever-Changing Courseware Landscape: Migration Strategies and Lessons Learned, Rob Robinson and Michael Anderson of the University of Texas System TeleCampus advise institutions to expect and to plan ahead for migration to different LMSs.

From the faculty perspective, teaching in a commercially designed LMS is comparable to teaching in a classroom set up for a particular learning style. On campus, if your class is assigned an auditorium style lecture hall when you prefer to teach with round table collaborative groups, you may be able to negotiate a more suitable classroom space. Online, you may have to teach in an environment that is organized in crude paradigm, read-the-notes-and-take-the-quiz with a few communication tools patched on, with inadequate design for linking complex discussions and project presentations. Thus, for faculty, LMSs directly affect pedagogy and control of content.

How do LMSs affect students? "Interactions with course interfaces are a real factor in learning; difficult or negative interactions with interfaces can depress learning," according to the research on learning effectiveness, says Karen Swan. What learning experiences do students have with "packaged" LMSs that barely tap multimedia broadband power, each course manufactured to be much like all others? Does stepping through different content provide the critical thinking, personalization and competencies that help learning thrive?

Organizations like ADL, IMS, CARAT and OKI are developing standards and providing resources to help guarantee the best, evolving and changing systems, to keep costs reasonable, and to enable faculty to access, refine and control content and design. Meanwhile, as more institutions share resources, enabling faculty to create material on the web for all courses, online, face-to-face, and blended, is a wise investment.