Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1739] Re: LMS Comparisons
From: Albert Ip (albert@DLS.au.com)
Date: Tue 29 May 2001 - 03:37:41 MEST
From: "Albert Ip" <albert@DLS.au.com> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:1739] Re: LMS Comparisons Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 11:37:41 +1000
Hi
I was encouraged by several postings after I babbled my frustration of the
lack of proper understanding of the positioning of LMS products in the
pursuit of digital agenda of many institutions.
I said LMS was a necessary evil because
1. most LMS is locked in the narrow view of information shovelling as the
only pedagogical paradigm worthwhile for digital delivery (that's the "evil"
part)
2. whatever, your pedagogical inclination, a teacher/facilitator still need
to manage students. (that's the "necessary" part)
Calling such product LMS (*learning* management) is misleading. I prefer to
call them "student enrolment management system", but I shall still use the
term LMS here.
Let me just recap the issues at hand.
*Comparisons of LMS*
I was frustrated by the outdatedness of many available reviews. Being the
value-adding reseller of WebMentor in Australia and New Zealand, I am of
course angry about the inaccuracy of the information posted by the web sites
cited by Suzanne Skublics. Suzanne, I am not complaining about you. I
understand you are trying to help. I am angry at the lack of responsibility
( and lack of responsiveness too when asked by Avilar to update information)
of web site owner(s). Even taking into account of the outdatedness, the
information was incorrect at the time of posting! (Again, I can't say for
other products, but WebMentor was misrepresented!)
Even for the more recent publication (Brandon-Hall report), it costs $795
(according to Suzanne Skublics in a recent posting). Some found the report
disappointing with comment such as "pseudo-science that lacked a grounded
basis for comparison" (private email).
*What should LMS actually do?*
Many of such comparisons were done without a solid pedagogical underpinning
and purely from a technical point of view. There is nothing wrong with this
view. It is only my personal bias. If we try to understanding LMS as
"student enrollment management system", any comparison pertinent to learning
is inappropriate. The comparison should aim to evaluating the ability of
the system to host different types of pedagogical designs (when such designs
are available for digital delivery). Can we use the LMS to manage learning
using Role play simulation (sorry, my own thing again), case studies,
problem-based learning, goal-based scenario, information-dense learning
envirnoment including exploratory learning .....? I have recently come to
the conclusion that all these different designs would require different
"engines" for scalable creation of courses based on these designs. However,
I do believe that with proper design on the part of LMS (and possibly a push
from the learning technology specification/standards setting communities),
it is possible to integrate these different engines with LMS so that engine
builder needs not spend the additional effort in duplicating the student
enrollment management part. This involves the understanding from the LMS
vendor that they are not everything. It is better for them to do something
right and something scalable than do everything and everything half right.
This discussion group is a good place to let the users (us) articulate what
we want. Hey LMS vendors, listen. I will make sure Avilar listen. :-)
*Authoring tools and interoperability"
The recent catch phrase is of course interoperability. The IMS content
packaging specification is a typical push to create interoperable course
content. A future version of SCORM may also address this issue and these
two specifications may *interoperate*. There are tools, such as LRN from
Microsoft, coursebuilder from Macromedia that can allow subject matter
experts to create courses compatible to these specifications. Again, it is
my belief that if LMS is "student enrollment management system", there is no
need for LMS to pretend LMS is an authoring envirnoment too!
*Is LMS a content management system?*
Content management systems (CMS) would require features such as IP
management and control, version control of content, distributed creation of
content, quality assurance procedures for content and so on. These are
complex systems and there are specialised systems elsewhere for that. Again,
do we want LMS to duplicate all these features and have these features half
right?
*Does the addition conference/chat make LMS a "learning" system?*
I don't think so.You?
The point I want to make in this posting is that we do not have a clear
concept of what a LMS should be.
I propose that it should be a "student enrollment management system", just
that, nothing more and nothing less. As a student enrollment management
system, when a student log in, the system will validate the status of the
student and from that point onwards, forward content from the CMS (which is
based on the current status of the student) and keep updating that status.
For a more pedogogically challenging design, after the validation, content
is forwarded from the pedagogical "engine", again by passing the appropriate
student ID and status to the engine. What do you think?
A real *learning* management system should be a collection (integration) of
many sub-components which are complex systems themselves. I hope I have
started a worthwhile discussion to help us (at least me) better
understanding the issue. (Paul, I look forward to seeing the survey result.)
cheers
Albert
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