Navigate 1.3.1

Navigate 1.3.1
Discussing the LMS and CMS

Learning Management System (LMS)
The following information was found on the iNACOL website http://www.onlineprogramhowto.org/admin/learning-management-systems/

Learning Management System

The Learning Management System (LMS) is the core technology piece for operating an online learning program. The LMS is the set of tools that houses course content and provides the framework for communication between students, teachers, and parents.¹
Other terms are sometimes used instead of Learning Management System such as Course Management System (CMS) and Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Course Management System is an older term and its usage is less common today as it implies basic management of course content, while Learning Management System indicates the system supports the learning process. The term Virtual Learning Environment also implies the support of the learning process but according to Wikipedia², the term VLE is more frequently used to describe systems that support the blended learning environment.

LMS Features

The specific features available will depend on the LMS you choose but the following is a partial list of features found in many learning management systems:

• Ability to organize course content into units or chapters and lessons or individual content items within a unit or chapter. Individual content items might consist of text, graphics, multi-media, animations, and interactive tools.
• Ability to create accounts with different roles and privileges (e.g. student, teacher, mentor, parent, administrator, etc.)
• Ability for teachers to post announcements
• Threaded discussion boards or forums for asynchronous discussions
• Assessment system to allow for online quizzes and exams
• Drop box capability for turning in assignments
• Online grade book
• Integrated email system and/or interface to an external email system
• Wikis, blogs, and other web 2.0 tools
• Functionality to support group and project work
• Functionality to individualize learning by providing customized learning paths (often based on the demonstration of mastery of specific learning objectives) for individuals or groups of students

A LMS also contains a number of administrative features:

• Ability to create user accounts of different roles and enroll these accounts into the proper classes. Many online learning programs will integrate their LMS with a Student Information System (SIS) to manage all or portions of these administrative processes.
• Ability to run a variety of reports such as how frequently students are logging in, how long they are spending on specific tasks, course rosters, and student progress information. If you choose to integrate your LMS with a SIS sometimes the reporting functions will be split between the LMS and SIS.
• Ability to create course shells and manage the content for the course shells. Some online learning programs utilize a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) to manage the course content. The LCMS may be part of the LMS product or it may be a separate product that has been integrated with your LMS.

Selecting a LMS

There are two basic options when selecting a LMS for your program:

• License a LMS from a commercial vendor. When selecting this option, in addition to licensing the software, the company will have options for training and support and often will provide hosting options.
• Utilize an open source LMS product such as Moodle or Sakai. The following page describes some of the trade-offs between choosing Vendor vs. Open Source solution.

Selecting your LMS is an important decision. While programs may change from one LMS to another over time, there is significant transition effort, so typically this change is not made very frequently. In addition, to the above choice of vendor solution, open source solution, or develop your own LMS, the following are some questions to consider as you make your LMS selection:

• Do you want to have someone else host your LMS or will you use your own servers? While the answer to this question may not narrow down your choice since most LMS products support both options, it is an important decision for your overall program operation. While it is more expensive to choose a hosted option, there are many costs associated with operating your own servers, especially if it is necessary to provide 24/7 availability. In the end, the answer comes down to, does it makes more sense for your organization to spend the extra money for hosting services or to use this money towards Information Technology (IT) infrastructure?
• What LMS features are mandatory? Which ones are highly desirable and which ones are simply nice to have? Each LMS product has its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to features, so understanding which features are most important to you will assist in evaluating specific products.
• What are your plans for managing your content? If you plan to utilize LCMS functionality, do you want your LMS to provide these features or do you plan to utilize a separate system that must be integrated with your LMS?
• Will you be developing your own content? If so, what features will you require in your LMS (or LCMS) for content development?
• Will you be licensing third-party content? If so, will this content work with your LMS (or LCMS)? The platform vs. content selection can sometimes be a “chicken or the egg” question. Some programs choose the platform first and then only select content that will run on that platform, while other programs choose the content first and then limit their selection of platforms that will host the selected content. Yet other programs attempt to make these decisions simultaneously.
• What are your plans for a SIS? Do you have an existing SIS that you must integrate with your LMS? Even if you don’t have an existing SIS, the LMS and SIS will require integration which should be kept in mind as you choose each of these systems.
• If choosing a vendor solution, what other services does the vendor provide? Depending on the importance of these other services, this may have a big impact on your decision.

References for footnotes can be found on the resources page or click on the footnote number for a direct link.

Course Management System (CMS)

The following information was found on http://www.inacol.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/iNACOL_DefinitionsProject.pdf

Course Management System (CMS)

– The technology platform through which online courses are

offered. A CMS includes software for the creation and editing of course content, communication

tools, assessment tools, and other features designed to enhance access and ease of use.”

(Watson &

Kalmon, 2005, p. 120)

See “Learning Management System”

Learning Content Management System

A Learning Content Management System (LCMS) provides the flexibility to have your online content organized in ways other than a traditional online course. While not all online learning programs utilize a LCMS, the added functionality is very powerful.
In order to understand the reasons why your program may want to use a LCMS, we have to introduce a few additional terms which are defined in the glossary. The first term is a learning object which is basically a piece of digital content. It might be an entire content item from an online course or it might be a smaller piece of content such as a picture, video clip, or audio clip. The second term is digital content repository which is an online place to store objects (in this case learning objects) so that they may be shared (between different courses, with other people, other organizations, etc.) The final term is Learning Object Repository or LOR. While it may sound like LOR is just a specific type of digital content repository, a LOR also has various administrative and management features related to a Learning Management System. Sometimes the terms LOR and LCMS are used interchangeably. For simplicity we will use the term LCMS but be aware that some vendors will use the term LOR instead.
The basic idea behind a LCMS is that your online content is no longer managed directly by your LMS, but instead by the LCMS. So what is the significance of this change? When content is managed by a LMS, the content is associated with a specific course and a specific unit and content item within that course. If another course wants to use this same content, it can be copied into the other course (with appropriate privileges) but if an update is made in one course, that change isn’t automatically made in the other course. Similarly if you have multiple instances of a course (e.g. you have more than one teacher teaching the course to separate groups of students), each course also has its own copy of the content all of which would need to be updated independently.
When content is managed by a LCMS, the content is not associated with any specific course, but instead is located in the digital content repository of the LCMS which can be thought of as a database of learning objects. With this setup, the content in an online course is made up of individual learning objects from the LCMS. If more than one course is using the same learning object or if multiple course instances exist, they are all accessing the same learning object from the LCMS. If the content needs to be updated, the change can occur automatically for all courses³. Thus the management of content with a LCMS provides an important benefit of being able to share and re-use content. Administrative features of a LCMS control exactly how learning objects are shared. Depending on the LCMS selected, there may be the capability to keep specific learning objects private (not shared at all), shared with a specific group of people (perhaps a department), shared within your school, shared within your district, or perhaps even shared with other organizations.
Another important component of a LCMS is the ability to use meta-data to describe each learning object. For example, a LCMS might have meta-data fields for description (i.e. brief description of the learning object), language (e.g. English, Spanish, Mandarin, etc.), grade level, and subject area (e.g. math, science, language arts, etc.). Once the learning objects are tagged with the meta-data the LCMS will allow users to search for learning objects that meet certain criteria. For example, with the meta-data fields just described, a query could be constructed to find all the high school language arts learning objects that are in English and have Shakespeare in the description. Typically a LCMS will have support for required meta-data fields (fields that have to be completed in order to place a learning object into the repository) and optional meta-data fields.
As stated earlier, the terms LCMS and LOR are often used interchangeably. However, there are some differences in how the terms are often used. More often the term LOR is used to describe a part of a LMS product. Frequently it is an optional part of a vendor’s LMS product and there are additional costs to include the LOR functionality. Since the LOR is part of the LMS, it has already been integrated into the LMS. On the other hand, the term LCMS is more frequently used to describe a stand-alone product that in some cases is used without a LMS. However, most online learning programs would require the LMS functionality and thus the two systems would need to be integrated. Many commercial LCMS vendors have already integrated their products with various LMS solutions. Because a LCMS can operate independently of a LMS, they tend to contain content authoring features while a LOR will more typically rely on the content authoring features built-in to the LMS.
Having a LCMS as part of your administrative systems clearly provides a lot of additional functionality. However, it also introduces additional complexity and management responsibilities. The LCMS functionality tends to have more value to larger organizations or larger programs. It isn’t unusual for an online learning program to not include a LCMS initially and then add LCMS functionality at a later time.

A complete LMS would be needed when first starting an on line school.