The future of the LMS?

[Steve Heindl]

I've been doing some research for a class presentation on LMS's.
Little did I expect the can of worms I was opening by taking on this
subject. These are some issues I've uncovered and I'd love to hear
your take on them- or any other issues you see effecting the future of
LMS's.

1. Buying a bigger and better LMS will not solve your training needs-
rather, identifying specific needs and seeing where the LMS can fit as
a particular solution is the way to go.

2. LMS's despite all the interactive functions (collaboration, IM,
social learning, surveys etc.) are primarily being used to post and
hopefully track formal training.

3. 70% of an employee's work knowledge comes from informal learning
and 30% from formalized organizational training. whereas
70% of an organization's training budget goes to formalized learning .
Can an LMS be used successfully for informal learning and are there
any examples?

4.Most LMS design is primarIly geared for the organizational needs:
(tracking, compliance, security, integration) and not for the learner
(ease of use, customization, personal learning environment).

Comments? Other issues you see effecting the future of the LMS?

[Ryan Meyer]

Amen, amen, amen. Formalized learning is and always will be important, but informal learning is becoming more recognized as a serious need in and of itself. The issue is that companies with a long history of building LMSs to support formal organizational needs, are not necessarily the best equipped to think about the social, informal sharing of knowledge. And the companies that are great at thinking about and building software for informal social experiences are not the most experienced at the more formalized things organizations need to prove value (assessment, compliance, ROI, etc.)

All of the major LMS vendors are currently and furiously trying to bridge those gaps, but none seem to have really nailed it yet. Mzinga, built on the bones of Knowledge Planet (formal, LMS background) and Shared Insights (social, community background), seems to be one of the real leaders in this area, although they've started to shy away from the learning/LMS aspect in their website content.

Good luck, and please share any other information you find (or even the finished paper if possible) with the rest of the group!
-Ryan

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[Estes Ethan]

You might look at Xerceo Learn. They used to be very good at integrating the lms into standard portal platforms so that training becae part of the daily routine. They seem to be moving to cloud solutions now though.

-EÆ

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[dpue...@gmail.com]

I have finish the moodle/elgg integration connector.... Both play well together!

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From: Ryan Meyer <ryan.e...@gmail.com>

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:41:12 -0500

To: <elearning-technolo...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [elearning tech & dev] The future of the LMS?

[Philip Hutchison]

I have to make this short (leaving in a few minutes), but here's my 2 cents:

LMSs as we know them are largely monolithic applications that try and do everything, but wind up doing nothing particularly well. 

Many commercial LMSs suffer from legacy code issues, either from its own legacy code system or from trying to integrate a competing system that has been acquired (the LMS industry has had an astounding number of takeovers).  These same legacy code issues often create accessibility, usability, and compatibility problems -- exactly why LMSs such as SumTotal don't officially support the most modern browsers (Safari 4, Firefox 3.6, Opera, etc.).

Personally, I have yet to use an LMS that 'felt right'.  Closest so far? Desire2Learn. BUT I only played with a demo a few years back and have no long-term experience with it.

Your comments are spot-on, especially regarding informal training. Many LMSs will say that their system operates as a training hub, allowing learners to access both tracked and un-tracked training/documentation, but their clunky UI and the login requirement usually makes this an unattractive option. A static website or blog is a much easier and cost-effective option.

In my opinion, informal learning needs to stay far away from an LMS. You should only use an LMS when you need to store course data and run reports. Even then, new services like the SCORM Cloud (Rustici Software) makes the LMS almost pointless. You can integrate tracked training into a Wordpress blog, a static website, etc.

LMSs are endangered species and must evolve or die.

- philip

[Bob Hess]

My 2 cents:

My Background: I do not get to experience many LMS installations, and
do not have in depth experience with many LMSs. In electronic training
15 years. My in depth experience is with an over modified COTS LMS. I
am a computer programmer/scientist educated in the 70s, Code slinger
until web products took over (visual studio replaced by .net) -
minimal since.

#1 Concur. For historical information, both parts were the actual Army
desire 13-17 years ago when the 'One Army LMS' directive resulted in
an over modified LMS that has been extremely challenging to adopt.

#2 True but unfortunate. LMSs seem to be all about registration. IMHO,
LMSs are a product that has not adapted to the times, but somehow has
survived in spite of that.

#3 Not true with my organization - DoD US Army. I believe formal
training is more significant than informal training, but much formal
training is not part of an LMS, at least not part of the web-based
LMSs. Soldier's authoritative training record is not a web based LMS,
it is a legacy database application(s). Another complication; DoD Army
training and organization is not only Soldiers, Dept Army Civilians
(DACs) are also included.

#4 Concur, much of the failed/failing effort for a single Army LMS is
identified with this statement.

My sermon:
When decision makers realize that metrics and ROI calculations/
calculators do not directly influence productivity, or profitability,
the traditional LMS will have to adapt, become a secondary player or
not be a player at all. Metrics and ROI data is dependent upon
registration and objective measures (stale, formal information).
Innovation, motivation, and creative talent in an organization
translate to productivity and profitability (or success in a
government organization). I have no idea of how this new paradigm
will be weighted/measured or implemented but recognition of the ultra
value in 'just in time' information delivery via web social & search
tools will pave the way.

[Debbie Smith]

Hi Steve,
I know this is late so may not be of any use but here is my 2 cents:

1. The LMS will not solve training needs it is the training that is inside of it that does the real work. The LMS is really just a tracking/delivery system.
2. My personal experience with the three LMS's that I am familiar with Blackboard, UCompass and Moodle, the interactive functions are not very usable. It seems to me that usability has been left out of LMS's completely. I say this as both a student and a designer. As a graduate student in ID I notice that standards as far as usability are not even part of the Master's program. I think that this is a major problem.
   
3. imho... work place learning that the formal learning is much official policy and procedure and  the informal learning is the real life application.  The informal learning is usually something that a company would not want to document because it often is not the way "It should be done"
4. LMS's really are not usable or intuitive nor do they use standards based code which creates even more problems for accessibility.

Smiles,
Debbie