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Learning Management System

Instructional Technology

Master of Education

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1) Explain what an LMS is.

2) Differentiate between some types of LMS.

3) Identify and explain some important features, functions and benefits of LMS.

4) Prepare a road map to adopt an LMS for any given institution according to the seven steps proposed by Alvarado (2004). 

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DEFINITION OF LMS

A learning management system is a software application which facilitates a learner’s learning. It can be defined as a software application or web-based

application for organizing online learning services for students, teachers and administrators.

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SAMPLE LMS

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SOME KEY FEATURES OF A ROBUST LMS

• It facilitates Mastery Learning as educators create learning materials for student, track student’s performance, assess and grade the students and analyze students’ performance.• It provides a discussion forum, both between students and teacher and students and students.• It encourages learning community where educators and students learn from one another and other possible sources to become life long learners.

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SOME KEY FEATURES OF A ROBUST LMS (CONTINUED)

• It embeds social learning tools like forums, wikis, chat, blogs…etc.• It facilitates mobile learning as mobile application allows mobile phones to function as a computer. • It must integration various programs in one application.• It guarantee of security for the data shared by students and teachers.• The application must have scalability to cater for the growing needs of users.

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SOME FUNCTIONS OF LMS

• Course Content Delivery• Student Registration and Administration• Training Event Management (i.e., scheduling, tracking)• Curriculum and Certification Management• Skills and Competencies Management• Skill Gap Analysis• Individual Development Plan (IDP)• Reporting• Training Record Management• Courseware Authoring• Resource Management• Virtual Organizations• Performance Management System Integration

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ADVANTAGES OF USING LMS

1) It provides a convenient learning platform which consolidates all the teaching and learning materials and informations in one application. 2) It provides a flexible delivery vehicle for specialized content to targeted audiences, according to the stakeholders needs. 3) It facilitates eLearning courses that have been created in industry standard formats, such as SCORM.  4) It can also facilitate Mobile learning which makes learning more flexible. 

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ADVANTAGES OF USING LMS (CONTINUED)

5) It helps to simplify administrative work of the courses as training administration can be time-consuming and difficult. 6) An LMS to deliver eLearning can eliminate the costs of in-person training, such as travel, hard-copy course materials, instructor pay, and time lost away from work. 7) An LMS allows businesses to collect and analyze learning data for a more complete view of training results.  8) It has social sharing capabilities that increase collaboration among users by promoting communication on course content.

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SELECTING A SUITABLE LMS

There are seven steps proposed by Alvarado (2004) to choose an effective LMS.

Step 1: It is important to decide the learning strategy while deciding the LMS for the institution.  Step 2: A roadmap has to be created or planning has to be done to reach the long term goals to be achieved with the LMS. Step 3: A careful research need to be done about the LMS companies. 

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SELECTING A SUITABLE LMS (CONTINUED)

Step 4: Request for Proposal (REP) has to be prepared.

Step 5: Review the proposal to choose between the LMSs.

Step 6: Schedule meetings for hands-on participation and demonstrations.

Step 7: Finally finalize the selection