Assessing Learning Management Systems
John Hall,
Chief Learning Officer,
Jan 10, 2003
This article examines some key issues "critical to the function of any enterprise management system." They are: high availability, scalability, usability, interoperability, stability, and security. It's not a bad list, but it's not a great one. Take high availability: "The LMS must be robust enough to serve the diverse needs of thousands of learners, administrators, content builders and instructors simultaneously." Sounds good, but what it means is that the tool your instructors are using supports all the functions administrators and students need, functions that may never be used by an instructor. Is this good value for money? Scalability also sounds good: but the key question is whether it scales by making a big system bigger (bad) or by multiplying instances of simple services (good)? Interoperability: good if you want to interoperate, a useless pile of overhead otherwise. And some key issues are overlooked. Vendor lock-in, for example. Could you switch systems in a couple of years without losing everything or facing a major expense? And what if the LMS company goes out of business? Unless you have purchased an open source system that you can maintain yourself, you have been saddled with a huge, ugly and obsolete system throughout your enterprise. In summary, the list offered in this article is a vendors' list: it's what vendors want you to watch for. But you are much better off watching out for your own interests.
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