LMSs

Moodle logo (Source: moodle.org/logo/)

LMSs, or learning management systems, are also known as CMSs (course management systems) or VLEs (virtual learning environments). They sit on the borderline between web 1.0 and web 2.0: on the one hand, they can be used for information transmission (for example through the dissemination of lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, and instructional videos) and behaviourism (through quizzes and mini-tests); on the other hand, they can be used for communication and interaction (through inbuilt discussion boards, blogs or wikis) and sharing and discussion of students’ creations (such as podcasts or videos which may be uploaded as attachments or simply linked to when hosted on external platforms).

Over time, LMSs have come to incorporate more web 2.0-style functionality (hence the inclusion of discussion boards, blogs and wikis), and there have been attempts to increase the level of personalisation of learning with the introduction of PLE and e-portfolio functionality. Additionally, LMSs now incorporate videoconferencing technology, allowing teachers to set up virtual synchronous lessons, which became important for remote learning during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Today’s considerable interest in the incorporation of learning analytics into LMSs heralds a move in a web 3.0 direction, with some automated personal learning support gradually becoming available to students on a needs basis (in the best cases through open learner dashboards), and with lecturers or teachers being alerted early where human interventions are required. The major LMS services have app versions for mobile devices, allowing some links with mobile learning.

LMSs are effectively password-protected ‘walled gardens’ separated from the wider internet. Their security and stability, along with their organisational functions (such as group announcements, calendaring, and gradebooks), are often appreciated by educational administrators. However, teachers and students have long complained about their relative inflexibility compared to mainstream web 2.0 services and their disconnection from the networking typical of the wider web, notwithstanding their shift in a web 2.0 direction over recent years. Some educators argue that as ‘one stop shops’ which attempt to meet all informational and communicational needs, LMSs will never be able to compete with the wide range of specialised web 2.0 tools. Moreover, whatever the current and future potential of LMSs, it must be recognised that in reality many educators treat them simply as web 1.0-style ‘information dumps’ to distribute teaching materials.

There has been considerable debate about the future of LMSs. Some observers have predicted that institutional LMSs will eventually disappear, or at least decline in significance relative to more personalised spaces such as PLEs and e-portfolios. Others have predicted that future education is likely to be characterised by some combination of LMSs and PLEs; this might involve a transformed concept of LMSs, moving them away from their current status as borderline web 1.0/web 2.0 platforms, and reconceptualising and remodelling them as web 2.0/web 3.0 platforms. In this case, future LMSs might be more akin to general learning spaces or hubs where institutions, teachers and students can assemble specialised and personalised collections of educational apps designed by expert developers. For some informative commentary on potential future directions of development, see 7 Things You Should Know about NGDLE (Next Generation Digital Learning Environments) (ELI, 2015) or an issue of the EDUCAUSE Review covering NGDLE (ELI, 2017). It is expected that the further development of standards such as xAPI and Caliper will allow far more kinds of learning, including mobile learning experiences, to be incorporated into, and recorded in, the learning environments of the future. In summary, while the long-term survival of LMSs appears likely, given the weight of institutional support behind them, their format remains more of an open question, with institutions now opting for a varying range of LMS-style environments.

Setting up LMSs is more complex than setting up most web 2.0 services: you either need a computer which can function as a server, or you need an LMS hosting service. Most educators do not set up their own LMSs, but rather make use of institutional LMSs. These include proprietary software such as Blackboard Learn (note that the Blackboard company acquired the formerly popular WebCT in 2006, and merged with Anthology in 2021, with the combined company now known as Anthology), D2L (Desire2Learn; formerly Brightspace), and the newer SEQTA. The free, open source alternatives to commercial LMSs include Moodle (see the image at the top of this page), Sakai (see the image below), Canvas and Drupal, for which paid hosting services are also available. Microsoft Teams, often in combination with Microsoft OneNote, is now used by many educational institutions in place of, or as a complement to, an LMS. The free Google Classroom, often linked to the paid Google Workspace, is also popular. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, two LMS-style platforms became well-known for modelling many of their features on social networking services: while Schoology is now part of PowerSchool, Edmodo shut down in 2022. Finally, it should be mentioned that there are some similarities between LMSs and the MOOC (massive open online course) platforms which have been set up to offer global courses.

Sakai logo (Source: goo.gl/uZiskL)

Last update: February 2024.