Learning management system

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I’ll be discussing Learning Management Systems as a ubiquitous learning concept. First and foremost what are Learning Management Systems (LMS)?

According to Wikipedia, A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs.[1] The learning management system concept emerged directly from e-Learning. Although the first LMS appeared in the higher education sector, the majority of the LMSs today focus on the corporate market. Learning Management Systems make up the largest segment of the learning system market. The first introduction of the LMS was in the late 1990s.[2]

Learning management systems were designed to identify training and learning gaps, utilizing analytical data and reporting. LMSs are focused on online learning delivery but support a range of uses, acting as a platform for online content, including courses, both asynchronous based and synchronous based.

Characteristics

Purpose

An LMS delivers and manages all types of content, including video, courses, and documents. In the education and higher education markets, an LMS will include a variety of functionality that is similar to corporate but will have features such as rubrics, teacher and instructor-facilitated learning, a discussion board, and often the use of a syllabus. A syllabus is rarely a feature in the corporate LMS, although courses may start with heading-level index to give learners an overview of topics covered.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system#Purpose

Photo Credit: https://thinkpalm.com/blogs/learning-management-system/

History

There are several historical phases of distance education that preceded the development of the LMS:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system#History

Correspondence teaching

The first known document of correspondence teaching dates back to 1723, through the advertisement in the Boston Gazette of Caleb Phillips, professor of shorthand, offering teaching materials and tutorials.[3] The first testimony of a bi-directional communication organized correspondence course comes from England, in 1840, when Isaac Pitman initiated a shorthand course, wherein he sent a passage of the Bible to students, who would send it back in full transcription. The success of the course resulted in the foundation of the phonographic correspondence society in 1843. The pioneering milestone in distance language teaching was in 1856 by Charles Toussaint and Gustav Langenscheidt, who began the first European institution of distance learning. This is the first known instance of the use of materials for independent language study.[4] Correspondence institutions in the United States and across Europe were encouraged and fostered by the development in 1680 of the penny post service, which allowed the delivery of letters and parcels for a penny.[5]

Multimedia teaching: The emergence and development of the distance learning idea

The concept of eLearning began developing in the early 20th century, marked by the appearance of audio-video communication systems used for remote teaching.[citation needed] In 1909, E.M. Forster published his story 'The Machine Stops' and explained the benefits of using audio communication to deliver lectures to remote audiences.[6]

In 1920, Sidney L. Pressey developed the first teaching machine which offered multiple types of practical exercises and question formats. Nine years later, the University of Alberta's Professor M.E. Zerte transformed this machine into a problem cylinder able to compare problems and solutions.[7]

The earliest networked learning system was the Plato Learning Management system (PLM) developed in the 1970s by Control Data Corporation.

Telematic Teaching

In the 1980s the modern telecommunications start to be used in education, with computers more present in the daily use of higher education institutions. Computer-aided teaching aims to integrate technical and educational means and instruments to student learning. The trend then shifted to video communication, as a result of which Houston University decided to hold telecast classes to their students for approximately 13-15 hours a week. The classes took place in 1953, while in 1956, Robin McKinnon Wood and Gordon Pask released the very first adaptive teaching system for corporate environments SAKI.

Teaching through the internet: The appearance of the first LMS system

The history of the application of computers to education is filled with broadly descriptive terms such as computer-managed instruction (CMI), and integrated learning systems (ILS), computer-based instruction (CBI), computer-assisted instruction (CAI), and computer-assisted learning (CAL). These terms describe drill-and-practice programs, more sophisticated tutorials, and more individualized instruction, respectively.[10] The term is currently used to describe a number of different educational computer applications.[11] FirstClass by SoftArc, used by the United Kingdom's Open University in the 1990s and 2000s to deliver online learning across Europe, was one of the earliest internet-based LMSs.[12][13]

Advantages

There are six major advantages of LMS: interoperability, accessibility, reusability, durability, maintenance ability and adaptability, which in themselves constitute the concept of LMS.[17]

Other advantages include:

• An LMS supports content in various formats: text, video, audio, etc with materials accessible anytime, from everywhere.

-use the material every time they need to.[25]

• Students can learn collaboratively by setting up a School website with the LMS software and helps "Keeps organizations up-to-date with compliance regulations.

Disadvantages

Although there are many advantages of LMSs, authors have identified some disadvantages of using these systems.

• Implementing an LMS requires a well-built technology infrastructure. Teachers have to be willing to adapt their curricula from face to face lectures to online lectures.[20]

• Expense

• The difficulty of learning to use authoring software

Source & References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system

The Top 5 Open Source LMS

You just need to choose a specific open-source LMS that is suitable to your needs. However, this process can become a bit tricky. Identifying your needs before choosing implies that you have to consider some factors:

• Supportive online community

• Compatibility with external developers' third-party plug-ins

• Quality of its user interface?

• Software mobile-friendliness

• ECommerce integration, reports, and analytics

Fortunately, there is a variety of different Open Source LMSs that can offer you the dynamic and flexible eLearning platform you need without making you go over your eLearning budget.

1. Moodle

Community-driven, this globally supported effort makes one of the largest open source teams in the world.

2. Chamilo

An open source LMS that’s here to improve access to education. Backed up by the Chamilo Association, it aims at the maintenance of a clear communication channel and the building of a network of services providers and software contributors.

3. Open edX

The Open edX is a tool empowering learners to access course content, including videos and textbooks while checking their progress in the course.

4. Totara Learn

A corporate distribution of Moodle, Totara Learn delivers individual learning plans effectively and offers rich functionality which can be implemented quickly and with a significant cost reduction comparing to proprietary solutions.

5. Canvas

An open source LMS that is free for instructors. It makes teaching and learning easier in terms of implementation, adoption, customer support, and success.

Source: https://elearningindustry.com/top-open-source-learning-management-systems

I’ll like to conclude that because my submission does not exhaustively cover the subject of Learning Management Systems, I will very much appreciate your comments and reviews.