Learning Content Management System Review

The Fall of 2011 brought several changes to the Distance Learning future of Polk State College. New personnel, a new logo, a new strategic distance learning plan, and a review of the LCMS that PSC uses and potential replacements for that platform will be considered. This web site will support that initiative; a comprehensive review of the LCMS options out there and a needs analysis of what PSC wants in a LCMS. This process will involve faculty, student, and staff in all departments from Student Services to Information Technology.

The first steps are already underway. We have have been generating a list of potential LCMS platforms to consider. The list below is not complete but outlines and links to a few of them. Another step already underway is to begin to develop a survey of what features are considered essential to a LCMS platform for the sake of learning and implementation at PSC. That survey is not complete, and we will be seeking assistance with making the survey ready to deliver to the stakeholders in this process; Faculty, Students, and Staff.

List of LCMS Platforms

Desire2Learn

Our current platform, PAL is hosted by the FDLC Consortium and maintained by CCLA. We share the decisions with 4 other entities.

Florida Keys Community College

Chipola College

Northwest Florida State College

Florida Department of Education

Angel-Blackboard

Blackboard is transitioning the Angel Learning Environment into Blackboard Learn+.

Academic Partnerships

Epic Learning Management System is the LCMS offered by this company, Academic Partnerships.

Instructure

Instructure has a learning platform called Canvas and it was built differently than the typical LCMS. Normally, the tools are constructed in a programming language and tools are added with each new version. Canvas stated as a survey of Faculty, Staff, and Administrators to determine how a LCMS should work. After 17 schools were canvased, the programmers set down and got to work. In the short preview I saw of the platform, this LCMS works in a different paradigm than the current systems we use.

Moodle

Moodle is no longer that open-source platform that everyone ignores. Shrinking budgets, contracting enrollment, and a robust set of tools and broad adoption globally has led Moodle to be a serious contenter in the LCMS market space. Entire state university systems have adopted Moodle with hundreds of thousands of students enrolled across multiple campuses and institutions.

Sakai

Many LCMS systems suffer from trying to be all things to all markets, academia and business. Sakai is built by colleges and universities for colleges and universities. It contains the tools and support needed by faculty and students to conduct the business of learning.