Learning Management Systems - part of the problem not part of the answer?

Over the last few years Learning Management Systems (LMS) have come to dominate the e-learning software scene - at least in institutions and major companies. The most common inquiry I get from those wanting to set up an e-learning system is which the best LMS is. I am not convinced that Learning management Systems are the best starting point for e-learning - in fact I tend to think they are part of the problem not part of the solution.

What is a Learning Management System?

Before going on to explain why and to look at alternatives lets briefly define what an LMS is. Baumgartner et al (2002) put forward the following features as the key constituents of an LMS:

• It is browser-accessible. The Learning Management System should be based on a standard-protocol (TCP/IP) and a standard web browser.
• The learner can interact via the browser with the teacher, the system and other learners. Also, the authoring options as the learning management features can be operated without any plug-ins/viewers/additional products.
• There are basic features for administration and the administration of users can be administrated. The system must offer an authentication feature. The system must offer rights managements for roles, groups, and permissions. The system must be multilingual.
• Communication must be supported electronically both within roles and between roles. There are basic features for at least authoring of tests and assessment. There are feature for course management, and content management.

What is wrong with Learning management Systems?

At first glance it seems OK. So what's the problem?

Well firstly LMS systems tend to be pedagogically blind. As the name implies they are focused on managing learning - or rather administrating learners. In an earlier paper I said: "It may be giving too much credit to these systems to say they impose a pedagogy, rather they are simply shadows of a learning approach realized in software” (Attwell, 2004). The 'learning value’�of the content is seen as being within the e-learning environment. Learning Management Systems are designed for classroom based learning, albeit in a virtual environment, sadly managers and administrators had failed to notice that much learning took place outside the classroom, still less did it take place in a 'virtual learning environment'.

Secondly, a problem that many institutions have found is that of lock-in. Because of the lack of standards, applications developed on one platform are difficult to transfer or migrate to other systems. Equally modular applications will often not interoperate between systems. Thirdly, LMSs are often simply too hard to configure and too time consuming to maintain for many smaller institutions, departments, courses and for work based learning and community education providers.

Fourthly, Learning Management Systems assume we all live 24/7 in a connected world. Even in the age of wireless connections and broadband this is simply not so. Of course there are many Open Source Learning Management Systems, some of which have interesting pedagogical models. If you ask the developers they will all tell you theirs has one or two unique features - not available in any other system. I am dubious of such claims. So what is the alternative?

New tools for learning

Partly as a result of Open Source, the past period has seen increasing availability of brilliantly innovative tools and applications for learning. Think about blogs and wikis, newsreaders, tagging engines and clients, RSS feeds. Think about the increasing richness of free to use internet content, available under a Creative Commons License. Think about the thousands of web forums and multi-user games. And Content Management Systems are getting much, much better.

True, most of these weren't designed for e-learning. But what they have allowed is a flourishing of innovation and creativity, shared knowledge development, of writing and publishing. This for me is what learning is about.

Of course we do need to administrate and manage learning. That's where the standards come in. It is perfectly possible to set up a small LDAP-server which handles all the student administration and provides that information to other applications. There is no reason at all why library systems should not be accessed from within other programs. All it takes is a little know-how and imagination.

OK - so know-how and imagination require skills and knowledge - and that does not come cheap. But if it is an alterative between spending money on buying an LMS and paying technicians to maintain monolithic systems, or employing developers to facilitate pedagogically rich learning contexts, I know which I would rather see the money spent on.

How to get started

How can you get started? Firstly work out what you want the learners to be able to do and how they should be able to do it. Get together all the people involved - managers, technicians and teachers (and students too). Look at what other people have done and what seems to work for them. And design your own system. Think small not big. One small scale experiment with innovative learning which works and makes people enthusiastic worth more than all big institutional software projects which generally promote cynicism if not downright hostility. Make sure whatever you develop is Standards compliant and will not tie you down to one particular vendor in the future. Look at what's available as Open Source. Make sure you have regular meetings - test your systems and change and develop them to make sure they meet your needs. And evaluate your results - build up your expertise.

Putting learners in control

In my view e-learning is still in its infancy. We are still struggling to break free of part paradigms embodied in terms like the e-university or the electronic classroom. Learning management Systems are part of the old world - a last gasp by managers to keep control. Developing alternatives is part of opening up education and learning and putting teachers and learners in control.

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