De-coupling Course Content Management from the LMS/CMS

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De-coupling Course Content Management from the LMS/CMS

1/9/2008

By S. J. (Sandy) Schaeffer III

We inherit whatever approaches the vendor adopted with respect to managing content. And, while "transferable" skills sounds convincing at one level, LMS vendors really are quite proprietary at many levels, resulting in steeper learning curves than necessary for our instructors. The 'teaching' tools are generally easy to learn, but the content management portion requires a much greater effort. Ironically, throughout our migration, the one thing that did not change was the course content itself. We have expended vast amounts of planning, energy, and political good-will in moving all of this content from one platform to the other - in spite of the fact that virtually none of it was changed!

At the center of this problem is the fact that in today's world, when we acquire a new LMS, we are also acquiring a new content management system with all of its strengths and weaknesses. This would be a good thing if there was a clear value in moving to this new content tool. In our case, the jury is out on this point.

An alternate approach:

It strikes me that it is time to ask -- or require -- LMS vendors to formally decouple themselves from content storage and management. Instead, they should focus their energies on delivering technology that is unique to the teaching environment -- and do that extremely well. Rather, an entirely different platform should be used to address the management of content and there are a number of technology vendors who do so already. For example, on our campus, since 2003, we have been using a web-based file storage system built on a product from Xythos Software. A number of instructors (myself included) have used this as a content management location, requiring that they simply insert pointers within their new course shell to content already stored within Xythos folders. Xythos is an example of a company that does one thing particularly well -- web-based file and storage management.

In effect, this model is functioning as a prototypical LMS-agnostic content management system (or a Learning Object Repository in the jargon of LMS vendors.) Our IT division is also addressing the need for seamless integration through portal and single sign-on technologies. If all faculty members were to adopt this model, then five years out when we switch to a new LMS yet again, their content would stay right where it is and not need to be migrated. The faculty's learning curve would be limited to the new teaching tools and reconnecting their course shells to the untouched and unmoved content.

Benefits to higher education

By limiting the scope of the LMS vendor to just the teaching tools then we have greatly simplified the task of building a 'complete' LMS product thereby reducing the barrier to entry in the LMS marketplace -- both commercial and open-source. And, the more competitors there are in a given marketplace, the better the products become and the more price competition comes into play -- all of which is good for higher education.