Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Assignment 1
By
Nyeisha George-Minott
Email: nyeisha.georgeminott@my.open.uwi.edu
Imagine what it was like before the emergence of technology within the educational and
corporate landscape. Imagine writing on slate tablets with chalk in the classroom and information was
kept only as long as the slate was not wiped clean of its contents. Imagine office typewriters being used
to create pages upon pages of information. This however, notwithstanding gave rise to the alarming
collection of paper in filing cabinets in schools and universities, and businesses accumulated massive
training manuals that soon became obsolete. Then there was the invention of the personal computer.
That launched the management of content from storage/floppy disks, CDs and hard drives to servers
and cloud storage. Managing classes, corporate training and content became a chore and management
systems became necessary. The world welcomed the Learning Management System (LMS), Content
Management system (CMS) and Learning and Content Management System (LCMS). This paper will
examine the history of the systems, analyze the functions and features, and do a comparative analysis of
the systems.
How does one distinguish each of these systems from the other? This simple analogy will help
Now imagine a bakery store front, the style of the door, the
window design, paint color etc. are unique to the store. A content
When someone enters the bakery they come upon the display
case. Here the Learning Management System (LMS) has courses and
files, lessons, etc.) seen in the store. Interactions here refer to online meetings, discussion forums,
items (content for courses) for use and reuse in the store. E.g.
Take a step out back to the cold storage facility. The CMS also functions as a cold storage unit
housing and maintaining content, making them available for future use.
Prior to the arrival of the computers and the dot com era, learning management systems were
unheard of. In the 1920s to 1930 early psychologists, theorists and educational technologists was
beginning to study human and animal learning. Their research leads them to create theories of learning
and methods that could one day automate learning. They were testing theories of learning by creating
models and other instruments. With the advent of Motion pictures, it was thought that films could be
used for instruction and soon televisions were a common fixture in the classroom.
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During World War II it became necessary to tailor instruction to accommodate the thousands of
new recruits using video training guides. It was during this time that the role of and instructional
technologist emerged. By the 1950s and 1960s the military were rapidly integrating instructional
systems development into their standards training procedures. Also during that period Programmed
instruction, IBMs thinking machine and B.F. Skinners testing machine made their mark in history. PLATO
(Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operation) was launched and was designed as a computer-
based system for instruction and is considered to be the first LMS. By 1970 to early 1980s the personal
computer made it appearance and the Havering Computer Managed Learning system is one of a few
Then came the invention of the World Wide Web, the internet and the first web browsers, and
an explosion of new technologies blossomed. Many of the first learning management systems made
their appearance between 1990 and 2005. As can be seen in the timeline in figure 1, systems such as
First class, Topyx, angel, Blackboard, Moodle and Desire2learn, are a few Learning management systems
to emerge at that time. Within that same time frame a number of Content Management systems came
on stream. More and more businesses and institutions made an online presence and, generated large
amounts of content that required a new type of system. CMSs such as Slash, Typo3, Drupal, Apache
roller, WordPress and Weebly made their appearance in the Early 2000s.
Considering the need for an integrated system, designers sought to merge the better of two
worlds. They integrated Learning management features with content management features which
morphed into Learning and content management systems. The redundancy of creating content and
knowledge assets was soon streamlined and in the early 2000s LCMSs such as Elogic, configio, Docebo,
LMS
As a learning environment platform for e-content the LMS has been used in the K-12 setting,
higher education, business and enterprise. There is a slight differentiation in LMSs used for education
and LMS for business. The LMS for Education (blackboard, Moodle, Edmodo), these systems have similar
functions and features. The operations include but not limited to user registration, tracking, recording
data for users, reporting and analysis. Traditional classroom tools such as calendars and attendance
record are integrated. Also activities and features such as assignments, gradebook, chat, forum, files,
quizzes, lessons, wiki, messaging and email are also available. Teachers and students interact
The LMS for Businesses such as Mindflash, Docebo and Litmos are used to train employees.
Employers can import training materials, invite trainees to the course and track their progress.
Employees can train at their own pace while companies save the cost of hiring training experts, cost of
CMS
Most organizations and individuals want to have an online presence, whether it is a blog site, a
wiki or a facebook page. Some organization use Content management systems to enhance their
presence online through digital marketing. Educational institutions likewise see the benefit of a CMS to
host their schools website, blogs and other content. Individuals also create personalized websites that
can be hosted on CMSs. These CMS solutions such as, Wordpress, Drupal and Weebly are used to
author, organize and store content which can be anything from records, invoices, Excel spreadsheets,
word documents or even a social media feed. Having been introduced to using Weebly as part of a
course requirement, I found that it was relatively easy to set up a website, choose a theme and
customize to my liking without the need for knowledge in HTML, though that is an asset.
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Content Management Systems fall into two major groups of CMSs emerged Web content
Management and Document Management. Web CMS or W-CMS helps create published and
unpublished content within a website that is intended for public distribution. The W-CMS platform can
facilitate a blog and an online store, among other types of Web-based content. Document management
or DMS on the other hand deals, for the most part, with electronic or printed content that has not been
created for public distribution. Some examples would be internal documents that help a company
function (e.g., company reports), or client-facing documents that facilitate transactions, such as contracts
LCMS
Knowledge assets are the main end products of the LCMS. This authoring environment allows for
collaborative authoring and template building. Content can be produced once and can be repurposed for
different output formats. Think of the analogy made earlier in this document, the bakers and pastry
chefs can create one main cake batter for example, which forms the base for a variety of cakes from
chocolate to carrot to cheese cake . Multiple collaborators can create content and learning objects then
stores and organize them for reuse and repurposing. This allows for flexibility in learning content
My Institution/Organization
The Antigua and Barbuda International Institute of Technology (ABIIT) is a tertiary level
institution that offers in-class, hybrid and online courses at the associate degree level. A Learning
management, content management, academic administrative and e-mail system form part of my
Moodle is the LMS of choice and ABIIT has been using this since 2008. The institution has gone
through several versions of Moodle over the years, and has witnessed the features that dwarfed and
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blossomed to the current system in use today. With the upgrades and recent plug-ins, ABIIT instructors
have access to the Respondus Lockdown browser for monitoring test taking, Turn-it-in software to check
for plagiarism and Open Meeting to host our live meeting sessions. Gamification is also included as
games such as hangman, crosswords, Sudoku, Millionaire and snakes and ladders can be added to a
As for the content management system, ABIIT uses WordPress to manage and maintain its
website www.abiit.edu.ag and have recently done a redesign. Sonis web is the academic administrative
system that manages course scheduling student registration, grade reports and transcripts. The e-mail
services is hosted by Microsoft Office 365 which gives access to several other cloud based services and
applications such as calendar, tasks, OneDrive, SharePoint, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, access, yammer,
flow etc.
The current trend is towards cloud based systems. Early systems were built for installation on
servers and hosted on site by and organization/institution. This was a resource heavy operation and is
costly to maintain. Now you find systems such as Edmodo, Loudcloud, Schoology, Schoox, and Bridge
Depending on their needs, an organization can choose a proprietary system or an open source
system. Propriety software has set restrictions on use and be very expensive, whereas open source
software is freely available for users to use as is or to change, improve. Open source software has
that the increased adaption of open source software has caused a drop in revenue to the proprietary
software industry [ CITATION Eva15 \l 2052 ]. Determining the software institutions and businesses use
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includes considering the cost of maintenance, system support, and upgrading and future software
development.
Security
More and more institutions and organizations are on the alert for nefarious activity and the
safety of it resources and online activities. Hacking and viruses are still a major concern, as these have
caused major disruptions to services. A relatively new security threat is that of ransomware. Institutions
and organizations data, records and files have been held hostage by hackers and cybercriminals in an
The competitive landscape of the LMS, CMS and LCMS is a growing market. Though evolving
from humble beginning these systems are evolving into a robust series of software, each with its own
unique purpose and customers. Thanks to the vision of psychologists, theorists and educational
technologist early attempts at managing learning and content lead the way for the systems we see
today; systems that are open sourced, cloud based, more accessible, upgradeable and secure with better
Educational institutions will continue to capitalize on the technologies that mimic the traditional
classroom and businesses can tailor their training programmes to their organizations needs. As future
developments take place the LMS will adopt more operational functions and features than just curating
content and accessing content with better communication systems. Soon the CMS will host more robust
web content and become even more user friendly and LCMSs can make collaborating on content and
knowledge assets a less tedious affair. This is the next generation of learning, content and creative
References
Dalstrom E., Brooks C.D., & Bichsel, J. (2014 September). The Current Ecosystem of learning Mangement
systems in Higher Education: Student, Faculty, and IT perspectives. Retrieved from: Educause:
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers1414.pdf
Educause Evolving Technologies Committee. (2003). Course Management Systems (CMS). Retrieved
from: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/DEC0302.pdf
Evans A., Martin K., & Poatsy A.M. . (2015). Technology in Action (11th edition). Pearson.
FearnN. (2016 Nov. 4). Best CMS: The top content management systems of 2016. Retrieved from:
Techradar.pro: http://www.techradar.com/news/best-cms-the-top-content-management-
systems-of-2016
Morrison, K. (2016 April 1 ). 10 Cloud-Based Learning Management Systems For Small Business Training.
Retrieved from: Elearning Industry: https://elearningindustry.com/10-cloud-based-learning-
management-systems-small-business-training
Westfall B. (2017 June 2). Learning Content Management Systems. Retrieved from: Software Advice:
http://www.softwareadvice.com/lms/learning-content-management-system-comparison/?
more=true#more
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