I wanted to do a quick SWOT analysis of the LMS to get some understanding on the LMS scenario today.

Here is a very quick SWOT analysis of the LMS:

Though there are clear and actionable weaknesses and threats the LMS faces today, there are also a set of opportunities that the LMS should avail of and continue to remain relevant for the target audience.

Needless to mention, I had to hit the scorm.com website and find out more about SCORM Cloud myself. This post is a mini-quick-review of the SCORM Cloud based on what I could gather from its parent website. Given that it hasn’t been released yet, the review will be revised once the product is launched and there are real customers using it.

To be brutally honest (and with due respect to the scorm.com organization), I could understand the offering but did not really get it’s ‘cloudness’. I am sure once the product is out there and some of our inquisitive Innovation and New Projects team members have had a go at it we would have a clearer picture of its potential, impact on the LMS industry as such and overall value for money.

From what I read on its ‘What it does’ page it appears to be a mini (or maybe micro) LMS hosted on internet allowing anyone to upload SCORM courses and through user registrations offer it to users.

What it specifically offers to solve/do (and my thoughts on each of them)

1. Correct working of SCORM course
   Any LMS worth its name does comply with the SCORM standard and it works pretty well.
2. Tracking learners outside LMS as well
   Better to change the LMS which doesn’t let you track SCORM courses or cannot patch a module to do so. Given that the integration is currently only available for open source LMS systems and all of them are already SCORM compliant (though may have a few bugs) it’s not clear how will it help.
3. Low cost of SCORM player
   In addition to my comments on point 2, if you are using the SCORM Cloud with your LMS which doesn’t have SCORM capability I am guessing that along with the pricing (based on registrations) there would be cost of integrating your LMS with the SCORM Cloud. Based on what I read here – SCORM Cloud pricing –to be honest it is not low. The page does state that the pricing has been designed to make sense compared to use of a full LMS and given that I know of LMS pricing in general I can say that it is not low from any aspect. There are LMS systems which offer SCORM compliance and much more and still have a lower pricing. Maybe I am missing something.
4. Ready to go as it’s a hosted service
   Yes, that’s a distinct benefit

My take

Again, at the risk of sounding critical, SCORM Cloud is definitely a good service for companies/people whose current LMS may be so outdated that it doesn’t have SCORM compliance. However, in practical terms, the SCORM Cloud can be considered an LMS focused purely on SCORM compliance. So for companies using an LMS having SCORM compliance I am not sure what would be the real use of such a service. However, it’s still not launched so I am sure a lot of my questions will be answered after this Monday.

I don’t think it’s going to change the game. IMO, after all, it’s another LMS with a new name!

Coming from Google, built on its own App Engine, I wonder what Google wants (or wanted) to do with the tool. Given that it doesn’t even have features to upload documents to activities or sessions, it looks a little amateurish for the kind of potential a system like this could have.

Of course, there is no limit to what I would think a system like that could include – e.g. my first thought was whether it supported SCORM or any other standard like that. The question is not warranted given the features it describes clearly on its information site, but I did hear some murmur around a new LMS being launched by Google. And that would definitely be news! To some relief (I would be wary of Google as a competitor ), CloudCourse is still a very primary interface for scheduling of training activities. Being open source will definitely help it reach a wide audience. That, however, is still something to be seen.

My take: CloudCourse is not a learning platform but a pure course scheduler platform. I would have really liked to see support for at least some documents to be attached to the activities or sessions. I think, next in line is integration with Google Docs as it would definitely make a lot of sense to have an activity which links in to Google Calendar and has a host of Google Docs around it pre and post the activity.

My question in the context of LMS systems is – Is Google warming up? Will it ever launch an LMS based on its App Engine? I hope I have not given them this idea now!

My answer was simple – it hasn’t.

Human learning hasn’t fundamentally changed over the last fifty years. Our ability to learn is something honed over several hundred millennia, it’s what set us apart from the primates in the first place. Our ability to store and transfer extra-genetic information has pretty much remained the same, bound by language itself, and simply because of biological boundaries imposed by our physiology. We can only ‘learn’ in ‘this’ way and ’so’ much. While you hold that thought, it’s good to think that the technology is on the cusp of providing an ‘infinite’ amount of information. While we use personal computing devices currently (the PC, laptop, phone, media player, game consoles, etc.), research into neural interface devices is progressing at a rapid, perhaps even alarming rate.

It’s only a matter of time before we accept technology based artificial implants as being a natural way to enhance our biologically limited perception and cognition. While I won’t debate the ethics of this, which is another matter altogether, what we’re seeing is a revolution in the way humans view computing and just as importantly computing views humans; this shift is truly and fundamentally life-changing. So if the human brain will take thousands of years to evolve physiologically to match the demands of ‘infinite’ information, it’s only natural that an intelligent humans seeks to address that by the use of technology in some form or the other.

We’ve always used technology to escape the bounds of human physiological limits. Take writing itself as a technology, because your voice can only travel so far, the wheel which fundamentally changed transport because humans legs could only go so far, and so on. Each major technological step has supplemented humans potential, it could not have been otherwise. However efficient and adopted in a variety of ways, these technologies supplanted human physical capabilities, and not the perception-cognition complex itself. The much-touted ‘cloud’ computing paradigm coupled with mobile devices and the huge information source that is the internet is technology that can change that.

The evolution and growth of the internet and personal computing devices is a massive technology shift, because I feel at some point eventually, it will like I mentioned before, supplement the human perception-cognition complex. It’s already done that to some extent – see how often in the day we run to Google for little bits of information that are necessary to perform tasks ranging from the mundane to the highly creative, synthetic activities. Computing is invading our lives in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. We are scheming of an internet of things, want wearable computing , and synthetic but highly believe computing experiences; we expect much from what is rudimentary technology yet.

What that could ultimately mean is that there is no need to learn whatsoever. Imagine a world where each individual digitally narrates their activities and experiences, perhaps automatically, and where that captured experience can be shared freely by whosoever wishes. For a learning designer like myself, that’s the ULTIMATE solution, technology that enables the sharing of experience itself. Better than any simulation or temporal/spatial presentation of content ever. Yes, perhaps its futuristic; and may even sound scary considering the gamut of human emotion.

Such technology promises to fundamentally change human civilization, just like writing or the invention of the wheel did. But learning itself ? that’s hardly changing, we are only adding and co-opting tools and media to assist learning at a phenomenal rate.

In one of these posts, a question was raised whether an LMS can actually manage learning. Since it is called Learning Management System, it implies management of ‘learning’ or does it? There are suggestions of changing the name of the LMS to something more appropriate (of course, everything is still in an arguable and debatable state) it is actually doing more or less of what the name suggests. Also, due to the fact that some ‘LMSs’ are actually more of learning portals and, ideally should be called something like LCC (Learning, Content and Collaboration tools) as they offer functions around these main areas. There have been other suggestions as well. I think the arguments are fair and just, and that it’s only in a limited context that they appear so. I attempt to clarify below.

Let me come back to the original question – does an LMS actually manage learning? In plain words – the answer is No. In fact, most systems termed management systems do not manage what the term suggests, including Performance Management, Talent Management, Training Management, Customer Relationship Management, and many others. Most of these systems manage processes related to these areas. So, a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system does not manage your customer relationships, but it only manages the information flow around how you manage your customer relationships. No CRM system can define a customer relationship, but it can only help you manage a relationship better (in terms of access to accurate and complete information in real-time) which enables the users to make informed decisions. Same is case for Performance Management – no Performance Management System can make a learner perform better, neither can a Talent Management System manage talent – but all these systems do one thing – manage information and processes which enable the relevant set of users to make better decisions which, in turn, lead to an overall improvement.

Same case stands for Learning Management System. It can NEVER manage learning and, as with other management systems, it manages the processes and information that leads the users to make better, informed decisions and take necessary actions which leads to learning eventually.

So, though a Learning Management System doesn’t manage learning, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t help you manage the processes around that. It does. So, a Learning Management System can be fairly called a Learning Management System.

I have no particular affinity for the term – LMS, but I think if we look at the LMS from a bigger perspective, the term works well. Yes, many LMS systems have their shortcomings, but it is also true that there are many LMS systems that are evolving rapidly to be able to support learners with not only conventional ‘managed formal learning’ tools but also offering them an environment to collaborate and share peer-to-peer. It may be too early to start giving different names to each variant of a system in this space and may only end up confusing the customers to some extent.

In the end, I would say that I am very much in the favor of the LMS being still called as LMS and, as long as the industry can keep information flowing about the ever growing capabilities of LMS systems, I think, there’s not a big reason to start calling LMS by another name.

Well, these are my views and I would love to hear yours. Please leave a comment if you agree or disagree with me.

Since my post on SCORM Implementation for Mobile Devices, I have wanted to write a specific post on offline SCORM implementation for Blackberry, which is still the most widely used mobile device in enterprise and business domains.

Again, as in implementation of SCORM for mobile devices, we encountered some interesting issues in its implementation for Blackberry.

Find our experience on the same.

Target Platform:

After a good amount of R&D and feasibility study on available device software for Blackberry devices, we selected device software 5.0+ as our target platform. Device software 5.0 has good inbuilt browser support (some of the features are from HTML 5.0) and, also has Widget SDK, which is used to create native applications in HTML.

Implementation:

1. Development tools required:

• Normal J2EE development environment like Eclipse and Java SDK.
• Blackberry Widget SDK: You can get more information about Widget SDK here.

We created a Blackberry Widget, which is a combination of two parts:

• Actual Widget
• Custom JavaScript Extension

• Actual Widget
  • The complete UI of solution is defined (in HTML and JavaScript) in the Actual Widget.

• Custom JavaScript Extension
  • A JavaScript Extension is Java code that is built into a BlackBerry Widget, and can be accessed through JavaScript. This capability allows you to extend the functionality of your BlackBerry Widget application to include native BlackBerry functionality.
  • We used it as a backend of our solution to communicate with online database/LMS.

2. Solution:

• We implemented SCORM standard in JavaScript files. These files were then included in the widget.
• As mentioned before, this was an offline solution hence course content was residing in the device itself. We built JavaScript extension to download the actual course content.
• After launching the SCORM complaint course content, the communication took place with JavaScript files, as it would happen in a normal desktop browser.
• We used Google Gears API to store the tracking information of the user. Google Gears API provides ability to create database/tables which greatly simplify storing of tracking data. It uses the open source SQLite database system. (Note: Recently Google has decided to drop Gears in support of HTML 5 database and Blackberry has also decided to use Google backed webkit in their new device OS 6). To sync tracking data back to online LMS, you can use normal browser based method or you can use JavaScript extension built in Java.
• The widget name, icon image, start file etc. were defined in the config.xml file of the widget.
• The final solution was built using command line (bbwp.exe). Alternatively, you can use Eclipse to build the solution.

3. Problems encountered while trying to implement SCORM for Device software 4.6:

• Online mode:
  • There was no problem in running SCORM complaint mobile LMS in Blackberry browser.
• Offline mode:
  • Device software 4.6 doesn’t have widget support, so we had to create everything in native Java language including invoking the browser instance for running the courses.
  • While running the courses we had to manually tell the browser which type of file it is rendering like HTML or JavaScript.
  • Till this point everything seemed fine, but we got stuck at a point where actual SCORM communication occurs, using frameset or iframe. We were not able to make API calls or normal JavaScript calls from one frame to another frame.
  • As yet, we haven’t been able to find any solution to this problem nor do we know if the problem lies with Blackberry.(Blackberry  browser has had a very bad reputation until Device software 5.0)

I hope our experience helps you in implementing SCORM for Blackberry devices. Have you followed some different approach? Or implemented it for Device software 4.6? We would like to hear your experience too.

1. Captivate CS5 in eLearning Suite2 has become the center of workflow for developing eLearning content. Adobe Captivate is a great tool for creating rapid eLearning with features like screen capture, power point import, full motion recording, custom skins and players, automatic text captioning, etc.  Captivate 5 is tightly integrated with the other eLearning Suite tools like Flash CS5, Photoshop CS5, and Soundbooth CS5 for editing animations, images, and audio respectively . Here’s a video demonstrating the new features of eLearning Suite 2 and Captivate CS5 –

Captivate CS5 output can be hosted on Acrobat.com and assigned to the registered learners. The course administrator can track users’ performance and get detailed reports about Captivate interactions/quizzes. Again here’s a short video –

2. Flash CS5 has many new features. A few of the important features are enhanced ActionScript editor (with improved code hinting, code completion for custom classes, code snippets panel), video preview in FLA, XML-based FLA format etc. Checkout this video to see all new features and improvements –

3. Photoshop CS5 too is loaded with many new features. My favorites ones are content aware fill and puppet wrap. Here is the demo video showing the improvements and new features in Photoshop CS5 –

4. Dreamweaver CS5 comes with improved PHP support for custom classes. It also has code hinting structures for popular CMS like Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal. The most important feature is the integration with Adobe’s online service BrowserLab which is used to preview and test the content across various browsers. Below video shows the new feature of Dreamweaver CS5 –

The eLearning Suite 2 looks a great improvement over its previous versions. I do think new features and the improved designer developer workflow will help the eLearning developers improve efficiency and quality.

The question is inspired from a post by Derek Morrsion – Technology to Enhance Learning in 2015, quite an interesting post, a must read.

I can only wonder at the pace of change of technology that the world has seen in last decade. Various domains have their own pace of change – as this graphic from this article shows:

Did you notice the pace of change? It is governed by community law and it’s an astronomical number as more people join the community. Isn’t that what the Internet really is all about?

Here’s another interesting graphic from theequitykicker.com, which shows how much computing power we’ll be able to buy for $1000 in the years to come.

As you can see, by around 2025 that amount should let us buy equivalent of one human brain and by around 2050 an equivalent of all human brains!  I share the two graphs just to emphasize that the pace of change will only increase and all our predictions about evolution of Learning Technology could come true sooner than later.

What have we witnessed in last 5 years?

Before I get into predicting what the future holds let’s look at what we have witnessed in the last 5 years:

• Acceptance of LMS systems (rightly or wrongly) to be the central piece in Workplace Learning strategy
• Establishment of Flash as the de-facto development platform for custom eLearning creation allowing use of streaming audio/video over the web
• Evolution of authoring tools like Articulate to become better & easier to work with reducing the cost of development
• Increase in capacity of mobile phones and networks to make them potent devices for learning bringing Mobile Learning on the horizon
• Emergence of social media (and reviewed focus on social and informal learning)

What can we expect in next 5 years?

So what can we expect in the next 5 Years?  I think a lot more than what we’ve seen in the last 5 years or 10.  Here’s what I think will happen:

1. Mobiles will become the platform of choice for workplace learning delivery (or learning/knowledge management system access). Learners would be able to access content nuggets (videos, documents, or mini courses) from corporate information systems just when they need them. They will collaborate with colleagues and even contribute their own content using mobiles devices.

2. Performance Support will increase many-fold and we will see a lot of training take the shape of performance support. Mobile devices will again be the driver for this change as learners start accessing learning content just when they need it. Augmented Reality would also play an important role in sophisticated advanced performance support systems. Imagine walking into a manufacturing unit with a local layar that tells you about the location of each equipment and makes available all the related documents on the click of a button. (example: Pune Layar)

3. Tablets as support devices. Even though the iPad disappoints in its current version, I are sure this will change with future versions of iPad itself and various other tablets. Personally, I am excited about RIM’s ‘BlackPad’. Tablets have larger screens and are uniquely positioned as field staff’s support device for trouble shooting problems by referring to product manuals and operational procedures.

4. The LMS will evolve to support (not manage) Formal + Informal + Social + Non-Formal learning components. With this we will see a big shift in the way we see assessments. The ability to measure informal learning may be done through the system itself, and constant tracking of some metrics will help learning designers monitor the ‘learning/performance health’ of the system and its users. Learning designers can then design appropriate intervention within this framework to align with learning needs and business goals.
Brandon Hall recently declared awards for LMS systems in various categories including those that made significant advances in Informal or Blended Learning and in Social Learning. This suggests that LMS systems are evolving to accommodate newer tools and techniques, as they should.

5. Games (and simulations) will become integral part of workplace learning. Overall the culture of gaming is becoming pervasive and the cost of game development is decreasing. Both these trends are increasing the acceptance of games for workplace learning, an area where cost of development and delivery have always been a concern. As the focus of learning departments change to being facilitators rather than providers of training, engaging solutions like games will become crucial.

6. Birth of new Authoring Tools. We will also see new authoring tools which allow designers to make application scenarios easily and quickly. Tools like thinking worlds are great for quickly creating 3D based decision simulations (or even simple 3D games). Dr. Michael Allen (creator of Authorware) is working on a new tool called Zebra (which he talks about here) that would make engaging eLearning creation easy with drag and drop objects.

7. Emergence of Personal Learning Agents. As the semantic web finally starts to form and common ontologies for various types learning content are developed, intelligent personal learning software agents will emerge as learning content mediators. Having a software agent that runs on a personal computing device such as a mobile phone or tablet and constantly monitors content streams on the internet to provide up-to-date information based on personal preferences, workplace conditions, or for the task at hand will make a good performance support and learning assistance system.

Moodle has been able to sustain itself and keep evolving through its community, resulting in its emergence as a good option for anyone wanting to use an LMS. But is Moodle or any other open source LMS (there are a few good ones like the ones mentioned here) really free? Though they may be free at a tangible expense level, they do carry a cost which the organization implementing the LMS should be aware and careful of.

The cost is not only in terms of money spent on various components of procuring, managing and supporting the element but there could be other costs which can be quite detrimental.

So what is a real cost of a free (open source) LMS? To understand let’s find the elements that have a cost associated with them.

Thumb rule – For any open source LMS only the license cost is zero. That’s the only thing that’s free. Nothing else!

There are three ways in which you can use an open source LMS:

1. Go to a vendor who has rebranded, modified the open source LMS as its own and provides managed hosting services on that or also deploys behind the firewall. This works almost like a commercial LMS arrangement – prices may vary. LMS is not free in this case.
2. Go to a vendor who offers managed hosting services on the open source LMS without a rebranding. The vendor has skills to customize and maintain the LMS. In this case as well the LMS is not really free and turns out again like a commercial LMS.

   In fact, in both the cases the cost of customizing might be high – not only development hours put in; but also from the fact that the vendors may not want to do that in first place. Or the maintenance cost would shoot up as the vendors offering open source LMS might prefer to keep the variance in different versions they offer to customers to a minimum.

   So if you are looking to customize the LMS to a significant extent, be aware of both ongoing development costs and maintenance costs before making an investment. Otherwise it isn’t any different from going for a commercial LMS. In fact the system might even be constrained by the vendor’s open source LMS development skills, as not all the vendors offering the LMS have the required skills to dig deep in the system and customize it. To me, it seems most of the vendors are offering the open source LMS because it is quick to deploy and they don’t need a lot of technical skills to offer it. It would help to read my other post – the right way to go about open source LMS.

3. Deploy the open source LMS at your organization involving your IT team for deployment, and also ongoing maintenance. Well this seems free. But is it? Here is why it is not and it has an added cost – the cost of eLearning initiative going awry in the start itself. Most often an open source LMS is the first choice when an organization is just starting eLearning. As most would like to keep the costs low, but you also need to keep an eye on the end value/result (not only in terms of LMS features but also the entire experience to the user) delivered to the real LMS users.
   1. The involvement of IT team doesn’t stop at installation and configuration. In fact that’s just the beginning. And what started as a low involvement project suddenly turns a support nightmare for the IT team, who may not be prepared and even geared up for handling this. As a result they may not be able to allocate enough, skilled resources or if they do then you can imagine the cost to the company for such resources. Pretty soon you will be answering questions about spending so much on IT for an open source LMS. It is not that the open source LMS needs more support – No. It’s the fact that we mostly ignore this cost element that we are caught off the guard on this.
   2. Infrastructure costs will exist as depending on the user base size the appropriate hardware and infrastructure would be needed. This may not be an additional cost compared to your initial estimates but it’s a cost anyway.
   3. Who will customize even the basic features? If IT doesn’t have the skills (mostly PHP and MySQL and of course a good understanding of the LMS code) you either outsource that part or hire additional staff to do the same. In both cases it is not free. An open source LMS doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to work on at code level. It’s easy for a high level skilled resource but then the resource is not going to be free.
   4. Assuming you acquired the skills by either outsourcing or through internal resources who will manage that resource (or team)? Not your IT team! Even if the IT team does you’d still need to manage by providing detailed directions on what to do, etc. It might prove to be a drain on your own time. The cost of spending your time on such an activity is extremely high as it affects various other things you may not be able to look after which are a part of your job. Remember that having got an open source LMS everyone assumes that it is not a big deal to manage it. You may have a hard time to explain what’s happening and even if you provide the right explanations, it may backfire on you.
   5. Ongoing support, enhancement and maintenance. Either internal or hired resources would do this but not without a cost. Depending on your user base size this cost could be a small one or could end up being significant. Technical Support also requires the resources to be trained on the LMS which either would take time if done on own or cost real money if external parties are involved.
   6. General Open Source LMS support. Once you customize your version of the LMS it, more often than not, is the case that it becomes unfriendly to the upgrades to the original open source LMS versions. Again, it may take really skilled programming team to code everything in a manner which would still keep it open to upgrade – however there is no guarantee and the upgrade implementation could also take time and resources to achieve. Otherwise you may get stuck with the version and may have to do your own upgrades internally (or through outsourced team). In either case it’s not going to be a free. Additionally, there are the hassles of product management, versioning, transitioning, data migration (if needed), etc.
   7. Effect on the eLearning initiative. While all the costs mentioned above can still be managed by loosening the purse-strings and spending time and energy on the above activities, however an attempt to control these costs because we were not prepared for them in the start might result in a sub-standard offering to the end users (in terms of features, etc.). Since this would be the initial stage of eLearning initiative a disinterested user base will not help carry the initiative forward. This is the real cost which you would have to deal with and is has the potential to be a serious concern. From a company’s perspective even after spending so much in time, money and energy if the initiative has not worked out well it’s a real cost and a huge one. Not only will it take a long time to gain the users interest back; but it might possibly take longer to get management backing you again.

Most of these costs surprise us because of our presumption that an open source LMS is free. As you can make out by now, it absolutely is not free at all. The only thing that may be free is its license cost but then the other costs are very real and if you aren’t prepared for these, it could lead to unwanted scenarios.

I hope this helps giving you some points to chew on when considering an open source LMS. No harm in going for one but dive-in with full gear on. Never get caught unarmed! Happy learning!

Device Central 5 [to be launched with Adobe’s Creative Suite CS5] will have some new capabilities like HTML rendering, testing for hardware dependent features like accelerometer, geo-location and multi-touch etc. This is impressive because features like the accelerometer simulator are not even supported in the iPhone SDK.

Here are some videos demonstrating on how Device Central 5 is integrated with Dreamweaver and Flash Professional –

1. Testing for the multitouch and accelerometer using Flash Professional CS5
2. Integration with Dreamweaver CS5