What does it cost to buy the CMS; what does it cost to own the CMS?
What is the cost of hosting versus housing the CMS? What are the mechanism for and frequency of upgrades? What are the costs of these upgrades?31,32
One way to start the selection process is to first decide on the type of system that will meet the needs of the institution and its students: campus-based portal, proprietary CMS, open-source system, Cloud-based, or partnership.33 Many of these systems are moving toward the campus-based portal model and a better fit with most definitions of an LMS.
Portals
Portals are customized, personalized entries or gateways where users, including students and faculty, can access all of the content they typically need. A portal is a user-centric web page that includes access to a CMS. The portal integrates and provides a secure access point to the data, information, and applications that users need in their roles as a student or faculty. Portals generally include enterprise resource systems (finance, human relations, etc.), community building communications, admissions, retention, web-based academic counseling, CMSs, and metrics to measure success, to name a few features. Two examples of vendor-based portals are Ellucian and Jenzabar.
Ellucian
Ellucian’s (www.ellucian.com) focus is assisting educational institutions to grow by offering applications that integrate and interface the systems that faculty and students need. Fig. 31.1 presents the homepage of their website with the software submenu showing. At Ellucian Live 2015, the CEO announced the acquisition of a competency-based education LMS called Helix and the movement of two of their products to the Cloud—Banner and Colleague by Ellucian.34
FIG 31.1 Ellucian with Software submenu displayed. Used with permission.
Jenzabar
Jenzabar (www.jenzabar.com) is another example of a portal system that supports a college or university across each department, including administrative offices and academic departments.35 Jenzabar attempts to align the school’s mission and goals with technology investments. Fig. 31.2 shows the Higher Education Solutions menu on the homepage and the range of offerings that Jenzabar provides. Notice the Cloud services on the left side of the screen. These products are similar for most portal systems. Their eLearning software includes the typical features of CMS: content management, course copy, a gradebook, exams, e-mail, calendars, chat, discussion forums, online meetings, test analytics, and usage statistics.
FIG 31.2 Jenzabar products menu. Copyright 2013 Jenzabar, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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