With all of these options, how do faculty and the school begin to select the system that will work within their environment and with their faculty and students?
SharePoint Learning Management System
ELEARNINGFORCE (http://www.elearningforce.com/Pages/About-us.aspx), based in Denmark and founded in 2003, provides eLearning services to educational, corporate, and public sector organizations worldwide with its primary product SharePoint LMS. The company is a Microsoft Gold Partner, and the LMS is built “in SharePoint from the ground up.” (See their About Us webpage in Fig. 31.5.) It prides itself on SharePoint LMS being a product that is easy to use for those familiar with the Microsoft interface and easy to integrate with Microsoft products such as the Office suite.39
FIG 31.5 Sharepoint LMS with Product Overview tab displayed. Used with permission.
Open Source
Open-source software refers to software code that one is “free” to use and alter to match existing needs. Institutions interested in cost savings may select an open-source CMS. While the cost to buy may be very low, the cost to own can be very high. The development of the custom interface, the needed IT staff, and long-term maintenance costs of a custom-built CMS can push these costs well above initial expectation. Additionally, updates for new requirements 523or security can take significant time and effort. Institutions must address the cost for IT department time, the skill set to manage server and network issues, and training time on open-source CMS. What is free is the code; there is no yearly license fee to pay. Two examples of open-source software are Moodle and Sakai.
Moodle
Moodle (https://moodle.com/) is popular among educators around the world as a tool for creating online websites for students. To work, Moodle must be on a web server, either on one of the school’s servers or on a server at a web hosting company such as MoodleCloud (https://moodle.com/cloud/), 524which services small schools and Moodle Partners like ClassroomRevolution LLC and eLerningExperts.40 There is generally a fee to use a hosting company, but the overall cost of this approach may be less because of free access to the code.
Sakai
Sakai (https://www.sakaiproject.org/) is an international community that exists to enhance teaching, learning, and research.41 One joins the membership institute that includes small colleges, universities, hospitals, government agencies, and political parties. The organization defines the needs of academic users, creates software tools, and shares best practices while pooling knowledge and resources in support of this goal.
Cloud Based
Cloud-based CMSs are increasing in popularity with the movement toward mobile learning. Cloud-based CMSs refer to systems that others host on the internet and learners access over the internet using their browser.42 While many LMS now have Cloud services as one of their products, this group of CMSs focuses more on employee training. Some of the benefits of this approach are the same as for others, such as lower costs, security, and easy access from any device. One of the main advantages is that Cloud service vendors provide the needed technical support, thereby freeing up IT staff for other projects. The end user needs to provide only the internet access and developed courses. Some examples of Cloud-based CMSs include Litmos LMS (http://www.litmos.com/), Agylia (http://www.cm-group.co.uk/), TalentLMS (http://www.talentlms.com/), Docebo SaaS LMS (https://www.docebo.com/), and G-Cube (http://www.gc-solutions.net/).43
Partnerships
Book publishers often partner with software vendors to provide a package of tools to assist with the delivery of distance education. Elsevier’s Evolve LMS and Pearson’s learning environments (LearningStudio, MyLab, Mynursinglab) supply everything from customized, concept-to-completion LMSs to digital content. These online learning environments offer resources to both faculty and students (e.g., interactive grade book features, learning tools that simulate clinical experience and charting, Cloud-based technology). In most cases, the disadvantage to using this approach is that they may require you to use their textbook or may require students to purchase an access code. When you change textbooks, you may lose access to these resources. If students try to resell their textbooks on the used-textbook market, the access code is not valid.
With all of these options, how do faculty and the school begin to select the system that will work within their environment and with their faculty and students? The next section discusses selection criteria and the role of the faculty.