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LCMSLearning Content Management Systems An LCMS is a multi-user environment where learning developers can create, store, reuse, manage, and deliver digital learning content from a central object repository. Confused already? Watch out: I wrote this in 2001.Let's define our terms. |
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 A
standalone chunk of learning. May have been chipped out of a legacy course.
Can be mixed and matched to form personalized learning experiences. Think
of it as a discrete mini-course. |
 Tags
affixed to learning objects to explain what's inside: its content, objectives,
author, language, date, version, level, asssessment, and more. |
 The
repository is nothing more than a database of learning objects. As we shall
see, an LCMS can deliver these as required by a specific situation. |
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Think of it this way. A course is made of learning objects that are glued together in a big lump. One size fits all. It's all or nothing. An LMS registers the learner and records completion.
In the world of the LCMS, the sort of lessons and activities that were once components of courses have lives of their own. An LCMS assembles these objects into learning paths personalized to the needs of the individual learner. The LCMS also comes with the machinery to cook up new jelly beans in-house.
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Why LCMS?eLearning exists to get people up to speed quickly and to keep them there. Early attempts at eLearning tried to accomplish this by brute force, generally off-the-shelf courses tracked by a Learning Manangement System. It wasn't that successful. Learning Content Management Systems have arrived to overcome these deficiencies:
Learning Content Management Systems were created to overcome these difficulties. Learning objects, those small chunks or "granules" of learning, are at the heart of an LCMS. They are maintained in a database or "repository."
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Update from Online Learning 2001. Bryan Chapman chaired a panel of LCMS vendors talking about “Advanced Learning Object Repositories.” Honchos from Outstart, Logic Bay, Aspen (Click2Learn), Knowledge Mechanics, and WBT Systems. “Do you need both an LMS and an LCMS?” Outstart’s John Alonzo said the only LMS features an LCMS might lack were the concepts of time and place – an LCMS neither schedules events nor reserves classrooms. You might think of an LMS as a storefront and an LCMS as back-end fulfillment. My takeaway was that most customers will not need both an LMS and an LCMS. An LCMS can roll up information into reports; an LMS can’t get into this level of detail. I question whether LCMSs would even be an issue if Saba and Docent didn’t have installed bases. In the first white paper below, IDC disagrees. They believe LMS and LCMS will co-exist. My guess is that LCMS will grow LMS functionality and become the only game in town.
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Bryan provided some pricing information from his recent survey of LCMS. Assume a five-year implementation for 8,000 learners, five servers, and 40 authors. The average price tag was $537,000 (about $65,000 more than for an LMS). The median price was $430,000. Lowest price was $150,000, highest $1.9 million. How to justify these lofty prices? Well, it is enterprise software, and less than $10,000 a month ($537K/60 months) is relatively cheap. The returns come from retaining and maintaining content, faster learning thanks to personalization, and ease of implementation. Bryan Chapman's presentation Clark Aldrich's presentation |
White PapersThe Learning Content Management System
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| This diagram from the IDC white paper is the clearest functional explanation of LMS and LCMS I have found. |
| Learning
content management systems New technologies for new learning approaches By Harvi Singh |
Harvi identifies six characteristics of an LCMS:
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| LCMS = LMS +
CMS [RLOs] - How does this affect the learner? The instructional designer?
By Maish Nichani |
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| Learning Content Management System; the
2nd Wave of e-Learning! (617K PDF) By Robert Koolen, Knowledge Mechanics |
| Managing Knowledge with Learning Objects
The Role of an e-Learning Content Management
System in Speeding Time to Performance |
The first wave of e-learning was focused on cost displacement
solutions associated with administering classroom training, i.e. the LMS.
However, the market has matured and expanded to a second wave of adopters
who want a more sophisticated e-learning solution. This second wave requires
an e-Learning Content Management System to fulfill the needs of personalized
and adaptive e-learning along with the economic benefits of reusable Learning
Objects.  |
| eLearning in Practice, Proprietary Knowledge and Instructional Design, an IDC white paper commissioned by Vitalect |
 Example: LeadingWay's KnowledgeOne LCMS |
VendorsAdaptive Learning Framework (ibtraining.com) Italics = Member of LCMS Vendor Council |
| The LCMS Vendor Council was formed in November 2000 to increase industry awareness of Learning Content Management Systems and to promote the value they deliver to enterprises and learners. Current members of the LCMS Vendor Council are Global Knowledge, Knowledge Mechanics, LeadingWay Knowledge Systems, Online Courseware Factory, Vitalect, Vuepoint and WBT Systems. Larger players with LCMS capabilities (Avaltus, SmartForce, Click2Learn's Aspen, Centra's MindLever, and others spring to mind) are not members of the LCMS Council. The LCMS Vendor Council sponsored the IDC white paper on LCMS. |
The
old-school unit of formal learning. A packet of content, a means to deliver
it, and an assessment of mastery. May include a pre-test. Generallly more
than any particular learner needs. 
"REDWOOD
SHORES, CALIF., Oct. 29, 2001 - Saba (NASDAQ: SABA), the leading provider
of Human Capital Development and Management (HCDM) solutions, today announced
the availability of Saba3 Learning Release4, the first and only
software application to fully integrate learning management, content management,
and collaboration capabilities in a single system. Until now, Global 2000
companies and government agencies were faced with multiple, disparate
systems for managing learning throughout the extended enterprise. This
resulted in lower productivity and higher costs, as learners struggled
to find and access information to develop their competencies, while valuable
knowledge assets were lost and there was no way to ensure that the right
people received the right learning content at the right time.