Learning Management Systems in a Changing ...

Learning Management Systems in a Changing Environment David E. Stone and Guangzhi Zheng, Southern Polytechnic State University, USA In book: Handbook of Research on Education and Technology in a Changing Society, Chapter: 56, Publisher: IGI Global Manuscript provided for reference only

http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/learning-management-systems-in-a-changing-environment/111885

Abstract Learning Management Systems (LMS) have evolved from simple delivery and management systems to key pieces of modern organization’s learning and performance improvement capabilities. In a changing and globally competitive world, a LMS can allow for improved access and tracking of learning activities as well as support organizational growth and development. The next generation of LMS will need to be open, personal, social, flexible, support learning analytics, and properly support the move to mobile computing. This new generation of LMS must be able to meet the need of the changing environments of business and education to allow these institutions to reach their potential. The chapter provides a description of the past, present, and future of learning management systems in a changing environment.

Introduction The increasingly competitive global marketplace for jobs and education has led to increased requirement for education and ongoing training in order for individuals and organizations to remain competitive. Educational institutions are adopting online learning and information systems at a rapid pace, with 65% of higher education institutions identifying online learning as a critical part of their long term strategy (Allen & Seaman, 2011). Beyond online learning, many institutions (including primary and secondary education, higher education, continuing education, and professional industry training programs) have made use of learning management systems (LMS) to improve the operation of teaching and learning. In the 2012 Campus Computing Survey (Green, 2012), 93% of higher education institutions reported using an LMS, whereas in 2000 only approximately 15% of institutions reported having any course management tool in their online course offerings. Traditionally, Learning Management Systems (LMS) have been designed to deliver, manage, track, and assess learning activities in a formal learning environment. With new forms of communication and content sharing as well as social networking services (both open and closed), a new generation of systems is emerging to facilitate teaching and learning. These new systems are called on to support new teaching and learning environments and emerging social trends as well as to impact the traditional administration and business models. This chapter provides an overview of learning management systems and its development in the changing environment. In order to frame the current state of the LMS, we will provide a brief overview of LMS, followed by a discussion of the trends in education and training environment. A current state of LMS technology as a well as a vision for the key features of future LMS implementations will be presented against the context of the changing needs of society.

Background A LMS is a centralized web based information systems where the learning content is managed and learning activities are organized. LMS represents a more general term for a technology framework

that supports all aspects of formal and informal learning processes (Watson & Watson, 2007), including learning management, content management, course management, etc. The contexts in which LMSs are deployed include higher education institutions, primary and secondary education school systems, corporations, as well as military. While the goals and assessment processes of the various industries and organizations vary widely, there is quite a bit of commonality regarding the needs associated with the management of learning activities. A robust LMS integrates with other applications to meet business goals as well as “enabling management to measure the impact, effectiveness, and overall costs of training initiatives” (Ellis, 2009). LMSs have the following major goals, with top three most valuable features of assessment and testing, content management, and reporting are (Ellis, 2009): 

Centralize and automate administration

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Use self-service and self-guided services

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Assemble and deliver learning content rapidly

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Consolidate training initiatives on a scalable web-based platform

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Support portability and standards

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Personalize content and enable knowledge reuse

The history of LMS began in the 1960s when the PLATO learning system was created at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the TICCIT System (MITRE Corporation) provided early examples of computer based instruction. As computer based instruction moved from individual lessons to collections of lessons, the need for management of the delivery of lessons became necessary. Course management systems (CMS) and integrated learning systems (ILS) were developed to manage access and to provide reporting capabilities for student lessons. Features such as student tracking, measuring student capabilities using pre-test and post-test techniques, and reporting features were advertised as part of learning solutions. By 2011 the major market leaders for Learning Management Systems were Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moodle, Sakai and Pearson (Hill, 2012). Massive Online Open Course platforms were developed to support the high volumes associated with MOOCs such as those offered through Coursera, Udacity, MITx, CourseSites, OpenClass, einztein.com, OpenLearning, CodeAcademy, Edmodo, EDU2.0.org, etc. The modern Learning Management Systems were developed during the rapid growth of the web, and have been key to the ability of education institutions that offer online learning. The collection of tools provided within a LMS allows the management of student access, student tracking and registration to be decoupled from individual courses, which in turn has made integration with third party information systems and services easier to achieve. In addition to increased efficiency for the management of learning content, LMSs provide the capability to report student performance across content modules. Summative data regarding performance as well as detailed performance indicators within courses at the individual assignment or assessment level can be tracked and reported. Historical records of performance can be captured in order to track the longitudinal impact of the learning module on future performance (within the LMS or within a performance context). The data captured allows for the reporting of performance for return on investment calculations within business settings, as well as assessment data for academic program improvement in education settings. Increased requests for data regarding learner performance, as well as the growth of learning analytics has resulted in reporting and real-time analytics to become key marketing features for LMSs.

Learning Management Systems in a Changing Environment Trends in Education and Training

Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a trend towards more decentralized organizational structures, increased requirements for training and education to participate fully in the workforce, pressure on reducing costs and boosting return on investment for education and training activities, globalization, as well as expanded participation in higher education. Within the United States there is the expectation that 65% of jobs will require form of postsecondary education by 2020 (Lumina Foundation, 2013). A global marketplace provides challenges for businesses and education institutions seeking to manage increasingly complex and geographically distributed organizational functions and structures. Learners may be connected virtually using online or blended learning environments in order to accommodate geographic or time restrictions that would have otherwise restricted participation. The change in the technological environment has also facilitated a growing emphasis on lifelong learning and informal learning, and new approaches to assessment and recognition (Attwell, 2007). Changes in technology have increased demands on LMSs to accommodate a wide array of displays, interfaces, as well as communication channels. Accelerated degree or training programs create new integration challenges as well as complexity in configuration requirements for systems. Licensure requirements for some professions, accreditation requirements, local, state, or federal reporting requirements all require reporting capabilities to satisfy external agencies. As the largest market for Learning Management Systems, higher education is undergoing a transformation in response to pressure to increase college completion, criticism of the high cost of higher education, disruptive technologies, as well as increased competition from proprietary and international education providers. Online enrollment within degree-granting postsecondary institutions grew from about 1.6 million students taking at least one online course in 2002 to about 6.8 million in the fall of 2011, with 32 percent of all higher education students taking at least one online course (Seaman & Babson, 2012). Higher education administrators see online learning as strategic and institutions continue to build capacity to meet the demand for online programs and courses. Traditional online learning has a new potentially disruptive innovation in the form of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that are now being provided in partnerships between high profile institutions and corporate providers. Some of the new providers include Coursera, Udacity, and EdX. While it is to be seen what the future of the MOOC platform and the way barriers to the award of traditional academic program credit to students will be, there is a tremendous amount of excitement about the platform. Secondary education has also been growing in online courses and the use of LMS. According to Picciano and Seaman (2009) there were an estimated 1 million k-12 students engaged in online courses in 2007-2008 with 75% of responding public high schools offering online or blended courses. K-12 institutions have relied on external providers to provide solutions and infrastructure required to offer online programs. This contrasts with the way that higher education institutions have invested in their own internal resources to support online program growth. Long term trends in school benchmarking using standardized tests, curriculum alignment, as well as interest in moving from print based textbooks to digital versions can be facilitated by the use of learning management systems. The growth of internet access in K-12 schools, helped along by the E-rate program, has gone from approximately 14% of schools having internet access in 1996 to “near-universal access” today (Klein, 2013). Corporate training has also been through a change driven by the technology. U.S. organizations spent approximately $156.2 Billion on employee learning in 2011 (ASTD, 2012). Corporations deliver training in multiple formats including instructor led training sessions, online courses, mobile delivery, videos, self-paced materials, as well as external contracts for training delivery. According to the ASTD, 39 percent of formal learning hours are now delivered via technology-based methods. Smartphones have become increasingly commonplace, with 55% of phone owners in the U.S. now describing their phones as smartphone and an estimated 56% of adults in the U.S. now owners of smartphones (Smith, 2013). Mobile delivery of instruction is a direction that many corporations are considering for future training efforts, with many learning management system providing capabilities for accessing content optimized for mobile devices. Social media for the purpose of sharing knowledge about the organization and to

connect internal experts to needed areas are also promising developments. Learning Management Systems are under pressure to incorporate features found in a wide range of industries and technology providers. Just as in education institutions, corporations are demanding reporting and analytics capabilities for the measurement of their training programs. System integration of LMS products with existing human resources and other enterprise systems continues to be requirement for LMS selection. Desired Features for a New Generation of LMS All the changes in the educational and training environment have exposed more and more weaknesses of the traditional LMS. The capabilities of Traditional LMSs meet the needs of formal learning and are heavily used as administrative tools rather than pedagogical tool to aid and manage learning (Mott, 2010), particularly for learners. As the learning environment is changing as a result of technology advancement and resource availability, LMS needs to evolve itself to satisfy the changing environment and growing needs of learners and instructors by becoming more open, more personal, more social, more flexible, more analytics, and more mobile. In this section we summarize and present a number of desired features and paradigms that we believe will be important for the new generation of LMSs and higher education. Open The traditional LMS is a relatively closed environment with restrictions on registration, access control, resource sharing, and long term availability. A typical closed environment has two major features: 1) courses are “walled off from each other and from the wider web” (Mott, 2010), with restriction on registration and rigid access control, with limited time availability, typically based on semesters, disrupting the continuity and flow of the learning process; 2) limited capability to integrate external resources and applications. A more open environment is expected to interact with external learning resources, communities, and systems. The Web 2.0 trend has promoted an open philosophy for services and resources, which also impacted both instructors and learners to embrace a more open environment where services and resources can be shared and integrated. This openness of system is demonstrated at both directions: 1. Outward. This is the capability to make internal resources and information (such as course materials) sharable to the public via both friendly user interface and standard application interfaces (APIs). Access control can be applied but should be flexible and configurable by content owners. This provides lifelong learning support to learners even after their completion of a course. 2. Inward. This is the capability to bring external applications and resources into a LMS and integrated with internal contents and resources. There are a growing number of resources and applications that are ready for mashup and integration into the course design through standard interfaces. Promising developments have emerged in the area of open education resources and continued development of third party interoperability within LMS platforms. Some of the features have been advanced by the Web 2.0 technologies and services, such as blog, Wiki, social networking, and mashup applications. LMS may have to allow data to be exported and imported with other systems (Sclater, 2008). Open Education Resources (OERs) promise to dramatically reduce the cost of instructional materials and to improve access to education. These resources must be managed and integrated into the student learning experience efficiently if teachers are to incorporate these materials into the design of instruction. Universities, school districts, as well as businesses have a wealth of instructional materials that could be reused or repurposed for additional projects, but tools to support this ease of reuse have not been realized.

LMS openness also means the integration with existing systems within organizations, such as student information systems, content delivery networks, content management systems, directory or identity systems, and other operational systems used in the learning environment. This integration allows for the automation of administrative tasks, as well as the development of enterprise reporting and analytic systems that are useful for decision makers within the organization. Learning management systems such as Sakai and MOODLE are open source projects that are supported by a community of devoted volunteers and sponsors. Many third party systems integrate well with open source projects, but they may not necessarily have the same level of integration and ongoing support for these connections that commercial LMS technologies garner. Partnerships between LMS vendors Blackboard and educational publishers as well as third party applications make it easier for product integration. While there exist alliances to ensure interoperability of systems (SCORM, IMS, etc), specific implementations or configurations of systems may be problematic in organizations seeking to ensure a seamless experience across systems. Personal Traditional LMS are teacher or institution centric. The complete course structure and content are created by the teacher. Student initiated activities and interactions are limited. The paradigm in personal learning environment (PLE) (Harmelen, 2006; Wilson et al., 2006) provides dramatically different approach, moving to a model where student manage their own learning, which is more learner-centered and supports informal learning. This is not a replacement of the current teacher centric approach, but it can be complementary to the current system. In fact, from a technology standpoint, these two approaches can coexist. The feature of being personal is closely related to other features of being social and flexible. More specific features are expected for a future generation of LMS incorporates many of the PLE features, which aims to provide an environment that supports the learning need of the learner. This includes resource management, learning management, control of activities, and personal publishing. 1. Resource management. A LMS should provide adequate self-service in a personal space where learners can store and manage their own learning materials. It also enables them to build personal resources and knowledge repository with effective sharing capabilities. 2. Learning management. Advocated by self-directed learning, learners can assess learner needs, set learning goals, monitor learning progress, and evaluate learning outcomes by themselves. As LMS providers integrate analytics into systems for instructor and administrator access, there is a tremendous potential for providing some subset of these tracking measures back to the student for self-monitoring. Students equipped with the knowledge of their current performance could be coached in order to allow them to meet specific goals or learning outcomes required of the learning experience. One of the burdens of the management of instruction is the selection of content and assessment of student performance. The extent to which this task can be optimized for the individual student without significant instructor workload, the more likely this capability can be used. 3. Control of activities. This is about who can set up activities and who determine the sharing. Learners should be able to have such controls, for example, initiating a discussion forum or a study group, or setting permissions of access. 4. Personal publishing. Users are able to create and publish content, including learning reflection, learning experience, and knowledge, using publishing tools like blog, wiki, or forum. Innovative programs of study such as the College for America program at Southern New Hampshire University help make the case for next generation learning management system capabilities related to personal learning activities. While most institutions operate on the credit hour as the standard

for measuring program progress, the new competency based education program at Southern New Hampshire University is just one of many new models that put the focus on the student. Social Institutions have adopted models for community building as part of their academic enterprise. One example is the integration of the Community of Inquiry Model that has been used by American Public University System as part of their student assessment of the learning experience. Just as openness of LMS and the ability for students to develop their own personal learning networks and resources are part of the new learning environment, social capabilities are key as well. As professions have become increasingly specialized there is a need for learners and professionals to maintain connections with experts in a wide variety of topics. Creating experiences for developing networking both within and outside of formal training activities allows for new connections to be made, as well as to bring alumni back to report on their further development after the training events. There is value for corporations who are seeking to build knowledge networks within their organization as well as for higher education institutions seeking to keep alumni connected with the institution for lifelong learning opportunities, or fundraising. A social learning network, a social network created specifically for the purpose of learning (Zheng, 2013b), is an open online learning community for learning, discussion, resource sharing, and collaboration. Being social is a human nature in learning needs. It is closely related to the open feature but more focus on learners rather than resources. Many of the current social media technologies such as Twitter and LinkedIn provide ways for individuals to develop personal learning networks that connect them to knowledgeable experts irrespective of their geographic location. Blogging and other outlets for the expression of ideas and sharing of insight have become common outside of learning management systems. Current LMSs now provide ways to incorporate social media channels into the LMS via a variety of integration and syndication technologies. The general purpose/principle of social is to be able to see, network, learn, collaborate, and share with people with similar interests and learning experiences, and provide a learning community like environment to facilitate communication and collaboration, and ultimately learning and doing. Some of the most important social features that LMS can support in learning are: 1. User profiles of both instructors and learners. Profile information include general background and contact information such as name, position, interests, etc., and learning specific information such as learning status, progress, history, courses/certificates/programs/tracks completion. For instructors, further student reviews can be supported, which can be used to represent instructor credibility and popularity. It can serve as an important factor for course selection. 2. Cross-course forums. These forums should be provided to support general discussion and also serve as a communication channel between faculty/institution and students. It can be a great place for advising. 3. Ad hoc groups that are learning focused. Anyone should be able to set up and short term study groups or longer term special interest group, this can even be initialed by students themselves (Sclater, 2008). Basic group collaboration functions should be available like calendar, discussion, news, document sharing, etc. 4. Collaborative filtering or social tagging/bookmarking. Through community review and recognition, this helps people find what they want and appreciate the best. The features should at least include review of instructors and learning materials (learning objects, materials, etc.). Flexible

LMS traditionally support formal education where the structure of education units strictly course based. The new system may need to support more non-formal and informal learning in addition to the formal courses. First, LMS needs to provide a flexible scheme to support the creation of learning units at different levels, particularly smaller units that are self-contained and reusable. An example is the learning objects (McGreal, 2004; Ritzhaupt, 2010; Sinclair, Joy, Yau, & Hagan, 2013) with levels ranging from raw elements and modules to courses. LMS is desired to support learning objects or other similar concepts at all levels and provide possible relationships among these learning objects, such as a knowledge map. This can also be combined with other features so learning objects can be socially tagged, reviewed, rated, and shared. Flexibility also means the possible provision and completion of alternative courses and learning paths as long as they have similar outcomes. Alternatives have already been a practice in today’s educational programs, including elevate courses, and different sections of the same course which are prepared and taught by different instructors, with potentially different materials. Students have the choice to choose alternatives based on personal needs and public reviews and recommendations. It’s important to chain these in to a learning path or knowledge map that provide multiple paths toward completion. In doing this, learners are no longer necessarily locked into a particular course or path in order to gain a qualification. This flexibility can greatly increase subject coverage and number of learning tracks. An important issue related to the flexible learning unit is the recognition and assessment issue, particularly if they are to be incorporated to the formal structured learning system. Traditional accreditation system is strictly based on course completion and passage. However, formal qualifications are increasingly only seen as one aspect of competence at least for employment purposes (Attwell, 2007; Heussner, 2013). An experiment system Open Badge is already implementing the concept and has provided open APIs at least providing a technical feasibility. Gamification can also be applied to offer an informal way for the social recognition purpose. This granular and flexible model of learning can take advantage of the increased capability that information systems have for tracking and reporting on individual interactions with a course or learning object. Measurement of new student competencies allows for a focus on student performance at a smaller measure of analysis that can be used to reconfigure learning programs as needed for the individual’s capability, or for a particular learning requirement set for the student by the institution. The potential is for a tremendous reduction in redundant learning activities as well as a reduced time to completion for students. Students who may have not been successful in a linear program of study may have additional opportunities to revisit problematic learning content, or to be targeted for additional support via other resources. Learning analytics Data regarding learning activities within LMSs are increasingly being used to improve learning for students as well as track trends across courses. Much like the benefits seen within corporate settings, the availability of data regarding learner activities (or lack thereof) provides opportunities for educational institutions to develop improvements to instructional and curriculum design activities as well as design non-instructional interventions as part of the overall learning experience. Tracking learner progress, selfmonitoring, as well as the awarding of credit for units of instruction smaller than a complete course are some of the capabilities provided by better data capture within LMSs. Time to completion, time on tasks, the duration and frequency of use of learning resources can be used to continually improve the learning experience and subsequent learning outcomes. Learning analytics is the collection, measurement, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their learning activities, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning outcomes and processes (LAK, 2011). When part of a well-designed program evaluation process, learning analytics can

provide insight into how individual components of learning activities fit together. Much like the benefits seen in business applications, these data points can be used to inform the selection of learning interventions or changes to the design of learning programs. Tracking student performance via measures and reporting outcomes to faculty and administrators can provide a more granular view of the student performance in a timely manner. Connections between student performance across courses or longitudinally across their academic programs can allow for sophisticated tracking of performance that may allow for new methods of intervention. Tracking of course activities to learning outcomes and broader performance standards can be automated or at least assisted by learning analytics. Dashboard features could be used to monitor student progress in aggregate across multiple course sections, as well as provide alerts and warnings for students or courses that reach a particular threshold. One example of how learning activity data collected across multiple institutions can be leveraged to increase student success is the Predicative Analytics Reporting Framework that is currently underway by six WCET institutions (American Public University System, Colorado Community College System, Rio Salado College, University of Hawaii System, University of Illinois Springfield, and the University of Phoenix). This project is a multi-institution data mining project that seeks to find effective practices for student retention. This data analysis is the first step in developing a capacity to perform complex analysis and the development of actionable decision centers that will allow institutions to optimize the educational experience for learners. Longitudinal data regarding student learning, interactions within the LMS, with external systems, as well as behavior patterns of individual students may inform the way academic delivery is structured, how student services are provided, as well as supplemental resources are presented to learners within the learning management system. Mobile Technology infrastructure such as mobile technology, growing broadband wireless access, as well as new web oriented architecture allows for greater capabilities for learning delivery. Engaging learners and meeting them where they are by providing quality interfaces and customizable delivery provides new opportunities for students to control their learning experience. Mobile learning has increased viability as mobile computing devices continue to grow in market share and as the bring-your-own-device phenomenon has grown. As more access to mobile computing grows, there will be increased expectations for support for these devices within learning environments. It is estimated by Gartner that by 2017, half of employers will require employees to supply their own computing devices for work purposes (Willis, 2013). Students enrolled in courses may bring their mobile devices into the classroom to support learning activities within the class, or they may be participating in learning activities outside of a formal classroom experience. The line between online and in-person learning experiences have become fuzzy with the advent of blended learning programs that have both online and in-person components. Increased bandwidth brought on by new wireless or cellular technologies provides better capabilities for rich media and sophisticated communication between mobile devices and the learning management systems. Many learning management systems now incorporate some of the capabilities that have often been seen in earlier web 2.0 systems. Purdue University has developed a suite of mobile tools that allow for interaction and publishing. Several projects provide capabilities enabled by mobile devices to support rapid publishing (Jetpack), mobile video (doubletake), classroom discussion (hotseat), and early intervention for students who need help (signals). These capabilities do not exist in most current LMS implementations, and require the development or licensing of third party applications to achieve this capability.

Future Research A number of concepts and systems are emerging to address the limitations of traditional LMSs, such as PLE, social learning content management system (Kim & Moon, 2013), OLN (Mott, 2010), PLMS (Schanda, Dikke, & Müller, 2012), and SLN (Zheng, 2013b). Instructors also creatively utilize

new systems to complement or replace LMS for new features as the change of LMS cannot keep up with the change. For example, many Web 2.0 tools like blog and Facebook has been used for its socialization features (Meishar-Tal, Kurtz, & Pieterse, 2012; Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang, & Liu, 2012; Zheng, 2013a). The addition of third party tools and systems to an LMS to meet needs is probably a temporary solution until LMSs are revitalized to accommodate the changing environment. Building a model of support around a patchwork of systems and interfaces is challenging and confusing to learners. Having a single system with tracking and management capabilities helps both build a consistent experience for learners and ease the implementation and versioning process for managers. Some newer versions of LMSs are emerging to implement some of the features discussed above already. Examples include the basic tracking and reporting capabilities found in products such as Desire2Learn and Blackboard. While open standards and interoperability are key to long term survivability of a platform, there is a time where the complexity becomes challenging. The features offered within LMSs must reflect the administrative and business models in higher education. Trends in how individuals learn and new models for the design, delivery and assessment of learning must be considered when designing systems as they reflect the values of the organizations using them. The new generation of LMS should be able to support the traditional institutional context as well as the emerging informal and social or personal context. Research has shown this possibility of integration (GarcíaPeñalvo, Conde, Alier, & Casany, 2011), and the industry has begun to offer systems and services with these new features, for example, Responsive Open Learning Environments (ROLE), OpenLearning, CourseSites, OpenClass. However, we are still at a very early stage to see the LMS to embrace the new features we discussed earlier. Institutions and instructors are also slow to embrace the new features of these systems. The adoption of the new LMS is not just a technical challenge but more a business model (practice) change. Further research is needed to investigate how newer systems can implement and integrate features with LMS, as well as how learning environments can be changed by the new system.

Conclusion LMS has been a great help in the traditional institution centered environment for the course delivery. However, as technology and learning needs change, the learning environment is becoming more and more open, learner-centered, and collaborative. Future LMS is expected to transform itself as a learning portal that satisfies needs of multiple parties and multiple levels of learning. A comprehensive set of features include traditional content management and learning management, but also include more learner focused personal, social, and collaboration activities in learning.

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Key Terms and Definitions Learning Analytics: Learning analytics is the collection, measurement, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their learning activities, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning outcomes and processes. LMS (learning management system): A LMS is a centralized web based information systems where the learning content is managed and learning activities are organized. LMS represents a more general term for a technology framework that supports all aspects of formal and informal learning processes, including learning management, content management, course management, etc. Learning objects: Modular and portable unit of instructional content that contains content, activities and an assessment. Massive Online Open Courses: Relatively large courses (greater than typically found in higher education) that provide open access to the courses delivered online and are organized as a course. The structure of the courses may vary by institution or provider, and there is little agreement regarding the structure of MOOCs. Mobile learning: The delivery of learning activities on portable devices such as cell phones, tablets, or other portable computing devices. Online learning: Courses that are delivered online for at least 80 percent of the content of the course. PLE (personal learning environment): PLE is a system that helps learners take control of and manage their own learning.