lms and lcms what's the difference

7/31/2019 LMS and LCMS What's the Difference

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and LCMS: What's the Difference? http://www.learningcircuits.org/NR/exeres/72E3F68C-4047-4379-8454...

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The attached diagrampublished in the IDCreport, The Learning

Content Management System: A New E-Learning Market Segment Emerges illustrates how an LMScan launch coursesdeveloped by an LCMSand incorporate LCMSperformancemeasurements intoreports.

LMS and LCMS: What's the Difference?By Leonard Greenberg

If youre confused about the differences between a learning management system (LMS) and a learning content management system (LCMS), youre not alone. Not only are the names similar, some suppliers are positioning LCMSs as the new wave of LMSs. In fact, an LMS and an LCMS are complementary but v ery different systems that serve different m asters and address unique business challenges.

In essence, an LMS is a high-level, strategic solution for planning, delivering, andmanaging all learning events within an organization, including online, virtualclassroom, and instructor-led courses. The primary solution is replacing isolated andfragmented learning programs with a systematic means of assessing and raising

competency and performance levels throughout the organization. For example, anLMS simplifies global certification efforts, enables companies to align learninginitiatives with strategic goals, and provides a viable means of enterprise-level skillsmanagement. The focus of an LMS is to manage learners, keeping track of theirprogress and performance across all types of training activities. It performsheavy-duty administrative tasks, such as reporting to HR and other ERP systems butisnt generally used to create course content.

In contrast, the focus of an LCMS is on learning content. It gives authors, instructionaldesigners, and subject matter experts the means to create e-learning content moreefficiently. The primary business problem an LCMS solves is to create just enoughcontent just in time to meet the needs of individual learners or groups of learners.Rather than developing entire courses and adapting them to multiple audiences,instructional designers create reusable content chunks and make them available tocourse developers throughout the organization. This eliminates duplicate developmentefforts and allows for the rapid assembly of customized content.

How does an LCMS fit within an LMS infrastructure?

Because an LMS can have a direct impact on the work of thousands of learners andmanages all aspects of organizational learning, experts recommend starting with anLMS that can be easily integrated with an LCMS.

IDC's report The Learning Content Management System: A New E-Learning Market Segment Emerges explains: LCMSs and LMSs are not only distinct fromone another, they also complement each other well.

When tightly integrated, information from the twosystems can be exchanged, ultimately resulting in aricher learning experience for the user and a morecomprehensive tool for the learning administrator. AnLMS can manage communities of users, allowing eachof them to launch the appropriate objects stored andmanaged by the LCMS. In delivering the content, theLCMS also bookmarks the individual learners progress,records test scores, and passes them back to the LMSfor reporting purposes.

Differences and overlap

The Evolution of the LearningContent Management System

Mission: Buy an LMS

The Must-Have Features of anLMS

Leonard Greenberg isthe CTO for Pathlore;www.pathlore.com .


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Both an LMS and an LCMS manage course content and track learner performance.Both tools can manage and track content at a learning object level, too. An LMS,however, can manage and track blended courses and curriculum assembledfrom online content, classroom events, virtual classroom meetings and a variety ofother sources. Although an LCMS doesnt manage blended learning, it does managecontent at a lower level of granularity than a learning object, which allowsorganizations to more easily restructure and repurpose online content. In addition,advanced LCMSs can dynamically build learning objects based on user profiles andlearning styles. When both systems adhere to XML standards, information is passedeasily from the object level to the LMS level.

The following chart, based primarily on research conducted by Brandon Hall,summarizes the capabilities and differences between the two systems.

LMS LCMSWho benefits? All learners;

organizationCcontent developers;learners who needpersonalized content

Provides primary management of Learner performance;learning requirements;learning programs andplanning

Learning content

Manages e-learning Yes YesManages traditional forms oftraining, such as instructor-led

Yes No

Tracks results Yes YesSupports learner collaboration Yes YesIncludes learner profilemanagement

Yes No

Allows HR and ERP systems toshare learner data

Yes No

Schedules events Yes NoOffers competency mapping/skillgap analysis

Yes No

Includes registration, prerequisitescreening, and cancellationnotification

Yes No

Creates test questions and testadministration

Yes Yes

Supports dynamic pretesting andadaptive learning

No Yes

Supports content creation No YesOrganizes reusable content Yes YesIncludes workflow tools tomanage content creation process

No Yes

Develops content navigationcontrols and user interface

No Yes

LCMS close-up

IDC defines an LCMS as a system that creates, stores, assembles and deliverspersonalized e-learning content in the form of learning objects. Though an LMSmanages and administers all forms of learning within an organization, an LCMSconcentrates on online learning content, usually in the form of learning objects.

A learning object is a self-contained chunk of instructional material. It typicallyincludes three components: a performance goal (what the learner will understand orbe able to accomplish upon completion of the learning), the necessary learningcontent to reach that goal (such as text, video, illustration, bulleted slide, demo, task


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simulation), and some form of evaluation to measure whether or not the goal wasachieved.

A learning object also includes metadata, or tags that describe its content andpurpose to the LCMS. Metadata may include information such as author, language,version level, and more. In the white paper "Meaning, Metadata and E-Learning,"author Dave Feasy of Eyepopping Design predicts,With its increasing importance,were likely to experience a metadata explosion mirroring the information explosion itseeks to expiate. Managing the growing body of metadata will soon become a fieldunto itself. Hopefully, these new systems will not be named LMMS.

So how are learning objects used to create content? An LCMS stores learning objectsin a central repository for instructional designers to retrieve and assemble intopersonalized courses. This benefits developers and learners because traditionalcourses tend to contain more content than any single learner can absorb or needs toabsorb about a topic. By breaking course content into learning objects and servingthem up on an as needed basis, content developers can deliver just-in-time and

just-enough learning. The end result is increased productivity because employeesarent wasting time wading through irrelevant material.

While LCMS capabilities vary, key components include

Learning object repository. The learning object repository is a central

database in which learning content is stored and managed. Its from this pointthat individual learning objects are either dispensed to users individually or usedas components to assemble larger learning modules or full courses, dependingon individual learning needs. The instructional output may be delivered via theWeb, CD-ROM, or printed materials. The same object may be used as manytimes and for as many purposes as is appropriate. The integrity of the content ispreserved regardless of the delivery platform. XML serves this function byseparating content from programming logic and code. Automated authoring application. This application is used to create thereusable learning objects that are accessible in the repository. The applicationautomates development by providing authors with templates and storyboardingcapabilities that incorporate instructional design principles. Using thesetemplates, authors may develop an entire course by using existing learningobjects in the repository, creating new learning objects, or using a combinationof old and new objects. Authors may be subject matter experts, instructionaldesigners, media production artists, a community of practice leaders, and soforth. The tool may also be used to rapidly convert libraries of an organizationsexisting content, typically by adding media, customized interfaces, andinstructional methodologies. An author may reside within an organization or atan outsourced provider.Dynamic delivery interface. To serve up a learning object based on learnerprofiles, pretests, and/or user queries, a dynamic delivery interface is required.This component also provides user tracking, links to related sources ofinformation, and multiple assessment types with user feedback. This interfacemay be customized for the organization using the LCMS. For example, contentmay be presented on Webpages emblazoned with the company logo and a lookand feel designed to reflect the desired corporate image. The look and feel mayalso be localized to the users region.Administrative application. This application is used to manage learnersrecords, launch e-learning courses from course catalogs, track and report theprogress of learners, and provide other basic administrative functions. Thisinformation can be fed into an LMS designed with more robust administrativefunctionality.

The downside of the LCMS proposition is that it takes a great deal of foresight,planning, and skill to design effective learning objects--even when templates andexamples are provided. Designers must think in a non-linear fashion and have a fairunderstanding of all the contexts in which an object might be needed or used. Forexample, if a learning object is taken out of context or presented with insufficientsupporting information, it can do more harm than good. Some courses, such as those


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required for safety or certification programs, are required to cover a specific set oftopics in a certain order and should not be broken apart.

To be sure, learning objects--and LCMSs--are a fixed part of the future, but they willlikely always coexist with other forms of learning, such as mentoring, learning bydoing, and instructor-led training.

LMS close-up

An LMS provides a single point of access to disparate learning sources. It automateslearning program administration and offers unprecedented opportunities for humanresource development. It identifies the people who need a particular course and tellsthem how it fits into their overall career path, when its available, how its available(classroom, online, CD-ROM), if there are prerequisites, and when and how they canfulfill those prerequisites. Once learners complete a course, the LMS can administertests based on proficiency requirements, report test results, and recommend nextsteps. In that capacity, LMSs are instrumental in assuring that organizations meetrigid certification requirements in such vertical markets as healthcare, finance, andgovernment.

Look for these capabilities in an LMS:

Support for blended learning. People learn in different ways. An LMS should

offer a curriculum that mixes classroom and virtual courses easily. Combined,those features enable prescriptive and personalized training.Integration with HR. LMSs that aren't synchronized with HR systems miss theboat. When systems are integrated, a human resources employee can enter anew hire's information into the HR system, and the employee is automaticallysigned up for training tailored to his or her role within the company.Administration tools. The LMS must enable administrators to manage userregistrations and profiles, define roles, set curricula, chart certification paths,assign tutors, author courses, manage content, and administer internal budgets,user payments, and chargebacks. Administrators need complete access to thetraining database, enabling them to create standard and customized reports onindividual and group performance. Reports should be scalable to include theentire workforce. The system should also be able to build schedules forlearners, instructors, and classrooms. Most important, all features should bemanageable using automated user-friendly interfaces.Content integration. It's important for an LMS to provide native support to awide range of third-party courseware. When shopping for an LMS, keep in mindthat some LMSs are compatible only with the supplier's own courseware, andothers do little more than pay lip-service to learning content standards. An LMSsupplier should be able to certify that third-party content will work within theirsystem, and accessing courses should be as easy as using a drop-down menu.Adherence to standards. An LMS should attempt to support standards, suchas SCORM and AICC . Support for standards means that the LMS can importand manage content and courseware that complies with standards regardless ofthe authoring system that produced it. Beware: Unless the supplier certifies thatthe content will work, plan on additional expenses.Assessment capabilities. Evaluation, testing, and assessment engines helpdevelopers build a program that becomes more valuable over time. It's a goodidea to have an assessment feature that enables authoring within the productand includes assessments as part of each course.Skills management. A skills management component enables organizations tomeasure training needs and identify improvement areas based on workerscollective competence in specified areas. Skills assessments can be culled frommultiple sources, including peer reviews and 360-feedback tools. Managersdetermine whether results are weighed, averaged, or compared to determine askill gap. Businesses also might use this feature to search their employee basefor specialized skills.

Integrating LMSs with LCMSs


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A good LMS provides an infrastructure that enables a company to plan, deliver, andmanage learning programs in any format it chooses. It will support multiple authoringsystems and integrate easily with the leading LCMS systems. In its role as a catalystfor the overall learning environment, an LMS can integrate LCMS learning objects viatechnical specifications and standards and assume responsibility for all contentmanagement, including delivery and tracking, storage in a content repository,assembly and reassembly of content objects, incorporation of content objects intoblended curriculums, and tracking learner progress through courses.

The key to integration success is an open, interoperable approach. Currently, leadingLMS and LCMS suppliers are launching certification programs that proactivelyaddress compatibility issues and ensure interoperability between their products. Whiletime-consuming and expensive for the suppliers, certification programs shieldcustomers from integration hassles or having to settle for patchwork solutions fromsuppliers who try to do it all. The certification approach gives buyers the freedom tochoose both the LMS and LCMS that best meets their needs.

Object level management has been around forever and solves a myriad of ITproblems, but its not a panacea. Indeed, one analyst employs the following metaphorto illustrate the function of an LCMS. Traditional courses are bags of jelly beans,learning objects are the beans inside the bag, and LCMSs are systems that open allthe bags, pour the beans into one big jar, and put descriptive tags on each bean sothey can be repackaged into new bags on demand.

The question remains: Just because the technology exists to manage your e-learningcontent at the bean level, will it have a significant impact on productivity? Can yousolve the need for just-enough learning other ways? LCMSs arent an inexpensiveproposition. Before you invest, ask whether the problems they solve are the problemsyou care about.

Published: December 9, 2002

lms and lcms what's the difference

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