The best system for the education market is Moodle. Moodle can be a worthwhile system but it requires heavy customization, dedicated IT person who has Moodle skill sets (ideal), in-house support (because when end users can’t figure it out – they will come calling YOU) and costs that many folks fail to realize. In a nutshell, Moodle is not an out of the box system. As such, do folks really want parents to have their own portal? Learning activities. MORE

LMS vendors are continuing to add some very unique features in an effort to set themselves apart from the competition. While UI on the front and back end of a system continues to be all over the place – from generally awful to very nice – regardless of the price point, its the features that stand out (or in some cases -you should stand clear off) in the space. Built in E-mail that blocks viruses, spam plus you can send out of the LMS. e-book publishing. MORE

Many in the education market are still in love with open source systems, such as Moodle. That is why there is an uptick in the number of commercial systems available in the education sector. Mobile Learning. This is one of the most shocking trends in the space – the significant lack of mobile learning in these systems. So why the delay in using mobile learning, especially with tablets in education focused LMSs? Social Learning. Parent Portal. MORE

I’m on my way to get a car that enables me to launch a robust social learning system. OmniSocial is a social learning platform, with learning management capabilities and with the ability to select individual apps in the system and only use those you select to install onto your web site or learning portal. Because it offers the capability to start out using it either as the robust social learning product and ignore the LMS part (inc. MORE

It was within these comments, that afterwords, I decided to expand a bit plus identify other areas that I see, LMS vendors must explore – which they have not yet done so, to re-energize themselves. Thus, the LMS vendors are creating a Bogeyman – their own bogeyman, and it does not have to be that way. Majority of employees access a LMS or Learning Portal out of the workplace. Far too many LMS vendors are stuck in a rut. Social Learning. MORE

But for all that is positive, there are negatives, and these negatives can hinder long term growth for commercial systems. They are necessary for the evolution of any system and mandatory to garner more market share. Make no mistake, there are plenty of vendors out there who believe in the concept of focusing on features and forgetting about usability, under the guise that people would rather have lots of cool blinky things rather than usability. E-Learning 24/7. MORE

I mean ever&# , from a senior executive at a mid to large size vendor that has been in the market for several years. Across the board, a large number of vendors (from small to large) saw increases in their quarter numbers. Especially, when vendors released their 2010 final numbers and saw big increases from the previous year. A trend that is happening in the LMS market more so than in the other e-learning markets, is the failure to follow their path of success. MORE

10 eLogic Learning - Essential LMS. Features include: Extended enterprise – multiple children/sub-portals, each skinned/branded and each on a separate server – many EEs are on a shared server. Unlimited portals. Compliance management, certification management. surveys/assessments, e-commerce, transcripts, ad-hoc reporting and the other standards in the industry (90/10). TinCan support with mobile learning, however no on/off synch. MORE

The year kicked off with lots of potential, lots of excitement in the air and lots of customers gearing up to purchase new systems, despite global economic woes. Mobile Learning. LMSs – Finally vendors took notice. Sadly though many still are in the dark on true mobile learning – i.e. not accessing their platform via a mobile web browser. Authoring Tools – With only a small sample of vendors that are SaaS based, pickings are slim. WBT Systems. MORE

I include Learning Portals, LCMSs, as part of the mix. Open Source Systems – That have to be 100% free to be considered. Extended Enterprise – System must have e-comm, multi-tenet – fully skinnable, additional functionality. Emerging Technology (Innovative) – Systems that incorporates innovative features or components ahead of the curve; and it works – clearly the key here. Extended Enterprise 2010 System of the Year. MORE

What is true is that there are plenty of awesome systems for less than 25K and even sweet systems with very nice feature sets for under 10K. I’m not talking about freebies such as Moodle or Sakai, but actually commercial systems. These are folks who are going to use your system. In my experience, small businesses (500 or less users) are the ideal audience for a low cost system. Do these systems have customers with more than 10,000 users? MORE

It was within these comments, that afterwords, I decided to expand a bit plus identify other areas that I see, LMS vendors must explore – which they have not yet done so, to re-energize themselves. Thus, the LMS vendors are creating a Bogeyman – their own bogeyman, and it does not have to be that way. Majority of employees access a LMS or Learning Portal out of the workplace. Far too many LMS vendors are stuck in a rut. Social Learning. MORE

As social learning continues to grow, LMS/LCMS vendors are taking various approaches. While some view themselves as “social learning&# savvy, incorporating various components, others seem to see themselves as just sitting on the sidelines. LMS/LCMS vendors are following one of three approaches when it comes to social learning. Dip their feet in it – just a bit, a little here, a little there – oh and call it a full social learning platform. MORE