An Overview of Criteria for Selecting an LMS.docx.

An Overview of Criteria for Selecting a Learning Management System:
Recent Trends in LMS Design and Functionality
David L. Brooks, Associate Professor
Kitasato University, Sagamihara, Japan
Abstract: A learning management system (LMS), such as Moodle, Blackboard,
Google Classroom, Haiku, Litmos, and a host of new LMS products, can make a
useful and flexible choice for teachers who want to communicate with their students
in an active, collaborative on-line environment, manage the distribution of course
materials, such as lectures, readings, audio-visual media and course handouts, and
for collecting and grading student work. This presentation will compare the
advantages and disadvantages of using several of the major learning management
systems, and explore improved features in the newest lineup of LMS now offered.
First of all, a learning management system (LMS) is network software that helps
teachers manage students, teaching activities, homework, quizzes, grades,
discussions, and resources across the Internet to any computer with a browser.
Whereas a course authoring system is more like a putting a textbook on-line,
learning management systems such as Moodle, Google Classroom and Haiku, are
integrated instructional environments where students and teachers share materials
and engage in thoughtful dialogue. The presentation will examine the core
components of an effective LMS and provide guidelines for choosing the best LMS
that matches a teacher’s needs,expectations, and time-allotment.
Keywords: learning management system, LMS, comparison, e-learning, online
classroom, comparing LMS,
A Learning Management System (LSM) as an Instructional Tool
A learning management system (LMS), such as either Moodle or Google
Classroom, can make a useful and flexible choice for teachers who want to
communicate with their students in an active, collaborative on-line environment, and for
collecting and grading schoolwork. A learning management system is network software
that helps teachers manage students, teaching activities, homework, quizzes, grades,
discussions, and resources across the Internet to any computer with a browser. In the
last few years, a host of several dozen new LMS products such as Haiku, Litmos,
Edmondo, Ayotree and Canvas have emerged on the educational technology scene. The
vast majority of these are aimed at the assisting and capitalizing on the corporate
training needs of companies and businesses. While offering some of the features similar
to the older LMS systems, such as Blackboard and WebCT, they are also less proficient
at handling the fundamentals of the electronic classroom and e-learning and probably
need a few more years in development before that are ready for a wider adoption.
However, there are some noteworthy exceptions, whose features will be explored and
covered in this paper.

Whereas a course authoring system like the ones described below are more like
a putting a textbook on-line – similar to an electronic workbook which can
automatically grade the student’s work; a learning management system such as Moodle,
and to a less extent Google Classroom, rather, is an integrated environment where
students and teachers share materials and engage in thoughtful dialogue. While several
different learning management systems exist that offer the capacity for authoring and
collecting student responses to quizzes or surveys, their real value comes in
coordinating the basic exchanges of gradable materials between the instructor and
students or between the students themselves for group projects and for aiding in the
efficient communication between the teacher and students (Canale,1983). Instead of
having to tediously open and collect e-mail messages and save files from dozens or
even hundreds of students, both Moodle and Google Classroom allow the instructor to
access these completed student items of class work and homework in one networked
application which organizes them for ease of evaluating and responding to larger groups
of students. In addition, the instructor can distribute and later collect assigned work,
send messages to all students, and get group feedback about class activities through
polls and surveys. Typically, the LMS allows for keeping and easily managing
attendance and grades for assigned work and tests.
Traditional classrooms are bound by time: neither the teacher nor the students
have much time to consider before responding to each other (Anderson, 1993).
Furthermore, when the foreign instructor comes from a culture that is very different
from the majority of his students, the typical traditional classroom can be fraught with
many opportunities for cross-cultural communication gaps (Jin & Cortazzi, 1998). The
use of a learning management system can assist is ameliorating some of the intercultural
gaps that exist is such a situation (Kramsch,1993; Samovar & Porter, 2001; Kohls,
1993). With an LMS, teachers construct activities for students to explore at any time of
day. Students and teachers enjoy the time and space to provide thoughtful, detailed, and
uncompromised feedback to each other. With an LMS, teachers can get closer to
students by having better access to their work. Students, moreover, appreciate having
their previous work always available in the LMS, along with the feedback of their
teachers and peers (Cortazzi, 1990). A number of LMS activities open collaborative
doors that are nearly impossible in traditional classrooms (Brinton, Snow & Wesche,
1989).

Advantages of an LMS
What are some of the advantages of a networked learning management system
(LMS)? The learning activities and tasks can be tailored more closely to the specific
needs of different types of learning styles present in every classroom (O’Malley &
Chamot, 1990). In addition, in a multi-cultural environment where there are students in
the same classroom from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, use of a learning
management system can help the teacher create a more culturally accepting learning
environment that meets the needs of diverse individuals (Meyers, 1993). Furthermore,
classroom discussions do not need to finish at the end of the period. Students and
teachers can extend the classroom beyond the constraints of time and the walls of the
classroom. Students from one class can discuss issues with their classmates in another
class enlarging the pool of communication, as it is easy to invite students from another
school or another country to participate. Additionally, students who may be reluctant to
discuss issues in class have the time and place to compose their thoughts and enrich the
class discussion. Students and teachers save work submitted electronically along with
the teacher feedback for quick access so that no information is lost. Uploaded
documents, links to websites, Power Point presentations, and media files are always
available to students. Student activity on the course site can be monitored since not all
instructional activities should have to be testing or the marking of student responses in
an authoring system.
The online learning management system (LMS) which this author initially used,
was Moodle, which was chosen for its many features that were designed for and by
teachers. Moodle is a server-side software application designed to help educators
manage quality online courses. One of the main advantages of Moodle over other
systems is a strong grounding in social constructionist pedagogy that encourages
collaboration, shared activities, and critical reflection. Further, Moodle is Open Source
software, which means its costs nothing for the software except for hosting it. It runs
without modification on UNIX, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Netware and any other
system that supports PHP, including most web host providers. Data is stored in a single
database: MySQL and PostgreSQL are best supported, but it can also be used with
Oracle, Access, Interbase, ODBC and others. Finally, Moodle is available in more than
35 languages, so it is excellent for language teaching.
Moodle allows for a choice of course formats such as by week, by topic or a
discussion-focused format. There is a flexible array of course activities that can be
selected and assigned by the instructor: forums, journals, quizzes, resources, choices,

surveys, assignments, chats, and workshops (Cole & Foster, 2007). Most text entry
areas (resources, forum postings, journal entries etc) can be edited using an embedded
WYSIWYG HTMLeditor. All grades for forums, journals, quizzes and assignments can
be viewed on one page and downloaded as a spreadsheet file. Full user logging and
tracking is provided so that activity reports for each student are available with graphs
and details about each module (last access, number of times read) as well as a detailed
"story" of each student’s involvement including postings and journal entries on one
page. Copies of forum posts, teacher feedback etc can be emailed in HTMLor plain text
to students directly. There are custom scales so teachers can define their own method to
be used for grading the forums, assignments and journals.
Built-in surveys have been useful as instruments for analyzing online classes.
Survey data is downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV text file. Moodle also
allows peer assessment of documents, and the teacher can manage and grade the peer
assessment process. This is particularly useful int this author’s required English course
in Speech Communication where students frequently perform role plays, speeches,
discussions for the other students or are asked to peer edit each other’s written work.
Moodle supports display of any electronic content, Word, Power Point, Flash, video,
audio files, graphs, etc, can be uploaded and managed on the server, or created on the
fly using web forms (text or HTML) (Cole & Foster, 2007). External content on the web
can be linked to or seamlessly included within the course interface. External web
applications can be linked in with data passed to them (Halvorsen & Gettings, 1996).
Students can upload their assignments in any file format to the server and they are
date-stamped. For each particular assignment, the whole class can be assessed (grade
and comment) on one page in one form. Teacher feedback is appended to the
assignment page for each student, and notification is mailed out. Built-in surveys have
been useful as instruments for analyzing online classes. Survey data is downloadable as
an Excel spreadsheet or CSV text file. Moodle also allows peer assessment of
documents, and the teacher can manage and grade the peer assessment process.
A New Generation of LMS for Corporate Training
[[ Online learning through e-learning has become big business, one that is
worth many billions of dollars. But although massive open online courses (MOOCs)
have attracted outsized media attention, the reality doesn't quite match the hype,
yet. Learning management systems (LMS), on the other hand, have already enabled
many universities, organizations, and businesses to develop, assign, and track online
learning. With hundreds of LMS vendors, however, choosing a learning management

system is not a simple task. Given the diversity of LMS vendors, the term LMS
(learning management systems) is not exact. For purposes of evaluating a wide variety
of LMS packages, it will be useful to define an LMS as the software package for
administering, tracking, delivering, and reporting on online learning content.
LMS Market Segmentation
As the name suggests, learning management systems are management
systems. Most of the vendors tested include some kind of course assembly tools,
including the ability to ingest existing courses as SCORM packages, but an LMS differs
from what is known as an LCMS (learning content management system) in that its
primary function is to manage rather than create course content. That isn't to say there
isn't crossover. For example, DigitalChalk offers many LCMS features, including some
very clever tools for ensuring that learners actually watch course videos, alongside
traditional employee tracking and reporting. The other key distinction is between those
vendors that serve education or businesses. Some do both (DigitalChalk); however,
most learning management systems pitch a tent in one camp or the other. Blackboard,
Canvas, and Moodle top the higher education space, whereas Edmodo—one-part LMS,
two-parts social media network—caters to K-12. Meanwhile, Schoology sits
comfortably between the higher education and K-12 spaces, pairing a friendly Facebook
aesthetic with advanced role creation, custom branding, and detailed analytics. For
obvious reasons, education LMS software has secured the largest share of the market,
and until recently, Blackboard dominated that space. Canvas and Moodle have cracked
that lock, and Blackboard now faces competition from Brightspace and Sakai. ]]
The Advantages Of Moodle As A Comprehensive Assessment Tool
While several Web-based assessment tools are introduced, the workshop focuses
primarily on the assessment features of Moodle, a learning management system (LMS)
which is particularly well-suited for foreign language teaching. Moodle is an
increasingly popular LMS for schools and colleges, which rivals Blackboard and
WebCT in features and suitability for Japanese language instruction. Not only is it free
Open Source software, but it is based on a social constructivist theory of instruction.
There is a simple to use test-making module within it for creating powerful online tests
that include use of media files, multiple question formats, and both simple and
sophisticated grading functions (Cole & Foster, 2007). In addition, Hot Potatoes quizzes
and exercises can be incorporated directly into Moodle. Further, it has some in-built
modules making it superior for self and peer assessments of student work or
performances. It allows for flexible incorporation of teacher evaluation, self-assessment,

and peer assessment in determining grades. The Workshop module of Moodle provides
a tool for student submission of written work or recorded performances (audio or video
files), but scores can also be assigned for many online tasks, such participation in an
online discussion (Brooks, 1999). The teacher can also design the type of assessment
and the evaluation criteria. One disadvantage is that Moodle is only a server side
application. Fortunately, however, it is becoming widely popular and is relatively easy
to install and maintain and is also being offered by third-party web hosting services at a
very reasonable cost (Hadley, 1993).
The Ubiquitousness and Ease of Use are the Main Advantages of Google
Classroom
Many school and universities already make use of Google Apps for email, and
as an alternative or substitute for desktop applications, equivalent to Word, Excel and
Power Point, as well as for other powerful online tools that integrate with teacher’s
classroom requirements. Therefore, Google Classroom makes an excellent choice for
both those who are novices to learning management systems and for those computer
savvy teachers who have various levels of experience with using e-learning in their
teaching. Google Classroom is a free web-based learning management platform that
integrates the Google Apps for Education account with all the Google Apps services,
including Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Calendar. Google Classroom can provide a
platform of learning management that can be tailored to various types of courses,
including language classes, content-area courses, and process-oriented training classes
(Stryker & Leaver, 1997; Widdowson, 1978).
Like Moodle, Google Classroom saves time and paper, and makes it easy to
create classes, distribute assignments, communicate, and stay organized. Classroom
does lack an important functionality that Moodle has: the ability to create quizzes and
tests that provide online assessment tools for assessing student learning quickly and
using various types of online questions. However, the capacity to create student quizzes
and tests can be created for use in Google Classroom through Google Docs. You can see
an example of how this can be done at: http://www.olejarz.com/handouts/formquiz.pdf
In addition, Google classroom teachers can quickly see who has or hasn't
completed the course assignments, and provide direct, real-time feedback and grades
within each Google Classroom. Teachers can reuse posts from previous classes that they
taught or co-taught since there can be multiple teachers for each Google Classroom
(EdTech Team, 2015). In Google Classroom, teachers can create short answer questions
to start class discussions. Classroom is only available for students and teachers with a

school-provided Google Apps for Education account. Users with mobile phones can
employ the Android App or the Iphone App to use Google Classroom on the go
(Scheffer, 2014).
There are several benefits of using Google Classroom (Zhang, 2015):
１）Classroom is easy to set up: Teachers can add students directly or share a code
with their class to join. It takes just minutes to set up.
2) Classroom saves time: The simple, paperless assignment workflow allows
teachers to create, review, and grade assignments quickly, and keep them all in
one place.
3) Classroom improves organization and management of student work: Students
can see all of their assignments on an assignments page, and all class materials
are automatically filed into folders in Google Drive.
4) Classroom enhances communication: Classroom allows teachers to send
announcements and start class discussions instantly. Students can share
resources with each other or provide answers to questions on the course stream.
5) Google Classroom is affordable and secure: Like the rest of our Google Apps for
Education services, Classroom contains no ads, never uses your content or
student data for advertising purposes, and is free for schools.
Which LMS is the best choice for you?
Choosing the right learning management system is an important choice
because it takes time, resources, and there is a learning curve involved (Williams &
Burden, 1997). For teachers who are just starting out with e-learning and particularly if
their institutions are currently users of the Google Apps for Education services, then
Google Classroom is the obvious choice. Despite its many excellent components, there
are several things that Google Classroom cannot do (at least for now, or not without a
degree of effort to create a workaround). For those teachers, who need a more
comprehensive set of classroom tools, especially for those teachers who are not
currently Google Apps users, then Moodle provides a more comprehensive set of LMS
tools that are both flexible and powerful.
Conclusions About The Role Of The Teacher In E-Learning
A. Interactivity is a two-edged sword. While there are several benefits for student
learners, there are also increased demands of teacher time and effort needed to
implement e-learning.
B. Increasing learner efficacy demands an increase in teacher effort and vice-versa.

C. Establishing a new classroom culture (common sets of values, attitudes and
habits) is a necessary requisite and a by-product of e-learning.
D. Understanding and sharing solutions to deal with the positive and negative
repercussions of e-learning is invaluable.
E. While students need and actually want structure, they tend to resist being
controlled through manipulation or coercion.
F. Don’t expect all students to enjoy the closer scrutiny and increased proximity to
teacher interaction that e-learning sometimes brings.
G. Not all of your colleagues will understand or appreciate your enthusiastic
proselytizing about e-learning and online assessment.
Pitfalls And Provisos For Implementing Online Assessment
There are some pitfalls to consider in adding increasingly sophisticated
procedures and activities to your online repertoire.
1. It is very likely that you’ll be working long hours at some point, but it will be
worth it.
2. The volume of work expands disproportionately to the amount of time you spend
in making work for others.
3. Balance the content mastery testing with process assessment in online and
blending teaching. Use self, group and peer assessment to help cut down workload
volume and increase learner development and commitment.
4. Online communication can be absorbing and alter your levels of intolerance for
perceived ineffective quality of communication e-competence or may lead to a loss
of respect for those still developing styles of effective communication (online or not).
5. What can go wrong sometimes – if not often – does. So you will likely feel a
whole lot less anxious by being prepared for both the worst of times and for the best
of results. Plan for a back-up system in case things go awry.
References
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Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brinton, D.M., Snow, M.A., & Wesche,M.B. (1989). Content-based second language instruction. New
York: Newbury House Publishers.
Brooks, D.L. (1999). “Metacognitive Inculturization in the Language Classroom: An approach to
overcoming cultural barriers.” Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Cross-Cultural
Communication (International Association for Intercultural Studies), Louisville, KY: University of
Louisville, July 28-31.
Canale, M. (1983). “From Communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy.” In
Richards, J and Schmidt.R (eds), Language and Communication.London: Longman.

Cole, J. & Foster, H. (2007). Using Moodle - Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course
Management System (Community Press series, 2nd ed.) Cambridge: O'Reilly Media, 284 pp.
Cortazzi, M. (1990). “Cultural and educational expectations in the language classroom” In Harrison,
B.(Ed.) Culture and the Language Classroom. ELT Documents, 132. London: The British Council.
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Technology and Mobile Learning (Online Newsletter), January 21, 2015. Accessed on February 28,
2016 http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2015/01/everything-teachers-need-to-know-about.html
Hadley, A.O. (1993). Teaching Language in Context.2nd Ed. Boston:Heinle & Heinle,
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Beyond Language:Cross-Cultural Communication.2nd Ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
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