Dokeos open course LMS becomes Chamilo

There are a few dozen open source Learning Management Systems out there like Moodle (most popular), ILIAS, aTutor, etc. For years I kept an eye on what Dokeos did, an open source from Belgium that did quite well. Dokeos I believe itself was a fork of the Claroline system because of some difference in view. For the last years Dokeos has gone more and more into a commercial direction, with a stripped free version. And now the community of Dokeos developers thinks that has gone too far, so meet the newest fork: chamilo. A few weeks ago this new project kicked off, bringing the old Dokeos code back to a 'real' open source and free community. It is so interesting to see what is going on with socially developed software and their communities. It's not Coronation street, but it is its own kind of soap :) .

OpenElms: open source LMS, CMS and content

I stumbled upon OpenElms.com, another site where you can download an open source learning platform. So far, nothing special. This one calls itself 'open source e-learning for business', and I didn't try the product but from the demo it seems to do the job. Although it's open source, they really want you to do business with them too, reading between the lines, but who can blame them? :-)

Anyway, what I find refreshing about this offer is that you don't only get an open source LMS and LCMS with rapid authoring tool for it, but also a selection of ready-made content on various topics that you can then customise to your needs. I like the marriage between open source technology with open source content, and wish openelms all the best with their business model.

A global LMS costs 400.000 $ per year

In this month's Chief Learning Officer magazine, Josh Bersin mentions some numbers from a recent study on global Learning Management Systems (LMS):

- a global LMS costs on average 400.000 $ per year
- about half of that is for license fees
- 30% is for support
- most have LMS steering groups
- you might need up to 1 LMS FTE employee for every 1000 students

Sample course on Udutu.com

In this post, I would like to mention a third party example of 'amazing e-learning.' Point your browser to 'Udutu.com', and on the home page, click on the 'How to build effective online courses' organge box. This will open a small sample course on how to create a course. The first page is a bit of advertising.

What makes this course special?
- I find the course look and feel and interaction just average, so that is not what makes it special. This is your typical pageturner+ kind of course.

- But I like the content: it has some nice sections on instructional design such as the often used Bloom taxonomy and definitions for constructivism and behaviorism and other popular instructional design theories. It also has a nice video based example of scenario based learning. I think everyone in the e-learning production chain benefits from a high level understanding of these principles. (Take the test: aks an instructional designer what social constructivism is, if they can't answer you can have their job :-) ).

- And above all, this is a sample course created on a new kind of platform: a completely online authoring tool with templates for the most common types of screens, customisable layout, SCORM export, etc. It is called Udubu.com and they have an interesting business model. The use of the authoring environment is free. They just charge 1$ per screen per month if you want to host the course with them. If you export if for your own LMS, it doesn't cost a thing. Obviously, this tool does not have all features that something as rich and complex as IBM Content Producer or Lectora have. But mark my words: these tools will become the 'powerpoint' of e-learning, taking down the barrier to create simple pageturner courses that enlightened SMEs can use for themselves.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating...
So I took the test myself and gave me one hour to make a little course with the udutu.com tool. I will let you judge for yourself, but here is a preview link to the course 'Hello E-learning World':

http://publish.myudutu.com/published/launcheval/4795/Course7598/Launch.html

Actually, it took me more like 1h30 hours because on two occastions, the tool frooze and I had to log in again (but without loosing any work). So in 1h30 I made 17 screens with some audio/pics etc. And no, this is not 'amazing e-learning' :-) It is just an example of what can be done by simple, dumb, thirteen in a dozen SMEs in a very near (or now?) future...

Average cost for LMS per user (Brandon Hall)

A new 2008 Brandon-Hall report lists average costs for a Learning Management System. Hosted is more expensive than your own implementation.

INSTALLED IMPLEMENTATIONS
500 users $55,622
10,000 users $266,404
25,000 users $483,167
100,000 users $1,304,830
HOSTED IMPLEMENTATIONS
500 users $72,370
10,000 users $339,414
25,000 users $601,358
100,000 users $1,529,718

Some numbers from E-learning Guild 360° report on learning systems

• The top ten vendors enjoy a 70% market share and the top 20 vendors an 83% market share.
• 'Developed in house' is the second largest LMS in terms of market share, with a market penetration of 12.78%. Moodle, the most popular open source LMS, comes 4th but is usually a secondary LMS. (These numbers include academia and small companies as well as large enterprises.)
  
• Costs per learner per year for large corporations (> 5000) for the LMS vary from 15$ to 57$.

The Indians are coming

Don't panic. They are actually already here :-).
Tata systems announced a new LCMS.

"Global learning solutions provider Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) launched Learning Planet, an enterprise learning content management system (LCMS). The technology includes a core learning management system (LMS), along with tools in the areas of competency management, content management, knowledge management, collaboration and communication, and an assessment engine. "

What do you put in an RFP for an LMS?

Finding a suitable Learning Management System (LMS) for your enterprise is a daunting, complex and time-consuming task. The world of LMSes continuously evolves and there are many, many vendors out there. Most companies go through a formal process of 'Request-For-Proposal' and a selection process. But what should you put in such an RFP?

Karl M. Kapp (2003) suggests the following general outline of an LMS Request-For-Proposal:
1- Overview of the project
2- Submission process and timeline
3- Selection criteria
4- Ownership statemen
5- Organisation of the proposal
6- Orientation of the business
7- Strategy that is supporting the e-learning initiative
8- Audience description
9- Delivery environment
10- Technology infrastructure
11- System parameters and requirements
12- Quality Assurance
13- Administration and maintenance
14- Implementation schedule
15- Available resources

John Gerald Theis recently finished his PhD thesis on LMS selection RFPs. He studied 25 RFP documents for structure, features asked for etc. You can download his thesis here. The last pages contain 100 RFP questions that you will probably find inspiring.

LMS on the cheap: open source learning systems

Please refer to my post in my other blog: about2findout.com/blog

http://www.about2findout.com/blog/2007/05/lms-on-cheap-open-source-learning.html

I'm going to have a look at Moodle, Dokeos and the Sharepoint Learning Kit in the next articles and see how they would do as a basic e-learning delivery system for corporations.