UnixReview.com
November 2006

A Survey of Learning Management Systems

by Alan Berg

This two-part article is a brief survey of Learning Management Systems and associated infrastructure. This first part will explore the value of Yale CAS, uPortal, Sakai, and Open Source Portfolio (OSP). The second article will expand the list of viable tools to include Moodle and other great products within the range.

A growing and obvious trend for complex open source software, applied as a supporting Web application within educational institutes, is a binary distribution with out-of-the-box demonstration that works immediately after unpacking. Within the educational sphere lie many positive examples of this approach. In this article, I will example a number of such products, providing an overview of their potential and ease of use. You will discover that these products are ready for more mass market use, and I would not be surprised if a number of commercial variations evolve from the core code bases. This survey split into two parts, is by no means complete, and its purpose is purely to introduce you to the dynamic force of change that these examples represent.

As a developer, I have had previous contact with the CAS, uPortal Sakai, and OSP products, being involved with teams that deployed or are deploying to a target University environment ( Universiteit van Amsterdam via the Central Computing services). Therefore, I am writing about products with which I have experience. I am certain that there are other wonderful products with excellent community support out there in the wild. The second installment of this article will introduce Moodle, Atutor, Bodington, Claroline, Lams, Dspace, and Fedora (for your Enterprise content repositories).<>