Innovation in LMS: Making SaaS Work for You

Last Thursday, we continued highlighting excerpts of Khalil Yazdi's whitepaper, Innovation in LMS: Underlying Economic Drivers--Motivating a New Model for the Provisioning of Course, Teaching and Learning Management Software Systems, where Yazdi's explored the challenges associated with a transition to a cloud model. Today, we're highlighting best practices when choosing and provisioning a SaaS-based delivery model for LMS.

As we continue exploring Yazdi's arguments, let us know how you think LMS delivery is evolving, and what you'd like to see from this wave of LMS innovation. Feel free to discuss in the comments below.

Innovation in LMS: Making SaaS Work for You

In deploying SaaS LMS solutions, the major technology-based institutional challenges resolve to access and data management. While user access to externally hosted environments has been a challenge in the past, most vendors now support diverse authentication solutions. It is helpful to work with an LMS vendor that can help deploy a system that takes care of authentication and role-based authorizations rather than making wholesale changes in identity management systems or multiple maintained systems.

For data management, the challenge is somewhat different. In traditional software applications, data relative to a course and learning activity including data on usage, student activity, grade-books, examinations and content can only be obtained through the software application that uses or creates it. Often this data and content are encrypted and very difficult to extract and re-purpose or reuse. This also implies that analytics can also only be applied using proprietary tools provided by the vendor.

In utilizing and leveraging SaaS solutions, it is important to demand that the LMS use data and content that reside in databases that are separate from the application and which are controlled by the institution, teachers and faculty. If this is not possible, then it is important that the system is capable of replicating content in a usable form by other systems – that is, the data and content formats must be interoperable with general purpose and other LMS software. The decoupling of data and content from the application greatly increases flexibility and facilitates using and managing multiple SaaS solutions from multiple vendors. Such flexibility will require adherence to some level of data and content standards.

There is good reason to attempt to isolate otherwise common processes for data elements such as course administration, which are shared by all courses, faculty and teachers regardless of institutional setting. Similar to the impact of decoupling the business application from infrastructure, platform and middleware, the separation of such common processes provides flexibility in selecting the “right” software that meets discipline-specific and specialized pedagogical needs. For many common processes such as content authoring, storage and communication, the institution already makes available software tools and systems that can be easily leveraged for use in teaching and learning – and there is little value in spending scarce resources in a replication of such services for use by the LMS. It is very helpful if the SaaS vendor has the ability to describe a menu of options so that institutions have the ability to avoid paying multiple times for the same features and functionality.

Existing institutional systems currently in place do deliver services – often very well. One of the most compelling reasons to continue supporting existing technology is that there are costs to migration, and the outcome, at least initially, is the provisioning of the same level of technology support as that which is currently in place. So the question, why move from the existing platform? As a consequence of the recent downturn in the economy, it has become even more difficult for institutions to pursue a migration to more cost-effective emerging technologies. In considering a move to SaaS LMS, it is important to find a solution that minimizes the costs associated with migration, has the potential of adding significant functionality, and is easy to use.

Typically, the migration costs to more efficient and value added solutions are eventually offset by savings in licensing and personnel. However, if the migration requires significant investment prior to obtaining those savings, the practical budgetary realities facing institutions will make it very difficult to pursue transformative investments.

When added to the accumulated impact of staffing and operational cutbacks to accommodate successive reductions in annual budgets, the significant budget reductions of recent years have made any change in operational designs and organizational structures very difficult to achieve. At the same time, the resources available to continue support for existing systems are fast dwindling while expectations for new services is growing rapidly. A strong partner that can help ease the challenges of migration to the cloud can go a long way towards relieving the strain on the institution. Vendors must recognize this reality and develop solutions that avoid the need for all but the smallest expenditures by institutions for retooling and migration.

Cloud computing technologies – SaaS, IaaS and PaaS – are not just another way to accomplish low cost technology outsourcing – they change the way in which services are provided. To make the most of cloud-based learning and course management services, academic leaders and institutional IT must rethink how existing institutional IT services can and should be modified to best leverage solutions like those offered by recent SaaS-based LMS offerings. In particular, both leadership and faculty need to redefine their understandings regarding selection, inter-operability, and mutual obligations relative to security, privacy and the retention of educational records.