June 2004 — eLearning
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Features and Functions Are Merely Trifles in the Selection of a Course Management System
The Ease-of-Use Paradox
After the RFP, the next step in the selection process is typically the ease-of-use analysis. What exactly is ease of use? We think we know it when we see it, but it's really a complex concept. Consider this: A good way to evaluate course management systems' ease of use is to sit a faculty member down and ask him or her to load a course. If it g'es in, great. But don't stop there. Ask them to load courses with different file formats, including multimedia files, Web sites and standard learning objects. At Drexel University, we found that the CMS which was easiest to load was an absolute pain when it came to loading more complex course content. Conversely, the CMS that was supposedly trickier to load easily took course content in any file format - it was file-format agnostic. The putative ease-of-use victor simply couldn't take some of our files.
So here's the paradox: What appears to be ease of use on first impression may be a direct result of limitations that may make the CMS difficult to use for more ambitious pedagogy. Or more succinctly, perceived ease of use is inversely proportional to flexibility and robustness. The lesson here is to perform extensive ease-of-use testing. Try a day or two rather than a couple of hours. Test against real-world scenarios and demanding, shifting pedagogical conditions.
A common ease-of-use question is: "Easy for whom?" Committees sometimes make the mistake of tackling CMS selection from the point of view of the institution - the faculty loading the courses, the administrators exporting grades, and the IT staff figuring out how to accommodate it. But ease of use is also a concern for the end customer - in this case, the student.
Another key ease-of-use question is: "Easy at what stage of the implementation?" Any new application will likely be difficult to learn at first, but how long d'es that last. Think of your e-mail and word processing programs. Presumably, each new version of the software brings features that you have to learn but then come to love. So ask yourself whether your CMS, while easy for beginners, is going to be too limited for power users. Ease of use up front can become a pedagogical obstacle on the back end.
Once you've dealt with features, functions and ease of use, it's time to peel away the rest of the layers of the CMS selection onion. Below are 10 big considerations beyond features and functions for making a great CMS decision. (For the detailed list, including a formula to figure out your real cost of ownership, see the end of the article.
- What d'es IT think?
- Who will train users, including faculty, content developers, instructional designers, administrators and students?
- How will you roll out the application - in pilots or full bore?
- What applications would you like to integrate and when? At Drexel University, we selected WebCT Campus Edition and, more recently, WebCT Vista because of the company's integration with our SCT Banner student information system.
- Is your vendor a "partner"? Every vendor says they are, but the bottom line is whether your vendor is accountable for your success or your failure.
- What is the real cost of ownership?
