SharePoint LMS Feature List

Looking for a full explanation of Microsoft SharePoint Learning Management System?  The SharePointLMS.com site (third party consulting company, ElearningForce, Inc. – no endorsement intended) contains a nice overview of SharePoint LMS features and a pdf document with more details.

SharePoint LMS at Queens University

An interesting case study is available on the Microsoft site which details the adoption by Queens University (Charlotte, North Carolina) of SharePoint Learning Kit as an enterprise LMS. Looking to avoid the major expense of thier previous LMS (Blackboard), Queens adopted SharePoint both as an enterprise network framework and as an LMS. Like UMW, Queens had been a Novell installation.

A few years earlier, Queens had traded its Novell directory for the Active Directory® service, its Novell-based file and print servers for servers based on the Windows Server® 2003 operating system, and its open-source e-mail messaging system for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003.

Dr. Williima Clyde, Queens VP of Academic Affairs, explains his pardigm shift by stating:

Many of the LMS solutions began as kernels written by graduate students back in the 1990s. They’ve been expanded by different people at different times using different code, resulting in products that were not strategically planned or designed to work well together.

Good point. Microsoft does have enterprise level solutions for authentication, document management and collaboration, meeting scheduling, email, calendaring, live conferencing, etc.  Of course, adopting an LMS not specifically designed for the support of distributed learning does give pause to an old dog like me. There do seem to be definite advantages and SharePoint Learning Kit has improved recently to include features such as a grade book utility which moves it more into the realm of an actual LMS.

Being an Iconoclast is such a burden – due diligence and all.

SharePoint LMS at Washington State

NIls Peterson at UWS comments on the Washington State move to Microsft Sharepoint LMS in One small step for man. Project started in 2003 (?) and this posting is from November, 2007.