Over the last several days, I've encountered two very different views of storing learning objects - centralized (via Learning Content Management System - LCMS) or decentralized (either peer-to-peer, or with dispersed resources, but centralized listing). The first system (LCMS) was a demonstration of Jupiter Suite from Avaltus. Slick, user friendly, and conceptually, easy to grasp. Content is stored locally, and essentially only accessible to the institution - and for that matter, the people who are given permission in the institution. Content creation and acquisition is controlled and monitored.
My exposure to the decentralized content system came in the form of a presentation on Web Services and Semantic Web for the Next Generation of Learning Repositories. This model is still in development stages (but Stephen Downes has been writing about it for a while). Conceptually, distributed learning object networks are much more difficult to grasp...largely because there isn't very much existing to use as a reference point (well, other than the Internet itself). The concepts of third-party metadata, LO rating, buying/exchanging objects, etc. seem far into the future given the extensive hype, but lack of actual results in this field to date. However, the outcome of this model is openness - the gatekeeper has been eliminated, and essentially, learning objects stand based on their own quality - good resources get used, bad resources don't.
Question: In what circumstances would an LCMS be used? Well, the only situation I can see is if the organization has content that is proprietary...like corporations. This system works for closed, single-point quality control. It has a place in corporations - just not sure about education - which is based on sharing and openness. With that said, it is important to highlight that even if the distributed model for LO's succeeds - organizations will still need a content management system (not to be confused with LCMS). Documents that have organizational value...but not necessarily student value - need to be tagged, managed and controlled...and, as I've stated before, content management is a "back fill" area for elearning - it's important...but we just haven't gotten around to it...
Posted by gsiemens at November 20, 2002 10:23 PM