"Is there a class with this content?" - an author's evaluation of Learning Management Systems

Ellen Rose's article "Is there a class with this content?" provides a history of computer-based learning and a fascinating argument on the limits of learning management systems (LMS) as effective learning instruction. She challenges three problematic assumptions: that the concept of individualized learning is an effective one; that the structure into which teachers import their content is neutral, and; that teachers will gladly import their content.

Historically, she argues that the main drive of individualized learning is deriving efficiencies from the learning process, "[i]n other words, objectives, scope, and strategies were all highly standardized; only the pace of instruction could be adapted to the capabilities and needs of the individual learner" (p. 48-49). Instructor or teacher intervention has been lost or minimalized through technological deficiencies and the focus on efficiencies and instruction is not learner-centred, especially with the emphasis in these computer systems on the content (content = course). It is here one can recognize in the argument the commonality LMS' have with learning object repositories (IRs) .

As for the structure into which you deposit your materials being "absolutely neutral" (p.58), she points out that "the very structure of these systems constrains instructional possibilities and decision-making" (p.58). Not just content is transformed but the capacity to deliver that content is transformed - instructor intervention, and the capacity to realize instructor intervention is required, is lost or minimized.

The last assumption of these systems and those who promote them is that instructors will be more than happy to import their content into LMS'. "...[T]he dynamics and intellectual activity of the classroom are increasingly being translated into a static package..." (p.59) where control is increasingly being removed from the professors over when it might be used and how it might be used, not to mention it probably isn't a perfect "copy" of the professor's intentions and work.

I am curious about who will own the professor's work/intellectual output? A professor who applies intellect (and intellectual organizational capacities) to a subject and produces a book, chapter or article may gain a mix of the following: royalties, prestige, tenure, and copyright of the content and ideas, among others. Who will retain copyright? Who will have the right to sell this intellectual content until copyright runs out?

Rose, Ellen . "Is there a class with this content?" WebCT and the limits of individualization. Journal of Educational Thought, v. 38(1), 2004, p.43-65.