Course Management Systems: Overview and Implications for Libraries

摘要

Course management systems (CMS), such as Blackboard, Blackboard Vista (formerly WebCT), Desire2Learn and Moodle, have become the most commonly used learning technologies at colleges and universities (Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland, 2005). A CMS provides a place for learning and teaching activities to occur within a seamless environment - one that is not dependent upon time and space boundaries (Ullman and Rabinowitz, 2004). A CMS allows instructors and their institutions to manage a large number of fully online, partially online (hybrid) or web-enhanced courses with many students and a wide variety of instructional materials. In the technology and education literature, one encounters several different names for these systems, including learning management systems, learning content management systems, virtual learning environments and e-learning courseware (Gibbons, 2005). In this paper, an overview of (CMS) is given along with implications for libraries.