CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM VS. EDUCATIONAL CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
When looking for a system that focuses on the needs of supporting the learning process it’s important to understand the differences between a Content Management System (CMS) and an Educational or Learning Content Management System (LCMS).
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN CMS
& LCMS
Both systems help subject matter experts and content creators create content, manage content, version content, repurpose content, and determine content delivery.
Both systems offer collaborative authoring in a cloud-based environment. An off-the-shelf content management system may even offer course creation or eLearning content support as an add-on to support online learning.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A CMS?
Most content management systems are designed for managing the assets of a marketing website.
The purpose: to make it easier to deploy sales and marketing collateral to an SEO-rich environment.
The goal: to sell, to raise awareness, to organically get to the top of page one in a Google search.
We know how content needs to be worded to win that race. And we know that while raising awareness and learning are related endeavors, we also know that a marketing website is not designed for learning. A website focused on learning rather than marketing features several key differences.
AN OVERVIEW OF AN LCMS
A learning website focuses on the learning process, the interplay of instruction and assessment, explicit objectives, a structure that focuses on skills acquisition and meeting objectives, and a structure that is organized around meeting standards and demonstrating mastery.
A learning website also focuses on the tools needed to work with the content from both an educator's and a learner's point of view. We’ll talk about the tools in a moment.
Let’s first focus on the content structure:
Educational content management requires a focus on the unique structure of a specific type of content: curriculum.
Curriculum includes 4 components:
Goals
Methods
Materials
Assessment
WHY DOES CURRICULUM REQUIRE A SPECIAL CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?
Educational content management typically focuses on the creation of structured learning opportunities like courses that include explicit goals, methods for meeting those goals, materials to instruct on meeting those goals, and assessments to measure progress against meeting those goals.
A learning content management system delivers units of instruction and assessment. These units should be interactive to the extent that it is possible for students to input information that helps with the instructional and assessment process so measurement of progress against goals can take place. Most marketing websites are read-only.
A learning website is focused on intaking student responses to track learners progress. Learner engagement with the elearning content is important. This means learning content management systems focus on data structures best for tracking learner engagement. Blended learning models may also be used to support a hybrid digital/in-person approach.
DELIVERING LEARNING CONTENT USING LCMS
When it comes to the delivery of learning content, the learning website ideally includes tools for helping educators organize and distribute the content, learners use the content, and the measurement of progress against learning goals, objectives, and standards.
This is why the delivery component of a learning content management system often includes:
It also includes reporting against curriculum performance in the form of standards and course measurement and usage.
K-12 EDUCATIONAL CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Educational content management in the K-12 space means delivering to a website is not enough. K-12 Districts and Schools require adherence to strict privacy and security protocols such as COPPA, CIPA, and FERPA when students need to log in to consume educational content and make their personally identifiable information (PII) available. Unlike a marketing website that can be hosted on a regular instance of AWS Cloud, when working with PII districts prefer or require FedRAMP-compliant AWS GovCloud.
ACCESSIBILITY IN LCMS
The learning website for your educational content would also comply with ADA accessibility standards such as WCAG. An educational content management system needs to provide different experiences to support the needs of educators (teachers), learners (students), and even administrators who are part of the educational process.
The system may need to make content look and function differently for different types of learners, different subjects, ages, and other factors.
Education content management systems will likely support a variety of resource types including videos, articles, images, and interactives, but they will also support question types and activities - things with which a learner will need to interact.
MEASURING SUCCESS WITH AN LCMS
Education content management systems need to support alignment of standards, skills, and objectives to the content to facilitate progress monitoring in terms of assignment review and reporting. Many course-creation add-ons available through marketing-focused websites help content creators make courses of what might be called ‘flat content” - content that is mostly videos and articles without very much interactivity or recordable student response.
Educational content providers new to the digital course creation process may be tempted to use these course features. While these course features may amply serve certain educational markets, they do no typically include enough rigor, power, and capabilities to serve the K-12 school market.
An educational content management system is designed for the school market and uses more powerful delivery tools designed around class management, course management, and assignment management as well as reporting to support consumption of dynamic interactive content - content that requires student input - to measure comprehension and progress against the learning process.
A way to measure comprehension and progress is essential for publishers of educational content as they need to be able to prove the efficacy of their materials while educators use the material to prove effectiveness within their specific class setting.
So when considering content management systems to support your educational product, think about the intended audience, the delivery needs, the requirements of your customers, and consider the benefits of an educational content management system focused on the learning process.