Question

difference between campus-based course management systems and open source course management systems in reference to nursing informatics

Answer 1

Ans) Course management systems (CMSs) have become a symbol of innovation at institutions of higher education and in less than a decade they have been rapidly adopted by a large number of colleges and universities in many countries around the world.

- Ten years after the first commercial systems were made available to colleges and universities, many institutions of higher education are still struggling to determine the best way to support their educational missions with CMSs and other web technologies. Utilizing a mixed methods case study approach, the study explored the perceptions of the students and faculty, in the business programs, at a large, urban, multiculturally diverse college in Ontario which has a history of CMS use.

- Ther reason for using a CMS in the college's business programs, the characteristics of the use of the CMS that enhanced learning and those that created barriers to learning and their perceptions about what constitutes the effective use of the CMS were explored. The main focus of this study was the examination of the students' perspective, as the aim of the study was to understand the effect of the CMS on their learning.

- Teaching and learning are inextricably connected; therefore obtaining the faculty's perspective was an important, but secondary, part of the study. This research was carried out at a large, urban and multiculturally diverse college in southern Ontario. This college was selected because it has been using some form of a CMS since 1997 and the current CMS has been implemented at the college since 2000. Some of the findings include:

(1) The students and professors who participated in this study both affirmed that the main purpose for using the CMS was for the delivery of and access to information;

(2) Increased access to information was the characteristic of the use of the CMS that the professors felt was most beneficial to learning. The comments from the professors indicated that the more information available to the students the "more" that they would learn;

(3) The professors agreed with the students that if the use of the CMS replaced "teaching", which was equated with the students being able to get all the information without attending class, it would be a barrier to learning. They were quite concerned about the students not attending class if material was posted online;

(4) The mixed reaction to the effective use of the discussion board which the students discussed was shared by the professors.

- A learning management system (LMS) helps businesses and educational institutions create, track, and manage their eLearning programs. An open source tool makes its source code open to everyone to inspect, modify, and enhance according to their business/education needs.