Riddle me this Batman, "When is a CMS not a CMS? "Perhaps when it it 'free-floating?'" The idea of a course management system (CMS) that is not within a box is not as far out as it seems nor as bad as my opening pun. Here's why I think this:
The Personal Domain. More and more kids are going to college with an established online identity and space. They, along with the rest of the world, are used to content that is accessible and portable. Asking them to create things that end up being temporary and locked down may become a non-starter for them when selecting a college. Add to that many high schools, such as Narragansett in New Hampshire, have implemented e-portfolios into the curriculum and states like Pennsylvania have made e-portfolio space available for residents makes the idea of having additional separate space seem cumbersome.
The Demand for Open Content. This is quickly becoming a need more than a demand. The idea of sharing resources, whether they be content items, methodology, and infrastructure has moved from an idealistic perspective to something that makes economic sense for universities looking to cut costs while improving the quality of research and education.
Small Pieces Loosely Joined. Managing separate applications has become a lot easier with the ability to feed updates from one to another. I can send a message from my mobile to Twitter and have that automatically update my Facebook page. Can we do something like that in education? Can I write a blog post in my personal domain and have it populate my class assignment as well?
There are many issues that need to be addressed both technically and legally but, it's no longer an insurmountable either-or choice. BYU is working on a free-floating gradebook, not attached to a CMS, that can aggregate content from a myriad of places. (Check out their session description and watch the presentation at OpenEd09.
In other words, the factors making a closed system necessary and desirable are quickly loosing their luster. Will the CMS as we know it totally go away? Will it morph into something else? Nobody knows for sure right now. But with increasing economic stressors, people getting more comfortable working in the open, and with technology making it easier to aggregate outcomes from separate applications it seems that something has to give.
The Personal Domain. More and more kids are going to college with an established online identity and space. They, along with the rest of the world, are used to content that is accessible and portable. Asking them to create things that end up being temporary and locked down may become a non-starter for them when selecting a college. Add to that many high schools, such as Narragansett in New Hampshire, have implemented e-portfolios into the curriculum and states like Pennsylvania have made e-portfolio space available for residents makes the idea of having additional separate space seem cumbersome.
The Demand for Open Content. This is quickly becoming a need more than a demand. The idea of sharing resources, whether they be content items, methodology, and infrastructure has moved from an idealistic perspective to something that makes economic sense for universities looking to cut costs while improving the quality of research and education.
Small Pieces Loosely Joined. Managing separate applications has become a lot easier with the ability to feed updates from one to another. I can send a message from my mobile to Twitter and have that automatically update my Facebook page. Can we do something like that in education? Can I write a blog post in my personal domain and have it populate my class assignment as well?
There are many issues that need to be addressed both technically and legally but, it's no longer an insurmountable either-or choice. BYU is working on a free-floating gradebook, not attached to a CMS, that can aggregate content from a myriad of places. (Check out their session description and watch the presentation at OpenEd09.
In other words, the factors making a closed system necessary and desirable are quickly loosing their luster. Will the CMS as we know it totally go away? Will it morph into something else? Nobody knows for sure right now. But with increasing economic stressors, people getting more comfortable working in the open, and with technology making it easier to aggregate outcomes from separate applications it seems that something has to give.
I'm not sure about Movable Type, but I know for WordPress and Drupal there are already ways to allow students to blog on their personal blogs and have the post show up in a class blog environment. This is happening at both UBC Blogs and UMW Blogs. One part of the puzzle already in place.
Finally, a tag search around here for "batman" yields a result! As for me, I'd guess that the CMS will evolve into something else (fairly easy prediction). It seems that is the natural way of things to evolve for morph. I think the biggest barrier will be from the business side. CMS companies have so much $$ invested in their current products, there is no way they move from them too quickly. Not until they feel they've gotten the return on investment they need to justify all that decision making they've been doing the last 10 years.
I think you hit the rub. It's in the CMS industries best interest to keep as much status quo as possible. Think Blackboard the Utility. We in the academy however have the option to decide how much we want to buy in. Should be an interesting next few years.
Andre I'd be interested in hearing more about how UBC and UMW make it happen.