Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Education LMSs
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
79
70. Serco Learning Skillspace Learning Platform (Serco Learning)
and Based in UK. They
purchased Teknical.
71. Schoology (Schoology, Inc.) A free web-based
fully hosted and fully managed learning management system and configurable
social network.
72. Spanngle Academe (Spanngle SoftSolutions) An
integrated suite which includes an LMS, ePortfolio, Video Lecture Composition
and Delivery, and a College Management System.
73. Spiral Universe Spiral 2.0 (Spiral Universe Inc.) .
Spiral 2.0 is an integrated software suite used by schools for management and
administration. More a complete student information system that includes course
management than just an LMS.
74. Studywiz Spark Dynamic LearnSpace (Studywiz Pty Ltd)
Provide tools for elementary and secondary education
as well as mobile and ePortfolio solutions. Based in Australia and has North
American and European offices.
75. SunGard Higher Education Luminis Platform (SunGard Higher Education)
SunGard is a technology consulting company that
offers a wide range of solutions for post-secondary education institutions. They
offer the Epsilen Environment and the rSmart Sakai Collaboration and Learning
Environment. In April, 2011 announced integration with Pearson LearningStudio.
76. Synaptic Global Learning ALMS - 4DL HITE (Synaptic Global Learning (SGL))

77. SynapticMash LearningQube (SynapticMash, INC.)
Includes EduQube,
ExamQube, StudentQube, DataQube and MashQube. Acquired by Promethean

World Plc ( in July 2010. Promethean is a UK
based supplier of interactive white boards and an online teacher community

78. TeleTOP (Teletop B.V.) Based in the Netherlands. Website
is in Dutch.
79. Texas State Technical College (TSTC) vushi® Learning System (vLS) (Texas
State Technical College) Created specifically for educators
using virtual worlds like Second Life® for teaching and learning. Available in two
versions – vLS Pro and vLS lite.
80. The Learning Edge EQUELLA LCMS (The Learning Edge Pty Ltd.)
Australia. A learning content
management/learning object repository system. Now owned and offered by
Pearson Education
81. The West Education Network (TWEN) (Thomson Reuters)
Developed at a law school for law schools. Now
owned by Thomson Reuters/Carswell/Westlaw.
82. Timecruiser CampusCruiser (Timecruiser Computing Corporation)
An education oriented LMS.
83. Time To Know Digital Learning Platform (Time To Know, Inc.)
A platform and curriculum designed for one-to-one
computing classrooms. Currently available for fourth and fifth grade math and
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Education LMSs
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
80
reading/language arts.
84. WebStudy Course Management System A hosted
solution. May include MyWebStudy Tutor to allow non-linear, customized
learning for students.
85. White House Business Solutions Learning Management System (White

House Business Solutions (P) Ltd.)
Also offer Link2School management tools. Based in India.

Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Education LMSs
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
81
Open Source Education LMSs
Open source systems such as these are gaining increased recognition and adoption by
both educational organizations and some companies. Although the software is free,
substantial institutional support is necessary, so the total cost of ownership must be
addressed. One useful case study is the article “Why We Switched to Sakai” by Timothy
M. Chester of Pepperdine University


1. .LRN (.LRN Consortium)
2. ATutor (University of Toronto) . Developed at the University
of Toronto.
3. Bazaar Bazaar is MySQL based system
that includes Web Conferencing, IRC chat, etc.
4. Bodington implemented and supported by a wide group of
educational institutions, led by Oxford, UHI and Leeds.
5. BuddyPress ScholarPress Courseware BuddyPress is
a plug-in for WordPress ( which makes it a social network.
ScholarPress Courseware is another plug-in which gives WordPress LMS
capabilities.
6. Caucus
7. Chamilo Evolved from Dokeos but split from them and
the second major versions of Dokeos and Chamilo are different. Based in
Belgium.

8. Claroline
9. ClassWeb (UCLA)
10. CWIS (Collection Workflow Integration System)
A learning content management/learning
object repository system developed as part of the Internet Scout project at the
University of Wisconsin.
11. Datatel Intelligent Learning Platform (Datatel, Inc.) A
customized solution based on Moodle for post-secondary institutions.
12. Docebo LMS Docebo is an e-learning
suite that contains an LMS (for online courses), and a CMS (for web portal
building). Scorm support.
13. Dokeos (Dokeos) . Based in Belgium, Dokeos is an
elearning and course management web application translated into 34 languages
14. Drupal An open source “Content Management System” with
communication tools which is often implemented as an LMS in both education
and business.
15. EctoLearning (Ecto, LLC) . Not technically open
source but available free.
16. edu 2.0 Not technically open source, the basic system is
free but you pay for additional features and technical support.
17. EduFolio Originally developed by Terra Dotta,
this is an open source LCMS.
18. eFront (Epignosis Ltd) Based in Greece. Website is in
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Education LMSs
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
82
English.
19. Eledge (University of Utah)
20. Elgg Open source learning platform – creating communities

of learners
21. ETH Zurich dLCMS (Dynamic Learning Content System)

22. Etudes (Etudes Inc.) An organization which supports
institutions with customized versions of Sakai.
23. Fedena (Foradian Technologies) Based in India.
Built on Ruby on Rails. Described as an ERP for maintaining all school records.
24. Fedora An open source learning content
management/learning object repository system developed at Cornell University.
25. Fle3 University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland.
26. Ganesha Website in French.
27. Google CloudCourse (Google) http://google-
opensource.blogspot.com/2010/05/cloudcourse-enterprise-application-in.html.
28. ILIAS 4 e-Learning University of Cologne Germany.
29. Internet Course Assistant Nicenet is an organization of
Internet professionals who donate their time to provide services for the Internet
community. Internet Course Assistant provides web based conferencing,
personal messaging, document sharing, scheduling and link/resource sharing to
a variety of learning environments.
30. Instructure Canvas (Instructure Inc.) An Internet
hosted open source LMS, free for teachers.
31. Jasig uPortal (Jasig) A portal framework for higher
education. Associated with Sakai.
32. Kewl.NextGen (KNG) (University of the Western Cape, South Africa)
This link leads to a log-in page at UWC. Unclear if the
system is available for use by other institutions.
33. LAMS (Learning Activity Management System) .
Based at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia (www.mq.edu.au).
34. Learning Management System o/. A very
basic open source system.

35. LON-CAPA ( LON-CAPA is a Learning Content
Management System that originated in the College of Natural Science at
Michigan State University
36. Magnolia CMS ( Magnolia International Ltd. is a
Swiss company that supports the software. Primarily marketed to businesses.
Actually an open source “Content Management Suite” but is used as a Course
Management System by the Medical Sciences Division of Oxford University, UK.
37. Manhattan Virtual Classroom An open
source system developed at Western New England College. While it calls itself a
virtual classroom it is really a course management system.
38. Metacoon (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar) . Based in
Germany
39. MimerDesk
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Education LMSs
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
83
MimerDesk is an open source web-based collaborative learning and groupwork
environment.
40. Moodle (open source) . Probably the most widely used
open source system. Developed by Martin Dougiamas in Australia. There are
numerous companies who provide services to clients to implement, manage and
host it. These include Moodlerooms ( Lambda
Solutions ( Odyssey Learning
(), ClassRunner (),
Loom ( and DualCode ().
Datatel is an ERP designed for higher education and
Moodlerooms have partnered with Datatel to offer a complete integrated system.
Moodlerooms have dubbed its Moodle based LMS "joule".
41. MyiCourse Not technically open source but a free

web-based service for developing and posting courses. Primarily aimed at
smaller organizations that want to develop courses. Advertiser supported.
42. OLAT (University of Zurich)
43. openelms Marketed as a business solution. Includes
authoring (Jackdaw) and video integration.
44. Open LMS Hosted by NTNU in Norway.
45. PASS-PORT (Innovative Learning Assessment Technologies (ILAT), LLC)
An on-line system that allows
students to submit work for systematic assessment - an add-on for LMS.
46. Pearson OpenClass (Pearson Education, Inc.) A
free LMS integrated with Google (Technically a Google App rather than true open
source) announced in October, 2011. Pearson is the largest education company
in the world but has so far had little impact on the LMS market. This
announcement could change that although it has been met with some skepticism.
47. Sakai Sakai has taken several other open source
initiatives under its wing which makes it a strong player. As with Moodle there
are companies that offer their own versions and support for Sakai. Among those
is rSmart (
48. Site@School A website content
management system for primary schools.
49. Sloodle SLOODLE is an Open Source project
which integrates the multi-user virtual environment of Second Life
®
with the
Moodle
®
learning-management system supported by Eduserv and hosted by San
José State University
50. True Solution AlefMentor (True Solution, Serbia and Montenegro)
e-learning only. Open source education solution. Also

offer Student Forum and S_Creator - a rapid development course authoring tool.
51. University of Utah Open Learning Management System (OLMS) (University
of Utah, Department of Psychology)
52. Whiteboard .

Notes:

There are numerous other open source ELMSs listed at . Do a
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Education LMSs
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
84
search for “Learning Management Systems or “Virtual Learning Environments”.
lists about 30 - they tend to be
management systems for education environments developed at universities around the
world.
A useful source of information is Education Week Digital Directions at

Other lists of Open Source Education Management Systems can be found at
and

A helpful article on Education LMSs is available at

In 2003 a study was done by the Commonwealth of Learning regarding Open Source
Course Management Systems. A copy of this is available at
They also have an
LMS Evaluation Tool User Guide at

A very useful website comparing course management systems for formal education
o/course/

Other evaluations of education LMS software have been done at

Online Universities information:
/>change-the-world/
Rapid Learning Management Systems
There is a new breed of systems emerging which Tony Karrer has called Rapid LMS
(
They give access to individuals and groups of learners access to online learning either
publicly or privately. They usually include some management tools and reporting, course
authoring tools, eCommerce features and community networking. They also provide a
platform where authors can publish their work. Some of them for education are:
 Savicca LearnHub A social network for learning and
collaboration with a focus on the K-12 education sector. They offer course authoring
and publishing for teachers and e-commerce features. They offered an LMS called
Nuvvo which has now been shut down. Based in Toronto, Ontario.
 Sclipo Oriented to the K-12 sector, they offer course creation and
publishing and social networking. They also offer a virtual classroom called Sclipo
Events which can be integrated with Moodle. Based in Barcelona, Spain. Website is
not straightforward.
 ClassRunnner (Classrunner.com, LLC) . A Moodle
hosting service. It is oriented to teachers and schools who don't wish to set up their
own systems. It includes blogs, message forums, wikis, assignments distribution
and collection, online evaluations, comments and gradebook, course calendar of
events and assignments, online quizzes.
 MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
) offers a free, online repository for educational materials.
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Education LMSs
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
85

 Rice University Connexions ( offers "an environment for
collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on
the Web."
 BrainHoney (Agilix Labs) Online. Free for individuals.
 it's learning (it's learning Inc,) . For K-12 and post-
secondary education.
 Time To Know Digital Learning Platform (Time To Know, Inc.)
Described as “…an interactive core curriculum and a
digital teaching platform, designed specifically for one-to-one computing classrooms.
It is currently available for fourth and fifth grade math and reading/language arts.”
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Additional resources
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
86
Additional resources:
Rustici Software offers the eLearning Atlas - a list of “all”
eLearning software with an emphasis on interoperability.

“Choosing a Learning Management System” by Peter Berking and Shane Gallagher and
published by Advanced Distributed Learning (the home of SCORM) dated April 15, 2011.
/>s/Library/Choosing%20LMS%20v.2.4_20110413.pdf.

Desire2Learn offers a paper called “How to Choose and Implement a New Learning
Management System.” at

B Online Learning (Australia) offers an “LMS Evaluator Tool” at


For a list of SCORM certified LMSs, go to
/>x.


Ellen Behrens aLearning blog . In particular her tutorial
on choosing a Learning Management System (LMS)


Saba () provides a free sample RFP (Request for Proposals) for
Learning Management Systems.

More LMS/LCMS, etc. vendors can be found at


 An extensive
list of both products and services which goes beyond the scope of this list.
 (This is a British site
so the list tends to be Eurocentric),





Resources previously available from GeoLearning.
 Learning Strategy Blueprint
 LMS Requirements Checklist
 LCMS Requirements Checklist
 Learning Analytics Requirements Checklist
 Webcasting Requirements Checklist
 Talent Management Suite Requirements Checklist
 Courseware Evaluation Checklist
 E-Learning Needs Assessment
 E-Learning RFP Template

 Building a Business Case for E-Learning
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Additional resources
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
87
On Jan. 5, 2011, GeoLearning was purchased by SumTotal Systems. As a result,
the following useful tools no longer seem to be available. SumTotal has its own set
of resources available at

KMSI is now offering KMSI.TV with a number of tools and presentations.
Suddenly Smart website offers some useful comparisons
of various authoring tools.
Brandon Hall and Bersin & Associates
have a number of research reports available for sale on the topic
of Learning Management.
Elearning! Magazine
Chief Learning Officer magazine and other resources
The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) One
of the key resources offered is Learning Circuits (ASTD’s Source for E-Learning)

International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI)
Training Magazine
Research and Markets publishes a wide range of
reports including business training and education. Prices for most of the reports are
quite reasonable.
The book “Education for a Digital World - Advice, Guidelines, and Effective Practice from
around the Globe” was published by the Commonwealth of Learning in 2008 and is
available free for download at
or for $12 at
The second edition is an entirely new pair of volumes with a

great deal of new material and is available at
/>igital%20world_7540006163.
Tony Karrer offers a blog at
eLearning Learning ( is a blog that attempts to
consolidate the best information about eLearning.
Craig Weiss also offers a blog on E-Learning. He calls it E-Learnning 24/7 and it can be
found at Includes an LMS comparison tool at
and
directories.
Tony Bates has a blog at on e-learning and distance education
resources.
Articulate provides some interesting blogs on eLearning
 Dave Moxon's Articulate eLearning Blog at
reviews various LMSs.
 The Rapid E-Learning Blog at where
Tom Kuhlmann provides many articles and tips particularly on using PowerPoint
as an authoring tool.
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Additional resources
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
88
Trivantis offers the Everything eLearning Blog ( to support
Lectora and the Rapid E-learning Round-up blog ( />learning-blog) to support Snap!.
A useful short blog by Richard Cowles
/>systems/.
Subscribe to Google Alerts for Learning Management
Systems, Elearning, etc.
My own website has several other resources as well.
Kats, Y. (2010) Learning management system technologies and software solutions for
online teaching: Tools and applications. Hershey, PA: Information Science

Reference (IGI Global). ISBN-10: 1615208534. A book primarily focused on
educational systems available from Amazon.

Notes:
It is interesting to note that the major IT companies – Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAP, and
Intel – each offer some products but don’t seem to have a clear strategy in the Learning
Management space and the products they do offer are often difficult to find on their
websites. It seems that they are there mostly for existing customers.
Microsoft has several products in the eLearning space none of which can be described
as a learning management system. With the exception of Live Meeting, they seem to
hide them well.
 Live Meeting A web
conferencing/virtual classroom tool. Formerly PlaceWare. Microsoft offered the
original NetMeeting product as part of its Windows operating system but it is no
longer supported. They offered Windows Meeting Space on Windows Vista but
it does not seem to have been included in Windows 7
 ESP A 3-D simulation development tool.
 Live@edu. A suite of applications to help students collaborate on the Internet.
including: Office Live Workspace, Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live
Spaces, Microsoft SharedView Beta, Microsoft Outlook Live, Windows Live
Messenger, and Windows Live Alerts
 There is a general site that offers solutions for schools and universities.
•
 Sharepoint Server. Sharepoint is a content management system that Microsoft
developed for collaboration, portals, enterprise search, enterprise content
management, business process and business intelligence. Numerous companies
have built LMS solutions on SharePoint or have integrated other LMS solutions
with it.
•
•

•
•
•
Learning Management Vendors, November 2011
Additional resources
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
89
 Multipoint Server 2010
One computer,
multiple users. Each student has an account which can be managed. Folders
can be created for each student to save private data. Students can easily share
files, videos, and more with and between groups. Students can watch videos or
listen to music and podcasts without disturbing everyone else.
 Silverlight . This is a plug-in that Microsoft is promoting as an
alternative to Adobe Flash. So far the uptake has been underwhelming.
 Learning Content Development System (LCDS).
A free(!) tool
for general course authoring.
 Producer for PowerPoint
/>4F99-94BC-784919468E73&displaylang=en.
 Microsoft does have an e-learning page on its website
but it is about e-learning courses that they
offer to help people with Microsoft product skills and not about software products
that they offer for others to use.
Oracle seems to offer at least three learning management products – iLearning
Oracle Learning
Management (OLM)
and PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Management.

It would appear that iLearning is strictly for online learning and OLM is a more

comprehensive tool including the management of classroom training. The website is
unclear. They also have Oracle Collaboration Suite but it is difficult to find a home
page for basic information about it.
IBM Lotus Learning Management System (IBM) />lotus/lotus/offering6.nsf/wdocs/homepage and Workplace Collaborative Learning
(IBM) http://www-
142.ibm.com/software/workplace/products/product5.nsf/wdocs/lwclhomepage. These
products were removed from the market in August, 2009. IBM still offers IBM Lotus
Sametime – a webconferencing/virtual classroom solution.
SAP Learning Solution and Enterprise Learning (SAP America)
Includes an
LCMS and authoring environment. This is an optional module of the SAP system
apparently designed only to offer customers who insist on it. It is definitely not best of
breed. Most SAP users (even SAP itself) choose other systems.
In May 2010, Google launched a cloud based, open source learning platform called
CloudCourse. It runs under AppEngine, their Cloud Based environment. CloudCourse is
being used internally at Google for several LMS type functions - from registration to
classroom management. It is available as an Open Source codeset and will be evolved
as developers experiment and extend the functionality. Code and descriptions are
downloadable at />enterprise-application-in.html.

The Intel/Critical Links Educational Appliance. (Critical Links) tical-