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The 2010 survey data highlight the continuing transition in the higher education market for Learning Management Systems (LMS).  The proportion of survey participants reporting that their institution uses Blackboard as the campus-standard LMS has dropped from to 71.0 percent in 2006 to 57.1 percent in 2010.  Concurrently, Blackboard's major LMS competitors have all gained share during this period.  The percentage of campuses that use Desire2Learn as the campus-standard LMS is up five-fold, from 2.0 percent in 2006 to 10.1 percent in 2010.  Moodle, an Open Source LMS, also registered big gains during this period, rising from 4.2 percent in 2006 to 16.4 percent in fall 2010   The numbers for Sakai, another Open Source LMS deployed primarily in research universities, have grown from 3.0 percent in 2006 to 4.6 percent in 2010.

Since the economic downturn began I've noticed much more interest in open source Learning Management Systems (LMS), and it's no surprise that when people ask what the options are, the answer is usually Moodle. Now, there's nothing wrong with Moodle, but it certainly isn't the only open source LMS out there. Because there is no licensing cost involved with open source solutions, its easy for organisations to just jump in and set up the first solution that comes along. There is however a cost to installation and support, either financial or time related. Anyone setting up an LMS has a responsibility to research and choose the solution that is right for the learners and the organisation.

From an LMS provider's standpoint, the more open and flexible the LMS, the more it can be integrated with other programs for robust analysis of student activity and interaction.  According to Lou Pugliese, president of online learning solutions provider  Moodlerooms, that kind of integration is needed. Technologies exist to measure student data and interactions on a large scale, Pugliese says: The focus now is how to effectively collect data and conduct reporting on-demand within the LMS. "Over the past ten years, the LMS has managed to record the most basic of student interactions and activity, but we've barely scratched the surface in enabling universities to analyze data on an institutional level," says Pugliese. "However, new developments in analytical technologies will provide educators with the ability to measure interactions within the ever-popular collaborative tools present in today's LMS environments. Moving beyond simple traffic reporting to more comprehensive online behaviour analysis will be critical to make more effective intervention decisions."  

The LMS market is in flux. According to a 2010 survey conducted by the Campus Computing Project, Blackboard's dominance of the higher education market declined from 71 percent in 2006 to 57 percent in 2010. Open source alternatives Moodle and Sakai have continued to make inroads, as has Desire2Learn--together they now control over 30 percent of the market. The entry of Instructure, whose Canvas LMS recently scooped up the business of the Utah Education Network, provides an additional plot twist. And hanging over it all is the imminent migration of hundreds of legacy Blackboard clients to new systems as their existing platforms are retired.