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Learning Management Systems are an application suite used for student educational and training purposes. In essence it is a specialized content management system (CMS) geared toward university students. Generally these tools are used to supply a platform in which instructors from various backgrounds can distribute, receive, and collaborate on digital work, all without needing any specialized knowledge of the platform which facilitates it.

LMS like Blackboard, eCollege, LearnForce and Meridian Knowledge Solutions all provide a simple interfaces that requires minimal training to use, yet are powerful enough to administer tasks that are often conducted between student and professor. Administering a timed exam, assignment distribution and collection, live chat, digital dropbox, and video hosting for online lectures are typical tasks LMS's help make possible. The technology bridges the gap between student and faculty in a new technology driven era.

A general weakness in most LMS is that they are far too generalized and not modularized enough, with many features often unused by most courses. For instance with Blackboard to get to a specific class webpage, a student has to jump through five links starting from CUNY portal. Contrastingly the "Blackboard Scholar" tab is the largest button on the front page. This is assuming all users are well trained in the location of every tool necessary. This is often not the case with tools like CUNY First where many students and faculty fumble around for hours before giving up.

In the end you really don't have a choice. Either master the system or build your own. I choose to do the later. Other's are not as technically inclined and have to use LMS's. It's nothing to be ashamed about. As an analogy I don't do my taxes by hand because I am not trained in accounting, instead I use a tool like TurboTax to help me get the job done. Is it the best choice? Of course not, these tools are suppose to be generalized to fit most of the populace, and thus are often using estimates which don't fit each individual perfectly, and can sometimes even be incorrect. LMS's are the same way they are geared toward providing adequate services for as many instructors as possible, take what you need from it, and ignore the rest.

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