- eCampus News - https://www.ecampusnews.com -

Breaking: Billion-dollar e-learning market about to undergo major shift

Analysis explains how faculty-friendly offerings and reduced switching costs are beginning to transform–and accelerate–higher education technology adoption patterns

An increasing number of colleges and universities are electing to replace their learning management systems (LMS), according to a comprehensive report from e-Literate, an education technology research and analysis site.

The report, LMS Market Dynamics, is the first of the “e-Literate Big Picture” subscription services, which will provide colleges and universities, education companies, and investors with monthly, proprietary insight into the market.

Following the dawn of the first commercially-available LMS in the mid-1990s, adoption of the LMS spread quickly. By 2003, more than 90 percent of all U.S. colleges and universities had adopted a campus-wide LMS. Authored by ed-tech experts Phil Hill and Michael Feldstein, the report reviews 15 years of market data and points to technical interoperability standards and cloud-based computing as enablers of migration away from legacy LMS in a market typified by consolidation among dominant players and vendor lock-in.

The analysis is powered by data from LISTedTECH, the most comprehensive education technology database, which allows, for the first time, an extensive review of LMS usage, implementation, and decommissions for more than 4,000 institutions in the U.S. and Canada and thousands more worldwide.

“The data reinforce our thesis of the past several years that reduced cost and cloud-based offerings leading to faculty-friendly systems suggest the evolution of a market in the ‘early stages’ of transformation. We see the pace of change accelerating as technological advances remove barriers to elective migration, and adjacent markets in K-12 and international higher education knock the market out of equilibrium,” said Phil Hill, co-publisher of e-Literate. “Higher education leaders, technology providers, and investors would be wise to pay close attention to emerging players over the next twelve months.”

Although competency-based learning has yet to impact the LMS market, Hill and Feldstein suggest that well-funded K-12 and international market entrants are gaining market share across U.S. higher education institutions. The report also reviews which universities are moving to or away from which LMS platforms, examines new market opportunities, and discusses what additional changes may accelerate the market.

To download this report, or receive additional information, please visit: http://mfeldstein.com/lms-subscription/ [1].