Best Practices:

Since I, like Karl and Mary, am in the middle of a big project at work to select and implement a new LMS for our company I would like to make this assignment do double duty. First, of course, to meet the criteria for this course and secondly to serve as a valuable tool to use as part of my LMS project at work.

Background: As a little bit of background we are in the process of test driving three LMS systems to determine which one will best serve all of our various business units. Once we’ve made our selection the real work will begin as we try to understand all the issues that will effect how well this new system is implemented.

Audience: For this project I see the initial audience as other members of the LMS project team who motivated by the desire to select the LMS that is best suited for our environment as well as sharing what they learn about the LMS systems we are evaluating. During the implementation I envision this space being a centrally accessible, shared, searchable repository of pertinent LMS project related information. My biggest goal for this project is to get all of this information out of everyone’s email, out of the Microsoft Sharepoint site that some are *TRYING* to use. (If you’ve never used Sharepoint it’s painful, not very flexible and fairly restrictive to use).

To my knowledge this audience, with the exception of one or two, have not used wikis in the past but I’m confident they will see the advantages of a wiki over our current email/Sharepoint option.

Message: Users will be contributing relevant information, preferences and opinions relating to the LMS. It is possible that some existing content can be included such as things that already exist in the sharepoint site (Vendor provided document, contact info, etc). The good thing is that this existing info can be included via a simple link to the existing content and/or copied into the wiki. This wiki will definitely serve as a reference tool for the project and my hope is cull some info from this wiki ..

To me success for this project would look like an active, frequently updated and referenced source of accurate LMS materials. An even greater success would include this wiki rolling forward to serve as a basis for training/reference materials for the appropriate groups of LMS users such as administrators, etc. So to restate that, a success would look like one or more of the following an LMS FAQ, knowledge base, and in my dream world an ongoing LMS Documentation reference source.

Links:

• http://www.learningwiki.com/lms2007
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_farms
• http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/vendors/wikis.htm
• INFOWORLD: Enterprise collaboration with blogs and wikis
  http://www.infoworld.com/pdf/special_report/2005/13SRblogwiki.pdf