[endymi0n]

I've been wondering the same and came to this conclusion:

- Existing learning management systems are a mirror (and a victim) of the education system itself, as that's where most of the developers come from: Academic, underfunded and people-focused.

- Academica leads to overflowing complexity. In the whole system, simplicity is punished and complexity is cherished, so you end up with confusing UX.

- Underfunded is pretty self-explanatory

- People-focused is where like in any bureaucracy, nobody really wants to make anyone else replaceable. So instead of with a hard focus on users and learning tracks, you end up with an old system of classes, teachers and students, where of course you have the 10% great teachers that _should_ have run the class for everyone and the 90% that starves their class of any legit info.

From the uni and publisher sides, it's similar, but not completely equal. Both universities and book publishers would never make anything truly great because it would all cannibalize their business.

If you come from the other side and think that the whole learning system is rife for revolution with first-principle thinking, tree-trunk learning and a standard of "Intuition isn't optional" (massive props to https://betterexplained.com/articles/intuition-isnt-optional... ), then you quickly see the other side isn't interested in any fundamental change in their approach (see above for the why).

Furthermore, even if you try, those are the people in charge deciding where their (very tiny) funds go. They will go towards the solution that prioritizes system survival above quality and radical change.

So you see these people rather going towards the content publishers.

For investors, the field is mostly uninteresting for the reasons above, so you don't see any quality invest.

As a parent, I'd love to see someone really cracking edtech, but unfortunately what it would take would be a pretty massive initial investment into a seriously great solution that then proceeds to tackle funding, education system and self-reliance as well. It'd be a philantrophic invest of a few dozen million and then go for a very long road of paying back in small rates.

I'm still up for it, maybe in my next startup :)

[em-bee]

Existing learning management systems are a mirror (and a victim) of the education system itself, as that's where most of the developers come from: Academic, underfunded and people-focused.

this.

part of the problem is that an LMS is used by several different types of people:

    - students
    - teacher
    - parents
    - administrators
    - other staff

everyone has different needs and expectations.

also, the users who use the system the most are not the ones paying for it. so they don't get much of a say.

every school has different priorities.

a good system for you may not be a good system for anyone else.

I'm still up for it, maybe in my next startup :)

i have been looking into doing that for a long time, but i had to shelve the idea. i am still interested in approaching this, but i do not believe that a large project without any users right from the start will be successful.

rather the approach should be to find a school, build a custom system for them and expand from there. it is the only way to build a system that actually has users and has a chance of getting funded (by those users)

without those users you'll build something that noone else will want.

[cmaggiulli]

I’ve worked in academia as a SDE or Product Manager for 3 different universities ( Columbia, MIT, and an online school ). From my experience the LMS is always a COTs product with very little customization by IT. I’ve never heard anyone complain about it ( from the college side at least ).

The real need is not the LMS but rather the SIS ( student information system ). The available LMS’ are adequate but none of the Student Information Systems are flexible enough to suit the need of most large universities.

[rvanlaar]

I wondered the same as well. My idea was to change this and build one that worked....

A few thoughts:

All LMSes need to be seen as a result from their surroundings. Education is a very bureaucratic sector with lots of money, just not in the places to make a teachers' life easier.

Current applications are in this equilibrium where they are good enough for the field as a whole. Yes, there needs to be innovation and it will happen, just very slowly.

My 2 cts, it can be done by lobbying with politicians, deans and school boards. Getting them on board, creating a pilot program and buzz. That part will take more time than actually developing the software.

Disclaimer, I build such a system for a customer. It was very specific and trimmed down for their use case.

[akie]

Even if you have great world-class software, you will get bogged down so easily in university politics and the slooooooow moving oil tankers that they are that I would strongly recommend you to spend your time and energy elsewhere.