[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.