What are the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to a course management system?
Given a need for a course management system at UC Davis, there are three broad approaches: • Adopt one or more complete commercial system(s) • Build additional course management features into MyUCDavis • Purchase modular components and link them to MyUCDavis Complete commercial systems: These are systems, like WebCT and Blackboard CourseInfo, that provide end-to-end solutions. This market is currently crowded and dynamic with partnerships being built between providers of Student Information Systems and Course Management Systems to create integrated products. The main advantage of a complete commercial system is that the development effort is spread across many customers (many campuses). This leverage is likely to be of considerable importance as course management systems increase in complexity and value. The immediate benefit is rapid deployment of a wide range of features. There are also disadvantages and their significance depends on one’s faith on the commercial providers, which in
