Synchronous/Asynchronous Development Learning Environment (SADLE): Comparative with CMSs

The past ten years has seen a rapid increase in Internet use. Institutions and corporations are being continuously subjected to pressures related to maintaining the information on their web sites. Today, the way the web is managed and maintained is characterized by highly manual approaches. The objective of a successful and sustainable web will have to be significantly automated. “Content Management Systems (CMS)” have claimed to be one vehicle serving this objective. CMS is a concept that embraces a set of processes that are highly contextual and therefore by default differ from case to case. Institutional needs are highly individualized and most agree that the solution to a specific CMS is a mixture of “buy&build”. Literature from CMS vendors should be taken with a grain of salt due to the fact that they are over-hyped and filled with jargon. The significance to senior managers is that they need to be aware of the CMS issues and associated costs, and consider efficiency and effectiveness which gives the biggest return on investment. This article focuses on a specific application of CMSs, namely in the e-learning paradigm where these CMSs are arguably referred to learning management systems (LMSs). The article first presents a study that sought to explore the domain of ‘content management systems (CMS)’, compare some major CMSs that are being offered in the marketplace and discuss the differences in a design of a proposed “true” LMS referred to in this study as SADLE. In addition to design considerations that have not been considered by today’s CMSs, practical suggestions towards a new e-learning paradigm are elaborated.