A Brief History of Learning Management Systems

By smwoodson

  • Definition

    The term "LMS" was coined to describe the management portion of PLATO, the first computer based learning system, used at the University of Illinois

  • CALC

    The computer assisted learning center was founded in New Hampshire offering an offline computer-based education opportunity

  • The move to PCs

    SoftArc releases FirstClass, the first LMS to work on a personal computer rather than a mainframe computer.

  • Moodle

    Moodle is released as one of the first open source LMSs

  • SCORM

    Shareable Content Object Reference Model, a set of standards for training technology, becomes the basis for many current Learning Management Systems.

  • The Cloud

    Saas LMS becomes the first to use cloud-based technology so that companies and schools do not have to install additional software to operate.