What is Distance Education (Learning)

This chapter explains what course management systems (CMS) are, lists the features of the most popular CMS, describes the advantages and disadvantages of CMS, reviews the literature on the effectiveness of learning with CMS communication tools, and discusses the future of CMS. It discusses how CMS have become an important means of computer mediated communication in higher education. CMS are not only used for distance education courses, but for traditional courses as well. Increasingly, many teaching faculty are integrating CMS to enhance communication in the traditional class making it a hybrid course. CMS provide instructors the ability to enable various modes of communication to simulate the same experience as a real classroom. The author hopes that this chapter will provide information about what CMS can do now, and what they will perceivably do in the future.