Case Study
Outsourcing CMS in Iowa
The Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC), made up of seven community colleges, is using an outsourced learning management system to offer its online courses to students across Iowa. The learning management system, eCollege, is specifically designed for managing online learning programs, and helps makes course development and management far easier for colleges within the consortium.
eCollege's learning management system differs from products like Blackboard or WebCT in that it is offered as an outsourced service. That means colleges don't buy and install the product on their own computers; rather, they license use of eCollege from the company, which maintains the application remotely on its own servers. That allows schools to avoid heavy upfront capital costs, as well as the cost of adding technical support staff, since eCollege handles all support issues. The company says eCollege is run from computers in various locations, to ensure fast and continual service, and includes multiple levels of redundancy, backups, and an up to date database infrastructure.
eCollege also specifically focuses on the distance education market, predominantly in post-secondary institutions that serve non-traditional students. The company offers other services along with its learning management system, such as technical consulting, training, faculty support and course development.
By allowing each college to offer its online courses to any student enrolled in a college belonging to the consortium, the ICCOC increases the number of students potentially interested in any one course, allowing the rural community college members to offer courses they wouldn't be able to fill otherwise. It also makes the best use of instructors, who can teach a course no matter where they are located in the state.
Through eCollege, students registered at any of the seven colleges in the consortium can select from a range of courses offered by member colleges. The online classes, which feature streaming audio and video with synchronized presentation slides offered over the Internet, are available during the day, in the evenings, or even on weekends.
The ICCOC was established in 1999 to pool community college resources and offer online educational opportunities to Iowa students. The seven member schools offer an all-online two-year associate's degree; students who register to attend classes through the consortium must be registered at one of the seven colleges.