Untangling the Web of Learning Integration

Radhakrishnan, who still holds the chief strategist role at Expertus, said, “Even the best organizations have trouble looking at a learning architecture in a holistic way. It’s a function of the way integrations are often done – one at a time.”

“We looked at what my employer had at the time, and we saw economies of scale not being taken advantage of,” Crowley said. “For example, the content that people wanted was being developed by many departments and each group had its own content management system. The content management systems in place were very specific about which content they would take.”

An Idea Is Born
So, after deliberation, analysis and planning with each other and their respective teams, Crowley and Radhakrishnan devised what they called a delivery management system (DMS). The DMS was a services-based architecture designed to untangle the dozens upon dozens of integrations inherent in the networking equipment maker’s learning architecture. The company’s learning architecture – like those of many other large and small organizations – was a web of integrations and connected technologies. When one learning technology vendor upgraded its system, Crowley found that upgrade could immediately impact the links to other systems spread across the architecture.

Crowley and Radhakrishnan defined the DMS as “the systems, tools and applications used to support services such as content presentation, distribution management and tracking a learner’s activity.”

“The DMS operates much like Mail Boxes Etc.,” Crowley explained. “If I want to ship something, Mail Boxes Etc. takes my requirements and content and matches it to the appropriate sender, such as UPS or the U.S. Postal Service. It’s all invisible to the person mailing the package, and the DMS is invisible to the consumer or creator of learning.”

From Many to One
Crowley and Radhakrishnan made DMS the cornerstone for the networking equipment maker’s learning architecture. “By putting in place the DMS, we went from dozens of integrations between learning technologies to one,” Crowley said.