Before investing time and money to develop technically advanced tools, it is
necessary to investigate the needs of the faculty.

universities have employed LMSs to support their courses [ 9]. Some universities have even developed their own LMS to better integrate with their existing instructional resources or just to cut costs.

Many LMS products are commercially available, such as Blackboard ( www.blackboard.com), Desire2Learn ( www.desire2learn.com/), ANGEL|LMS ( www.angel-learning.com/products/LMS/default.html), and Intralearn^TM LMS ( www.intralearn.com/Products/ intralearn.aspx). Sometimes the terms “Course Management Systems” (CMS) or “Learning Content Management Systems” (LCMS) are used to indicate similar systems.

An LMS provides an array of tools and functions to support teaching and learning, usually including course management tools, online group chat and discussion, homework collections and grading, and course evaluation. Some LMS features are more technically sophisticated, such as holding virtual office hours, reminding students about the deadlines, and dividing students into groups for online projects [ 12]. Other programs can separately archive content for use in multiple

courses. Some programs allow teachers to create ePortfolios to collect and store student’s journals, projects, and tests [ 3]. As more LMS products are developed, new technically sophisticated functions are created.

The variety of functions and features of LMS should provide more choices and increase the use of the system. Studies about the actual use of LMS programs reveal that some functions are used more often than others [ 1, 7, 11]. Woods, Baker, and Hopper conducted a survey of 862 faculty members at 38 institutions who used the Blackboard Learning Management System. They found that few faculty members used LMS functions to assess students or to promote community [ 11]. Most faculty used ^{Figure 1. A} _{sample English} instructional functions, such as pub- CEIBA page from lishing syllabi, sending email, and ^{a biology course.} providing readings. The communicative and interactive features were largely unused. In Grant’s qualitative study, some faculty members relied on Blackboard CourseInfo to post scanned material in the absence of the copying services [ 7].

The results of actual LMS use at universities suggest it is important to examine the teaching needs of the faculty before designing such a system. If the functions and features do not suit faculty needs, or the technical complexity is too difficult, the use of such functions and features is limited. Before investing time and money to develop technically advanced tools, it is necessary to investigate the needs of the faculty.

What makes an LMS popular among a faculty? Can faculty members with little technical computing knowledge become proficient at using an LMS system? The LMS development experience at National Taiwan University (NTU) presents an instructive case that answers these questions.