Tony Karrer over at Elearning Technology raised some points this week about the evolution of the Learning Content Management System (LCMS), noting that what started out as a way to organize and store media content has gone on to become an authoring-focused Tool.

Claro, the sixth generation of the Dominknow Lcms, has followed that pattern for sure, but I think of its evolution as a bit more than just that. I've come to think of Claro as a place, not a system. A decade ago, if you thought of an LCMS as a place, it would likely have been a library, or a warehouse – pretty much all about storage, like Tony points out.

Today, though, I think of Claro as a Studio – a place where people can work together on e-learning and m-learning projects. Claro makes the authoring process as simple as possible, including built-in image editing, video capture, and easy-to-use custom interaction tools. This means authors can work in this one place and take care of the things they need to do to create engaging learning experiences without having to turn to other tools. This is especially important for users who are new to multimedia or e-learning production.

And just like in a studio, some projects can be done by one person but many projects require people to work together. Claro has some great features to support this, including our new built-in web conferencing tool, our Reviewer Notes feature that allows key stakeholders to review a project and provide feedback as part of the development and approval process, and the ability for multiple authors to work on the same project at the same time.

Because it's a controlled-access studio, Claro is also a place where administrators can monitor what's being done on projects and control who has permission to work on content, to help keep content safe. Sure, the studio still has a library or warehouse for storing and tracking media files like images, audio, video or content created in other tools. But the library supports the more critical tasks people need to get done – creating engaging and effective e-learning and m-learning experiences – in the studio.

I've thought about the dominKnow LCMS in this way for a while now but Claro has really solidified the idea for me, chiefly because it is so simple and intuitive to use that it really fulfills the promise of a studio where everyone can work together. Last week I had a great opportunity to observe a client team do just that (and do it with enthusiasm and great energy!), and it really brought the point home for me.

Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominKnow.