An article at elearnspace by George Siemens shares his perspective on Learning Management Systems:

The very notion of “managing learning” conflicts with how people are actually learning today. Outside of primary and secondary school, most of our learning falls into the “topping up what we know” category. As a result, we need tools that allow for rapid creation and breakdown. Searching Google, blogs, and wikis has a very quick learning structure creation and breakdown. An LMS has a long creation/breakdown process (and once the learning structure has been broken down (i.e. end of course), it is no longer accessible to learners). LMS' still view learners as canisters to be filled with content – this is particularly relevant in light of the heavy emphasis on object repositories for learning. Essentially, most LMS platforms are attempting to shape the future of learning to fit into the structure of their systems, even though most learning today is informal and connectionist in nature.

Although learning management systems are an important part of an e-learning environment, there are other important pieces too. Siemen lists the following:

Any learning environment should:

• Have a place for learner expression (blog/portfolio)
• Have a place for content interaction (LMS' have this)
• Have a place to connect with other learners (discussion forum - LMS' have this)
• Have a place to connect the thoughts of other learners in a personal, meaningful way - i.e. using RSS and then brought back into the "learner expression tool"
• Have a place to dialogue with the instructor (email, VoIP, etc. - webct has some of this)
• Have a place to dialogue with gurus (apprentice) - the heart of online communities is the mess of varying skills and expertise. Gurus are people currently in industry or established practitioners of the organizing theme of the community. LMS limit the interaction to learner and instructor.
• Have a place for learning artifacts of those who've gone before - i.e. content management capabilities accessible and managed by the learner. Tools like Furl, del.icio.us are examples of personal knowledge management (PKM) tools.Be modularized so additional functionality and tools can be added based on what learners want or need...a bricolage of course tools - based on open standards - allow for incorporation of new approaches as needed.