Who should own your learning platform?

This week I’ve been running a workshop in which we looked at all aspects of digital learning design. Over lunch, one of the delegates asked who I thought was the right person in an organisation to own the LMS (or VLE, or other learning platform).

Various possibilities were suggested by the group, including Learning and Development, IT, producers of learning content or some combination of the three.

Before I suggest an answer, I have to say I would definitely reject any option which involved shared ownership. While I would agree that there are various groups of stakeholders whose views should be considered, that does not merit having a stake in the ownership of the platform. Any effort to split ownership is more likely to stifle progress than encourage it.

It’s very clear to me who should own any learning platform, although I have no strong views about which department that should be.

For me, the ownership of any platform can only lie with whoever has ownership for supporting those people who use that platform. That is whoever provides the first line of support for learners – who is it that answers their calls and emails?