The LMS Infrastructure Paradox in Central European Tertiary Education: Why Robust Platforms Yield Fragile Ecosystems

Abstract

This article investigates what the authors term the “LMS infrastructure paradox” in Central European tertiary education: the persistent and counterintuitive phenomenon whereby institutions across the region deploy technically robust, feature-complete Learning Management System platforms—predominantly Moodle—yet systematically fail to leverage their architectural capabilities, thereby producing fragile, siloed, and interoperability-deficient digital learning ecosystems. Drawing upon a critical synthesis of recent scholarship in educational technology, systems architecture, data interoperability, and higher education IT governance, and informed by the authors’ collective experience in administering, developing, designing multimedia content for, and teaching through LMS infrastructure at a Serbian vocational college, the paper identifies and analyses five structural, institutional, and technical factors that perpetuate this paradox. The central argument advanced here is that the core problem resides not in platform capability but in architectural intentionality: specifically, the absence of a coherent, institution-wide IT strategy that conceptualises the LMS as an integrated component of a broader digital ecosystem rather than as a standalone application. To address this deficit, the paper proposes an “Integrative Architecture Framework” (IAF) comprising five design principles for Central European institutions seeking to close the gap between platform potential and ecosystem reality. The discussion encompasses LTI interoperability, xAPI and learning analytics pipeline design, single sign-on implementation, database architecture, the mathematical modelling of analytics maturity, the integration of multimedia instructional content and open educational resources, and the pivotal role of institutional IT governance in determining LMS outcomes.