Content Management Systems nowadays are used to manage complex publications far more often than some years ago. The basic principles are the separation of structure, content and presentation, an exactly defined workflow management and the management of content in the form of small units, so called assets. This leads to improved quality, better reusability and reduced costs.

This paper focuses on similarities of CMS-Systems and eLearning systems and the possibility to transfer gained experiences from the field of CMS to eLearning systems. This leads to a set of demands that can be made on eLearning systems. The paper concludes with the thesis that transferring the principles of content management systems to the world of e-Learning will result in better systems with the improved functionality we already know from current CMS.