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Everything You Need to Know When Shopping for a Learning Management Systems (LMS)
By Scott Johnson
17 March 2023
Traditionally, workers are expected to be both accessible and adaptable. In today’s day and age, those exact expectations are falling more and more on employers as well, including how they provide training. Learning Management Systems (LMS) are critical tools that help organizations adapt to the modern workforce, offering optimized and automated remote learning solutions.
Learning Management System Definition
A Learning Management System is an e-learning platform that delivers employee training, tools to deliver dynamic course content, and insights to track user progress.
According to a 2021 study, LMS platforms have grown to become the most popular style of e-learning tech on the market. Nearly 98% of large companies use an LMS for training; 96% of mid-sized companies; and 80% of small businesses.
An LMS provides a streamlined and scalable solution for businesses to build, curate, publish, and administer instructional materials. LMS products can also optimize the learning experience by adapting course content to skill progress, making remote training faster and more effective than traditional instruction.
Explanation of an LMS
How do you provide online and remote training? Live instruction via video chat and indirect interactions with information may work in the short term, but it’s not scalable. The answer is a management system.
Management systems have streamlined hiring, human resources, and scheduling workflow by offering an all-in-one platform and tools to work from. A learning management system adds these same concepts to learning and training.
Importance of LMS in Modern Education and Training
A cloud-based LMS is essential for the modern workplace, providing better accessibility and flexibility. Remote and work-from-home settings have become a rising job expectation in many industries, and accommodating these models in training is fundamental for onboarding, retaining, and developing new talent.
Having a flexible training model helps entities hedge against risks of unforeseeable variables. This includes accessing a worldwide talent pool during worker shortages, skill gaps or other social-economic events that can disrupt the workplace.
Benefits of a Learning Management System
While remote learning was emphasized because of COVID-19, according to a 2021 Training Industry Report, more than 56% of companies of all sizes report they will continue offering remote training elements even post-pandemic. This is likely due to the benefits and advantages experienced during their experience with LMS platforms.
LMS benefits include a simplified learning experience, better performance outcomes, and centralized management tools.
Improving Accessibility and Flexibility — A learning management system will provide open-ended access to course material and employee training opportunities. Whether they have 30 minutes or three hours to devote to instruction, lessons and course activities are available when they are. Mobile, tablet and desktop support for an LMS also means your teams can train whenever they are available.
Enhancing engagement and interaction — LMS features such as gamification, chat and feedback forums, and push notifications can improve end-user engagement and improve skill development success. When an LMS is supported by machine learning and AI, it can even track end-user trends, recognize success patterns, and begin prompting engagement based on the most successful techniques for each person.
Streamlining content delivery and management — An LMS is a secure way to deliver information and instruction directly to users, bringing document sharing, communication, and interaction under one blanket.
Collecting and analyzing data — With an LMS, instructors immediately have analytics and performance statistics available for all their participants through an online administrative dashboard. These trends can provide real-time feedback on what is succeeding and what educational content needs to be fine-tuned to generate more successful responses.
Supporting personalized learning — AI and machine learning can take individual KPIs and use automation to draft personalized success paths based on user trends. This may mean students are directed into restudying a topic to reinforce information, but it can also mean an employee is expedited through a course.
Two Common Types of Learning Management Systems
Not only are there many features an LMS can support, but there are also different variations of e-learning LMS platforms. LMS products may be built to support various end goals and end-user types. For the sake of time, we’re only going to consider two of the main LMS types: Corporate LMS and Academic LMS.
Corporate LMS
Small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises often consider implementing a corporate LMS for internal development to support employee training and skill growth, or external education for customer training and B2B collaborations. A corporate LMS will typically allow businesses to incorporate their own branding design styles and will stress specific certifications or company standards.
Academic LMS
Educators should consider academic LMSs for streamlined course planning, presentation, and delivery. These platforms will likely support fewer customizations and APIs.
Learning Management System Top Features
A quality LMS platform will not only recreate a classroom experience, but it will also extend features beyond what is capable in person. Learning management systems typically include the following features:
Course & User Management
An LMS can empower training managers with access to a centralized database where they can review and improve content. Most LMSs will support drag-and-drop design elements as well as store training content and course material in a cloud, where it can be added to a personalized learning path or used in a new course.
They also can have access to all user profiles and instructors, where they can track performance, interactions, progress, and efficiency through analytic tools. Platform management tools allow a company to set certain features on the LMS depending on the team member’s role.
Training Data Analytics
The ability to review in-depth performance metrics is a critical feature for an LMS. Dashboards can equip training managers with compiled user progress reports. Because the data is provided within the management system, instructors can easily take actionable steps in response to insights, such as adjusting a user’s learning goals or even adjusting courses themselves.
Social Features & Management
Providing in-app communication features ensures efficiency and organization while using an LMS. User forums, messaging, and content-sharing capabilities can facilitate community learning and instructor collaboration. Having in-platform communications means having access to historical interactions and user feedback.
Adaptive Learning
An LMS can use machine learning and AI for what Techinnov calls “adaptive learning.” These tools help analyze behavior trends and automatically make adjustments to a dynamic learning path based on those insights. Instead of linear course progression, these tools can identify weaknesses and reroute users back to needed modules and concepts. Machine learning progressively builds algorithms over time based on user interactions with content and notifications to predict performance and outcomes better.
API Development
Companies should not have to sacrifice data ownership in exchange for a seamless LMS experience. A strong LMS provider should support API integrations that allow secure data sharing between an organization and its training infrastructure.
Persuasion Tools
An e-learning LMS has the capability to support various tactics to incentivize user performance. Techinnov’s platform implements reinforcement theories to persuade learning and content engagement. This includes gamification and nudge theory.
Gamification
Implementing common game-style features into a learning process is called “gamification.” An LMS can simplify e-learning gamification by providing leaderboards, point systems, and merit badge rewards all within an app. Trainers should employ gamification to diversify their learning models and elicit the highest levels of engagement and success.
Notification & Nudge Theory
Users tend to engage with course material if they are “nudged” in the right direction at the right time. Leading LMS products provide in-system communication management in order to optimize both user and instructor engagement. Managers can schedule push notifications and email updates based on calendar specifications or based on interaction rules.
Ready to Launch your Project?
Technnov’s Learning Management System provides secure and scalable solutions that simplify the learning process and help organizations achieve the desired growth. Techinnov can help assess the specifications and technical requirements needed to make an e-learning project a success.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a learning management system?
A Learning Management System is an e-learning platform that delivers employee training, tools to deliver dynamic course content, and insights to track user progress.
Why should my org consider an LMS?
There are numerous reasons your organization should consider an LMS, including improved accessibility and flexibility of training, optimized engagement, content delivery, data curation, and personalized learning.
What LMS features are the best?
Leading e-learning LMS products provide methods to implement gamification of course material, analytic dashboards, notification and engagement tools, user forums, document and asset management, and API support.
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