360Learning is a Collaborative Learning pioneer. Their platform excels at combining powerful LMS features with collaborative tools that drive engagement and impact. Learning and Development teams who use 360Learning have revolutionized their corporate learning programs from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach that leverages the existing expertise within their organizations. Whether onboarding new employees, training customer-facing teams, or developing soft skills, 360Learning is a great solution for companies that want employees to be continuously learning and upskilling. Founded in 2013, 360Learning fuels the future of work at 1,500 organizations. Customers say they’ve changed the way their organizations see learning with this solution.
What is a Learning Management System (LMS)?
More and more companies across the world are choosing to deliver their training online. In fact, the eLearning market is growing so fast that it has seen a 900% growth since the beginning of the century. To deliver eLearning courses, companies need a Learning Management System (LMS).
A Learning Management System is the software that companies use to develop, deliver, and track training for their employees, clients, and partners. Until recently, hearing the word “training” made us think of a classroom with an instructor giving a lecture in front of students. And if we were talking about “corporate training,” we would picture a large conference or a day-long workshop.
This is the traditional way of training. Online training has now gained popularity, especially in times where connecting online is easier than meeting in person. As companies, instructors, and learners see the benefits of virtual training, the eLearning market will keep growing.
When companies use an LMS to deliver training online, learners from anywhere in the world can connect with instructors, whether in real time or through recorded sessions. At the same time, trainees have access to online training material (courses, guides, quizzes, videos, etc.) any time they want.
Who uses an LMS?
It’s clear that a Learning Management System can serve different training needs. For example, an expert can use an LMS to sell their courses online, a company can use it to train employees internally, while a consulting agency can train clients on a range of topics.
You can use an LMS for all kinds of learning activities (like the "L" in the acronym indicates). That’s why an LMS is an invaluable business tool that has been embraced by enterprises and organizations big and small.
Train employees
Whether you’re an insurance company, a scooter factory, a hospital, or even a government agency, you’ll often need to train your teams. For example, you might want to provide employees with compliance training, or you might need to teach existing employees new skills.
By using an LMS to deliver eLearning, you can cut down on employee training costs, as you’ll spend less money and effort compared to bringing in specialized instructors to give conventional seminars. You will also gain better insights into employee progress with integrated monitoring and reporting tools.
Onboard new hires
You can automate and simplify the all-important task of onboarding a new hire using a business LMS. You still need to greet them in person and give them a tour around the office, but they can study the rest at their own pace (and refer back to the learning material anytime they need).
New hires struggle to remember the details about your company history or compliance policies. With an online onboarding course, though, you can be sure they have access to useful information whenever they want.
Your LMS software is an excellent place to educate your new hires on your company’s employee conduct code, privacy guidelines, and race/sexual harassment policies. You can also share details of their role and responsibilities, as well as information about career advancement opportunities and benefits.
Retain employee knowledge
Training your employees is the priority, but learning from them is also vital. Knowledge retention ensures that valuable skills, techniques, and information stay with your company when your employees leave or retire.
An LMS platform is a great fit for this purpose, as you don’t want this valuable information to just sit in some document management system that nobody ever checks. It’s a knowledge base readily available to train new employees or people coming from other departments.
Train partners and customers
For example, you can use an LMS to onboard new customers to your products. Or, if you’re an agency that helps companies develop their employees’ soft skills, you can create a course in your LMS and share it with your various clients.
Enable sales teams
Online training is the fastest way to inform them about new products and services, industry changes, or new selling techniques. Also, new team members can get onboarding training online and start being productive sooner.
Train remotely
By moving your training online, all team members can access the training material or even attend a live webinar from wherever they are. This will save you a significant amount of money and time.
Support education
It could be a school selling online lessons, a traditional educational institution supplementing its classroom-based courses, a business educating its clients, or even a government agency or NGO helping educate the general population.
LMS Features
Most of the learning management software that is available today has features that appeal to different segments of the user population. For example, a K-12 platform will be vastly different than a corporate adult learning product.
An online learning management system, which is often referred to as e-learning or virtual learning, can provide the greatest features as well as cost savings. It’s important that organizations carefully choose the right elearning software features for their long-term needs.
Learning Management System features may include:
This is not an exhaustive list of the many features that a LMS can offer your organization. Keep in mind that artificial intelligence (AI) and automation will be an essential feature for the next generation of LMS.
Companies that are concerned with tracking the performance of employees will also want to understand how learning impacts the productivity of employees, by tapping into rich analytics. Connecting learning with performance will increase as companies need to see a clear connection between business metrics and real business goals.
Benefits of LMS
Using a learning management system can provide many benefits for your organization. The ultimate goal is ensuring that all learners are treated to an experience that honors their learning style. However, at the same time, companies must justify the costs and time invested in this effort.
Key Benefits of Learning Management Systems Software
Advantages of LMS Systems for Business
- Secure corporate training
Secure sign-on for keeping corporate training and processes private only to those who need access - Fast compliance training
Faster and more streamlined employee compliance training with annual proof of completion - Cost-effective
Cost savings over other formats of training due to less travel, no outside paid trainers, etc. - Equal training for all subsidiaries
Consistency of learning materials and concepts across multiple worksites and regions - Continuous employee development
Improved employee performance with regular access to learning and skill building - Adaptability of learning materials
Ability to adapt and align training efforts to the organizational needs over time - Find the most effective learning activities
Employee progress through structured learning can be monitored and incentivized - Compliant to private information policies
Security of user private information and course progress within the LMS
The Best Learning Management Systems For 2022
The LMS market is expected to grow up to 25.7 billion USD by 2025 [1]. The highest proportion of revenue contribution is expected to be generated in North America [2]. 41.7% of global Fortune 500 companies now use some form of educational technology to instruct employees during formal learning hours [3]. Roughly half of all college classes will be eLearning-based [4]. It is more than obvious that eLearning has revolutionized and changed the way we look at knowledge and skill acquisition. Thereby, there is an increasing demand for Learning Management System solutions to systematically manage eLearning.
With 1000+ LMS vendors and too many LMS features to choose from, we can definitely say that Learning Management Systems are here to stay! In this article, we will help you find, choose, and compare the Best LMS Software in the eLearning Industry. Below you will find LMS highlights, use cases, case studies, and more!
15 Top Cloud-Based Learning Management Systems
Highlights
Reduce skill gaps to manage a learner ecosystem that is engaged, compliant, and updated. Take advantage of the AI-based social learning capabilities to encourage learning in the flow of work and allow peers to learn from each other.
Highlights
- Extended enterprise and partner training
Manage end-to-end training effectively across the value chain. Upgrade skills and drive effectiveness for your partner organizations by extending your learning programs to your external ecosystem.
- Employee skill development
Employee skill development is the new currency; Upskill and reskill your workforce to keep them relevant. Keep your organization ahead of its competition by continuously reducing employee skill gaps. Align skills with business objectives and assign skill-based learning plans to employee cohorts.
- Customer education
Educate your customers and improve customer satisfaction. With Adobe Captivate Prime, you can easily enable customer training delivered through a personalized experience using customized URLs.
- Sales enablement
Keep your frontline executives always ahead of the learning curve. Deliver training at the point of need across variant devices for your sales and customer-facing teams to maximize productivity. Take advantage of the "headless LMS" capability in Adobe Captivate Prime to deliver learning in-context, including right within salesforce.com (SFDC).
Achievements
Plans And Pricing
Trusted by 70K+ teams, TalentLMS is one of the best all-in-one solutions to build and deliver training programs. From new hire onboarding to employee upskilling, TalentLMS allows you to build courses in minutes and go live by the end of the day.
Highlights
From onboarding new hires to upskilling fully-equipped, existing employees, TalentLMS is the leading training platform that allows anyone to build courses in minutes and launch them by the end of the day—no matter their familiarity with LMSs. So, if you’re looking for a training solution you can adjust according to your company needs, this one is for you.
Plans And Pricing
TalentLMS is an intuitive tool that allows you to pay precisely for what you need with its adaptable pricing model. Do you want to get advanced tools to set you up for training success at the most affordable prices? Simply start with a free account to test the platform at your own pace!
Highlights
This award-winning cloud-based LMS is used by 2,000+ organizations to make new hires productive sooner, equip employees for the challenges of tomorrow, empower partners to sell more confidently, and transform customers into superfans.
Highlights
Built alongside the world’s top L&D teams, the Docebo Learn LMS is battling complacency in the learning technology market by applying new technologies to the traditional cloud LMS, including Artificial Intelligence, and by supporting the ways people learn, rather than dictating them.
- Train any audience, anytime, anywhere
Unlike other solutions limited to training only internal or external audiences, Docebo Learn LMS powers both employee and extended enterprise learning programs from a single instance. Consolidate multiple learning systems for different use cases to maximize your learning technology investment. Solutions include:
- Employee onboarding
- Employee development and retention
- Compliance training and certifications
- Sales enablement
- Customer training
- Partner training
- Member training
- 35+ native integrations and APIs
Connect and extend your LMS to your existing tech stack. Integrations include, but are not limited to:
- HRIS
- CRM (Salesforce)
- Content authoring
- eCommerce (Stripe, Shopify)
- Collaboration and productivity tools (Slack, G Suite)
- Single sign-on (SSO)
- Content partners
- Web conferencing (GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, Zoom)
- Configurability limited only by your imagination
Docebo Pages hands you the control of the look and feel of the entire User Interface. Use drag-and-drop widgets as building blocks to compose interactive pages and menus that reflect your company’s branding and identity quickly, while assigning navigation paths and visibility to specific learner audiences. Unlike some vendors, the configurability is completely in your control and included in the price of your LMS.
- Know the true impact learning is having on your business
Docebo’s custom reporting module equips you with the data you need to connect learning outcomes to business results. Streamline your reporting engine by scheduling and sharing data to the right people faster—and putting it to work sooner.
Authorship:
https://www.talentlms.com/what-is-an-lms
https://www.valamis.com/hub/what-is-an-lms
https://elearningindustry.com/the-best-learning-management-systems-top-list
Learning management
If you choose an LMS like Tovuti, you get an implementation timeline and an onboarding coach to get you started. With our accelerated four-week onboarding program, you and your team can get set up for success. Despite its speed, this is not a crash course, and Tovuti’s implementation specialists will help you plan your set-up for a smooth launch. This way, you’ll have a guide to setting up your online course management system.
What is a Learning Management System (LMS)?
More and more companies across the world are choosing to deliver their training online. In fact, the eLearning market is growing so fast that it has seen a 900% growth since the beginning of the century. To deliver eLearning courses, companies need a Learning Management System (LMS).
A Learning Management System is the software that companies use to develop, deliver, and track training for their employees, clients, and partners. Until recently, hearing the word “training” made us think of a classroom with an instructor giving a lecture in front of students. And if we were talking about “corporate training,” we would picture a large conference or a day-long workshop.
This is the traditional way of training. Online training has now gained popularity, especially in times where connecting online is easier than meeting in person. As companies, instructors, and learners see the benefits of virtual training, the eLearning market will keep growing.
When companies use an LMS to deliver training online, learners from anywhere in the world can connect with instructors, whether in real time or through recorded sessions. At the same time, trainees have access to online training material (courses, guides, quizzes, videos, etc.) any time they want.
Who uses an LMS?
It’s clear that a Learning Management System can serve different training needs. For example, an expert can use an LMS to sell their courses online, a company can use it to train employees internally, while a consulting agency can train clients on a range of topics.
You can use an LMS for all kinds of learning activities (like the "L" in the acronym indicates). That’s why an LMS is an invaluable business tool that has been embraced by enterprises and organizations big and small.
Train employees
Whether you’re an insurance company, a scooter factory, a hospital, or even a government agency, you’ll often need to train your teams. For example, you might want to provide employees with compliance training, or you might need to teach existing employees new skills.
By using an LMS to deliver eLearning, you can cut down on employee training costs, as you’ll spend less money and effort compared to bringing in specialized instructors to give conventional seminars. You will also gain better insights into employee progress with integrated monitoring and reporting tools.
Onboard new hires
You can automate and simplify the all-important task of onboarding a new hire using a business LMS. You still need to greet them in person and give them a tour around the office, but they can study the rest at their own pace (and refer back to the learning material anytime they need).
New hires struggle to remember the details about your company history or compliance policies. With an online onboarding course, though, you can be sure they have access to useful information whenever they want.
Your LMS software is an excellent place to educate your new hires on your company’s employee conduct code, privacy guidelines, and race/sexual harassment policies. You can also share details of their role and responsibilities, as well as information about career advancement opportunities and benefits.
Retain employee knowledge
Training your employees is the priority, but learning from them is also vital. Knowledge retention ensures that valuable skills, techniques, and information stay with your company when your employees leave or retire.
An LMS platform is a great fit for this purpose, as you don’t want this valuable information to just sit in some document management system that nobody ever checks. It’s a knowledge base readily available to train new employees or people coming from other departments.
Train partners and customers
For example, you can use an LMS to onboard new customers to your products. Or, if you’re an agency that helps companies develop their employees’ soft skills, you can create a course in your LMS and share it with your various clients.
Enable sales teams
Online training is the fastest way to inform them about new products and services, industry changes, or new selling techniques. Also, new team members can get onboarding training online and start being productive sooner.
Train remotely
By moving your training online, all team members can access the training material or even attend a live webinar from wherever they are. This will save you a significant amount of money and time.
Support education
It could be a school selling online lessons, a traditional educational institution supplementing its classroom-based courses, a business educating its clients, or even a government agency or NGO helping educate the general population.
CourseSites
CourseSites is an online free LMS platform for teachers that allows instructors to engage with their students anywhere, anytime with an interactive eLearning platform that fits the needs of your students. This free LMS allows you to post and update course materials, interact with students, promote collaboration, and assess and improve performance, all from one place. It allows teachers and instructors from all levels, from kindergarten to university-level courses to add web-based content to their curriculum, or even build a whole class from the ground up and host it online. With customizable URLs, it’s easy for students to find your class and follow along.
5 Best Online Learning Management Systems
With what we know about LMS online learning systems in our back pockets, it’s time to compare the best options on the market. We gathered up the data on the best learning management system websites so you can skip the hours of research (and the headaches), choose a highly-rated option, and get started.
Tovuti
If you ask us, Tovuti is one of the best web-based learning management systems available. With Tovuti’s all-in-one cloud-based learning management platform, you can create, deliver and track eLearning programs with ease.
With Tovuti, you can transform your current learning program and bring it up to speed with the demands of today’s workers and learners, thanks to the robust capabilities this online learning management system offers your organization.
Canvas LMS
Canvas LMS is an open, intuitive, and cloud-based learning management system widely used in colleges, universities, and businesses alike. In addition to delivering dynamic, engaging learning experiences, Canvas is visually appealing and easy to use.
According to the reviewers, it has several options for integrating with external applications and innovative quizzing methods and delivering assignments. A drawback we noticed in reviews was some technical difficulties with specific browsers and mobile use, which is something to consider, especially if your primary user base is mobile.
D2L Brightspace
Create highly personalized learning experiences that unlock learner potential with D2L Brightspace, a platform that helps you break free from the limits of a traditional LMS. You get a flexible and powerful learning innovation platform built for a variety of end-uses, from the earliest days of school to higher education and beyond to the corporate world.
It is easy to deliver engaging training to employees, customers, or partners with Brightspace, and it seems to be a popular choice among training professionals. One drawback? Brightspace does not allow you to schedule when a resource (such as a slide deck or test) can be available for students. If you like scheduling ahead, that could be a problem.
Cornerstone Learning
With Cornerstone LMS software, organizations can deliver, manage, and track global training at scale to employees, partners, and customers. Using it, you can target the right training to the right learners, and get thorough reporting throughout the organization. This is a holistic learning management solution that combines compliance, digital training, and skills-driven artificial intelligence with content subscriptions.
According to users, it’s an overall good LMS that can integrate with other programs, but the implementation process can be complex. It might be beneficial to create a role dedicated to this system in small companies. There will likely need to be someone on your team who can learn and become familiar with the system.
TalentLMS
Over 70,000 teams worldwide benefit from engaging training through TalentLMS and easy-to-use interfaces thanks to an experience that’s fully customizable, manageable, and a breeze to use. TalentLMS enables you to seamlessly train any team for any purpose while receiving expert guidance and support along the way.
Reports are a bit confusing for users, and that has proved to be a drawback for some. Furthermore, TalentLMS iOS has limited features and does not offer all the web application functionality. These are just a few things to consider if your needs dictate stable mobile use and robust, frequent reporting.
Summary
Online learning management systems are solutions for organizations looking to take training to the next level. Online learning management systems give you the advantage of flexibility, more effective learning, and even save you money. And while there are disadvantages to online course management systems, most can be boiled down to a mismatch between needs and what the LMS is offering.
Don’t spend any more time being frustrated with learning management platform selection. Choose Tovuti as your organization’s web-based learning management system for a stress-free, comprehensive, and engaging learning experience for your employees.
Authorship:
https://www.talentlms.com/what-is-an-lms
https://www.edapp.com/blog/15-free-learning-management-systems/
https://www.tovutilms.com/blog/online-learning-management-system
Learning management
This learning management system enables organizations and businesses to deliver, manage and track training materials for employees and their other stakeholders. With Auzmor Learn, you can author courses and store them along with other data in one place. If you decide to go with this LMS, you will get a dashboard that shows the progress of your learners, and the learners will also have a similar dashboard to keep track of their learning activities. One great feature of Auzmor Learn is its open enrollment feature. With this feature, your workers will be able to enroll themselves in any course and continuously upgrade their knowledge. We would love to see this platform get an international deployment function for teams that speak multiple languages.
22 Free Learning Management Systems
There’s no shortage of options for free learning management systems, but which ones stand out? Training programs have always been present in corporate life, and a free online LMS allows corporations to fine-tune their learning programs to better align with their objectives. In this article, we’ll explore the best free learning management systems out there and find out more about their key features.
EdApp is a completely free mobile-first training solution, used by some of the world’s leading organizations, including the United Nations, Mizuno, Shell, and Marley Spoon to train teams large and small around the globe. With an intuitive authoring tool and a free Editable Content Library, the award-winning platform uses a template approach to make creating lessons easy and sending them out to your teams even easier. The course library contains pre-made courses from industry leaders that you can drag and drop into your account.
These courses can be used and edited to customize them for your team’s learning needs. And since the EdApp platform is mobile-first, learners can complete courseware from their personal smartphones. The best part? It is completely free and unlimited for you to train your teams with highly interactive, results-driven microlearning.
The completely free editable course library is built right into EdApp. It’s full of beautiful, world-class courseware designed by thought leaders and leading industry experts around the globe. This unique collection boasts hundreds of lessons. This learning content is completely editable, so you can select, update, and deploy to your teams exactly how you like. One of the best parts of the Editable Content Library is that it’s growing every day, so you will never run out of valuable resources to train your audience.
To complement the existing content, you can also create your own content with EdApp’s powerful data-driven authoring tool. This tool gives you the opportunity to design beautiful, engaging, and effective microlessons with their built-in course authoring tool – no coding required. An all-in-one tool like this one hosts unlimited possibilities of multimedia. Easily embed videos, images, audio files, and external URLs into EdApp’s microlessons easily and effectively.
What’s more, EdApp is the only LMS in the industry to include a Canva integration, unlocking millions of images and graphics for you to create and include in your microlessons. Similarly, EdApp’s PowerPoint conversion tool means you can transform your dated PowerPoint training slides into beautiful, interactive, and modern microlessons – within minutes.
Meanwhile, EdApp’s suite of administration tools gives you ultimate control and flexibility around the way you deliver and manage your learning content. The learning platform’s analytics and reports give the ability to easily monitor courseware performance, identify skill gaps, and assess behavioral trends from the dashboard via progress metrics. The platform’s advanced analytics allow you to collect and manage results through built-in tools like push notifications, which can act as a custom reminder to ensure that no learner is left behind.
The learner app encompasses EdApp’s built-in features to maximize the learning experience and ultimately deliver better training results. As the most modern LMS on the market, EdApp has a collection of cutting-edge elements including gamification , which includes real prizing and the ability to monitor achievements through EdApp’s Leaderboards feature . This means that you can incentivize your learners through interactive games and administer real prizes of your choosing, based on completion, high achievement or whatever you like.
CourseSites
CourseSites is an online free LMS platform for teachers that allows instructors to engage with their students anywhere, anytime with an interactive eLearning platform that fits the needs of your students. This free LMS allows you to post and update course materials, interact with students, promote collaboration, and assess and improve performance, all from one place. It allows teachers and instructors from all levels, from kindergarten to university-level courses to add web-based content to their curriculum, or even build a whole class from the ground up and host it online. With customizable URLs, it’s easy for students to find your class and follow along.
What is a Learning Management Platform Used For?
Web-based learning management systems are platforms that allow you to create, manage, and deliver training to employees. eLearning systems can also be used to sell courses and educational material to a customer base or group of users, too.
When used in corporate settings, online LMS systems can accomplish the goal of creating a culture of learning. In order to promote a culture of learning, a workplace environment must closely align business and learning strategies, organizational values that emphasize learning’s importance, and an atmosphere in which learning becomes ingrained in regular practice.
By building a culture of learning, you join the ranks of high-performance organizations. In fact, leading companies happen to be five times more likely than lower performers to have extensive learning cultures. This is just a hint at the advantages of having LMS online learning for your organization, which we’ll get into next.
Advantages of a Learning Management System Online
Online learning has become a prevalent method for workplace training. Though they were originally designed for educational institutions to deliver eLearning courses over the Internet, online learning management systems have since been adopted and adapted by companies and organizations worldwide, who use them to implement online learning programs to train employees, customers, and partners.
Advantage #1: Track Training Easily
To ensure your training is working, and working effectively, you need ways to benchmark your employees and evaluate their progress along the way. That way you can identify areas in which your employees can improve and are doing well in, and even gaps in their training that need to be addressed.
By keeping tabs on these data points in a convenient dashboard or report format, you can make sure you are utilizing the information you have in the palm of your hands to create transformative changes in your organization.
Advantage #2: Cost Savings
One of the largest costs of any training plan is individual time spent in training. You need training facilitators, speakers, and the labor to create the materials needed. With online training, you can reduce the amount of time it takes to create material and deliver it. Additionally, there is no office or location downtime and no travel or accommodation costs.
This obviously is better for the bottom line as costs are greatly reduced. To put it in numbers, businesses can see more than 70% cost savings from using a learning management platform over traditional, in-person learning opportunities. And while there is some cost to using an LMS, it will likely still leave you ahead of those using the old school training model.
Advantage #3: Flexibility and Convenience
For employees who work in shifts or on the road, it can be challenging to find the time to get the training done. Even for 9 to 5 office workers, a schedule disruption can be nothing short of challenging. Instead, they need training that can be done anywhere, anytime.
This method has been touted for not only its time-saving and convenience factors but for its increased effectiveness. In fact, microlearning is actually proven to improve focus and support long-term retention by up to 80%.
Microlearning consists of delivering course material in small pieces that can be administered and covered in short periods of time. Common microlearning activities include short lessons, quick knowledge checks, and Netflix-style video content that is created to provide the learner with bite-sized information. For instance, you could break down health and safety training into weekly 15-minute videos and short quizzes that tackled one narrow, small subject at a time rather than a two-day-long course.
Advantage #4: More Effective Learning
Using eLearning systems creates more effective learning for your team. As technology has advanced, the effectiveness of online training has, too. We now can see the measurable difference between traditional and online training – eLearning increases retention rates from 25% to 60%! When you compare the retention rates of in-person learning, they are much lower, at 8% to 10%.
Additionally, it allows all users to access content in ways that meet their accessibility needs. For instance, screen readers and speech-to-text devices help many people get their work done, and can be easily implemented in online training courses.
Features like gamification also improve engagement for eLearners. Gamification is the application of game elements in a non-game context such as the workplace. In the workplace, it can be used as an engagement tool and as a way of improving the quality of training. Employees who use gamification at work feel more productive (89% of them) and happier (88% of them).
Advantage #5: Regular Feedback
We all appreciate getting good feedback. Whether from customers, bosses, or employees, it can help us do our jobs and run our businesses better. When it’s not good, though – it’s frustrating! Whether it’s sporadic, inconsistent, or not constructive, feedback done wrong is not conducive to a positive and efficient work environment. And considering 32% of employees say they have to wait more than three months to receive feedback from their managers, it’s certainly a common problem.
Learning management system online training gives you the ability to deliver frequent, consistent feedback. Using a multifaceted LMS like Tovuti allows you to provide not only a one-way channel for feedback but also a line back to you from your learners directly.
What LMS is best for you?
Choosing a learning management system can feel overwhelming, especially for first-time buyers. How do you narrow down your search when there are literally hundreds of different options out there? The most visible or most popular software might not be the right one for your company’s needs.
We’ve compiled a list of important factors to consider as you make a purchasing decision. Concentrate your search by focusing on the characteristics, features, and flexibility options that best fit your company’s learning needs. The following should give you an idea of what to look for.
Characteristics of the Best Learning Management Systems
- An intuitive interface: An LMS is not very useful if it’s too complicated or confusing for your team to use without assistance. Look for an LMS with an easy-to-understand interface on both the front and the back end. It should be simple for administrators to create courses and for users to find and navigate through them.
- Emphasis on feedback: Courses sometimes go out of date or contain ambiguities, misleading statements, or even flat-out errors. There should be a mechanism for team members to give feedback about the course quality, point out errors, or request more help if they need it.
- Built-in Course authoring: Unless you have a dedicated instructional designer on staff, and the budget for a separate authoring tool in addition to an LMS, look for an LMS that lets you build courses directly within the platform. You want a code-free editor that preferably lets you drag and drop components for ease of use.
- Cloud-based: While some larger companies use hard-drive-based, on-premises programs, cloud-based LMSs are infinitely more flexible. because employees can access them from anywhere. Users should be able to access the courses online without downloading special software.
- Peer learning abilities: Collaborative learning offers so many psychological and practical learning benefits. Look for a system that has mechanisms in place for team members to share their knowledge and learn together. This includes features like discussion boards and peer review and the ability to collaborate on course creation.
LMS features
- Analytics/reporting: Assessing the performance of courses in terms of engagement and completion help you refine your techniques to create more effective courses in the future. Generating analytics also helps you create better reports that justify your continued use of the LMS. Third-party integrations can also help you report training ROI. For example, you could connect your CRM with your LMS to see how trainings affect sales numbers,
- Mobile Capabilities: Employees are increasingly using their mobile devices to access online courses. It’s easier, it’s more convenient, and it lets employees truly learn from anywhere. An LMS with a responsive mobile design (or a dedicated mobile app) will facilitate easier use. Thirty-four percent of all companies surveyed by Association for Talent Development are currently building mlearning (mobile learning) capabilities.
- Gamification: Humans love games, so one of the easiest ways to promote active learning and up course-completion rates is by gamifying the learning experience. Different LMSs offer different approaches to gamification, including competition between learners, simulations, a points system, and puzzle-solving. Different LMSs offer different approaches to gamification.
- Customer support: No matter how easy an LMS is to use, you will likely need help at some point. Choose an LMS that offers a communication format (phone, live chat, etc.) and set of support hours that is convenient for you.
- Third-party integrations. Some LMSs integrate with other tools to help connect your workflows. You could connect to video and animation software to create more interesting courses, or you could connect it with a talent management software to facilitate easier onboarding.
- Various content formats: A course that was nothing but text would be pretty boring. Content formats that some but not all LMSs support include video, PowerPoint, webinars, audio files, downloadable documents, and VR/AR capability.
- AI/personalization: Some LMSs use artificial intelligence to generate courses based on documents or other data, as well as to personalize course recommendations and learning paths.
- SCORM/Tin Can compliance: Traditional LMSs require L&D to create content using the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, or SCORM. This often means creating the course using a separate authoring tool and then uploading it to the LMS. Newer full-stack LMSs and collaborative learning tools let you create your courses from scratch using platform tools.
- Co-Authoring Functions: Multi-author functionality lets multiple team members work together to create a more comprehensive course.
- Instant Feedback functions: Some LMSs offer a feedback survey after course completion. While this is better than nothing, it’s not a very effective way to collect more nuanced feedback about the actual course materials. An LMS that offers instant feedback inside the course lets you drill down to create better content.
Collaborative learning platforms are the future of LMS
A collaborative learning platform is your secret weapon against stagnation. It brings the benefits of in-person learning, community, connection, and collaboration back to the online space. A collaborative learning platform truly democratizes the learning process.
Companies are struggling to keep their training programs up to date, given the rapid changes in technology and in-demand skill sets. As a result, more businesses are turning away from legacy LMSs and toward integrated learning solutions that offer more collaborative learning experiences.
The benefits of collaborative learning are extensive. By crowdsourcing training needs, you can create courses that are more timely and relevant. Because they are required to be both students and teachers, learners benefit from increased engagement and accountability. Courses ship quicker because all of the work is done in-house by people across the organization. And because courses are constantly being iterated based on student feedback, they stay up to date and relevant for much longer.
Authorship:
https://www.edapp.com/blog/15-free-learning-management-systems/
https://www.tovutilms.com/blog/online-learning-management-system
https://360learning.com/blog/what-are-learning-management-systems-lms/