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This article aims to answer what a learning management system (LMS) is. You hear about it in the workplace. Is it yet another acronym, probably associated with some buzzword or crazy business idea from a new manager or being pushed by corporate? People like to explain it in a million words, making it seem way more complicated than it is. Is learning management that hard? Is a learning management system that complicated? Is an LMS approach expensive? Is it worth it? Hopefully, this article on what an LMS is for will answer those questions, and you can decide if it’s worth it.
LMS is an acronym. Learning Management System.
Let’s simply state the definition. A learning management system (LMS) is a software package that allows you to create, track, organize, and deliver training resources to end-users.
There you are. A simple definition of the term learning management system (LMS).
Keep reading for the details, as it is more than just a simple definition.
An LMS product enables you to do all that in one program. Approaches come in many different forms, but in essence, it really breakdown to a database for creating, assigning, tracking, maintaining and such tasking.
An LMS is a tool. A software tool used by businesses and institutions, of all sizes, to manage their learning activities. Hence the name, learning management system. As with anything, the value can be found in its usefulness.
An LMS is generally used in the following ways:
Employee Training
New Employee Orientation
New Hire Onboarding Training
Annual Compliance Training
Skills Development
Knowledge Retention
Access to Knowledge Resources
Training Reporting
Contractor Onboarding
Site-Specific Training
Proof of Completion
Training Creation
Tools to create training
Capability to deliver training
End-User Access (User/Client)
Ability to access and take training
Security of information
Secure access for end-user and company
If you are using eLearning, that is access learning materials in an electronic format, is using a form of LMS. Courses are provided through a platform to manage access and track results. You could go to the in-person or VHS approach with sign-in sheets. That’s still learning management; however, it isn’t as efficient or accessible.
Companies of all sizes, educational institutions, and more use an LMS approach. Companies use it, even with online companies. You use their service to manage your training. To ensure you’re up to date on training needs, an LMS is at the core. Managed learning is essential to your operation. An LMS helps with that.
Again, learning management is crucial to your endeavor. Getting employees on-boarded and up to speed quickly is paramount to a business’s success. Ensuring people work safely is a responsibility not to be taken lightly. Skills training and retention is vital to the daily and on-going success of a workforce.
In many cases, a learning management system (LMS) helps set the foundation to ensure all that is true. You cover your legal, safety, and business compliance requirements. At a minimum. If leveraged correctly, you gain more from this approach. Things like employee development, workforce engagement, and workforce culture shifts can even happen!
In short, a whole lot. Its usefulness is up to the creator. Simple training delivery and tracking. Sure. Creating topical training for your staff? Yep! Reporting to ensure everything is on the up and up? You bet. Can it do more? Of course.
A learning management system (LMS) houses knowledge. It delivers knowledge. How can that not be useful and implemented in a variety of ways? Let that sink in while we cover the basic and advanced features. The goal is to show you what this really can do it!
Creating eLearning courses and content for your learning management system (LMS) is pretty straightforward. An LMS platform allows you to create eLearning courses in the following ways:
Create content from inside the LMS by importing created materials from existing material like Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Video files, Flash content, and any SCORM compliant training you have compiled from sources like Captivate, Articulate, and Camtasia!
Basic eLearning content creation tools are available in the LMS platform to create various types of training delivery, tools to create questions, and the ability to grade and track completion.
Basic formats for question and answering include:
Create a course assessment containing Multiple Choice,
The course creator can define the question and the user selects from a set of multiple choices. Users can select one, or several options, to correctly answer the question.
Create a course assessment containing Keyword,
Keyword style questions allow the course creator to ask a question in which the learner needs to answer with text. If the text matches the keyword(s) defined in the assessment, the question will be marked as correct. If the learner does not enter the text that matches the keyword(s), the question will be marked as incorrect.
and creating course assessments using Free Text / Essay style questions,
Much like Keyword questions, the answer is typed by the learner in a short answer format. But unlike Keyword questions, answers are reviewed by a designated person that needs to mark the answer as either Correct or Incorrect and may give a comment.
More advanced learning management systems (LMS) allow you to add additional eLearning material and content from external sources using various formats! This allows you to embed training content from other websites inside your LMS platform.
Another advanced LMS option is the ability to have instructor-led training from inside your learning management system. That is the ability to have live in-person training tracking or hosting of live webinars get live training without having to have the team offsite or added cost of bringing a trainer onsite!
There are several ways to get started creating eLearning content in a learning management system (LMS) environment. Take existing training and import it into your platform for a quick start. Create using the LMS course creation tools for a fresh perspective. Present eLearning information in a multitude of ways. Ask engaging questions the way you want. Get the answers in a variety of ways to ensure user comprehension. Setup and track instructor-led training for that personal touch to your learning management approach. Utilize instructor-led training to host live webinars to get the best of both worlds!
An advanced LMS can handle that. Rowlette Dynamic can offer that and more!
Creating eLearning material is the first step on the road to learning management. After creating courses you need to organize your training courses. This comes down to who needs access to specific eLearning courses and materials.
A learning management system (LMS) allows you the ability to your learning program the way you desire. The training paths are as varied as your options, so flexibility in the user interface (UI) is important. Structuring the learning paths by department, team or subteams, business unit, new employee onboarding, annual training, and even site orientation needs to be planned, managed and tracked. An LMS platform allows easy administration for all these tasks.
Rowlette Dynamic offers solutions that allow a streamlined approach to managing your learning management program. Customized learning paths from single users to entire worldwide organizations can be managed with ease.
Now that you have created eLearning content and determined how you want the eLearning to be organized with your needed workflow, it’s time to look into user management. A key foundation in any learning management system (LMS), user management needs to be carefully considered. This includes user roles, adding and removing users, assigning users to learning courses, teams, departments, or learning paths. This also includes one-off training like contractor onboarding, instructor-led training, webinar training, and performance monitoring.
An LMS has tools to help make this task manageable. So let’s discuss what to expect.
Roles typically found in an LMS include administrators, instructors, and learners at a minimum. The roles are determined upfront and easily adjusted, to ensure a streamlined approach to your learning management process. The administrator typically has the highest level of permissions and can be an instructor or learner. An instructor can be a learner as well. A learner is the typically end-user and the largest portion of your learning management user base.
Control eLearning course creation, modification, access, grading, reporting, new user creation, and user removal are key responsibilities of an administrator. An LMS makes this manageable. If you do not have the expertise, the right partner can make this affordable and easy. Rowlette Dynamic can help with that through our learning management services offering.
Learning management system (LMS) platforms often have more than these three roles, to fit your specific needs. Rowlette Dynamic offers solutions that make this as dynamic as your workforce is!
Now that you’ve created your eLearning courses and got it organized for your learners it’s time to deliver the training. This is the largest shift that many companies have yet to take. Modern learning management system (LMS) platforms have opened new paths for learner engagement. You’ve organized your learning for your specific needs, and now it’s time to deliver in ways that support your goal.
Your training needs to be accessible. Internal training does not have to be desk-bound. It does not have to be solely in-person and classroom led. It does not have to be for just your employees, it could be for clients or contractor workforces. It does not have to be year-round, or it could be leveraged on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
A modern LMS platform is adjustable to meet those needs. The delivery can be managed or on-demand. As such, a modern learning management system (LMS) and learning management program leverages the power of mobile devices.
Rowlette Dynamic offers solutions to assist with this. A solution that works on computers, notebooks, laptops, tablets, and even smartphones. A learning management system (LMS) with eLearning resources that work with touchscreens and all! All delivered with six nines, that’s 99.9999% uptime (less than 15 seconds of downtime a year!), reliability. An optimized user interface (UI), and security (for the business and the user) to make course delivery easily accessible, available, and secure!
A great benefit of using a learning management system (LMS) is real-time updates to learner progress. You can monitor the learner’s courses enrolled, course completion, and more. Assessing completion, scores, engagement, and the number of attempts can give you a critical insight into how your learners are engaging with the system, the courses, and much more. The analyzing of the learner engagement statistics from eLearning resources within the learning management system (LMS) makes quick reporting easy, needed action or adjustments clear, and provide you with useful metrics to monitor your learning management process.
Getting real-time reports and updates is critical to the effectiveness of your learning process. Reporting is made easy with an easy to navigate user interface (UI) and scheduling for automated report generation. Analyzing these reports allows insight into how different departments, users sections are retaining their knowledge, completing required training, and save time. Saving time is saving money. A learning management system (LMS) saves you money by saving you time through a streamlined process.
Rowlette Dynamic offers a solution that allows great insight into how your users learn. How they are interacting with the knowledge resources provided. Monitoring and analyzing the effectiveness of your learning management program is paramount to the success of your business. Our solutions ensure you get that capability and realize the true benefits of an effective learning management program that fits your organization.
Advanced Question Types
Hotspot Question Type – Using hotspots, a bubble on an image, allows learners to interact with an image to show they understand fully. The learner must select the hotspots to get the question correct.
Image and Video Question Types – Images and video can be added to a question to get reference or support a question. Typical file formats like: .png, .gif, .jpg, .avi, .wmv, .mpg, .mov, .flv, .m4v, and .mp4 can be used.
Webinar Training
Engage with learners via webinars. That’s online conference sessions giving access to audio and video feeds. Useful in several ways! Guided exercises, remote training, on-demand access, and tracking through the learning management system. An LMS provides more than just slide shows and pre-recorded training. This advanced feature allows you to add a new dimension to your learning management program.
Mobile Device Support
Accessibility through mobile devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets gives you tremendous flexibility in your learning management system and learning program. Learners can engage with the learning at any time on any connected device. Get contractor onboarding and go through site orientation before they’re onsite. Save time and money by getting access to needed resources without the need of being at a computer or even onsite.
Security
Security is important in business. Cybersecurity is a real need. Physical security on your cyber assets is also required and is often an afterthought. Advanced learning management systems offer several best practices to ensure security is at the forefront of their offering. That is security accessing the application (middleware), security on the learning management servers (database level), and application-level security (while using it), network-level security (the path to and on the LMS). You must protect your business and proprietary information, the information of your users, and still have the time and resources to do the work. An advanced learning management system (LMS) helps with that!
Size
Advanced learning management systems that offer a cloud framework can scale with you. Larger file sizes and storage capacity for the number of resources you have available are within reach with advanced LMS. Size and scale are typically dependent on the hardware and software you have onsite. Advanced cloud learning management systems remove that barrier.
Reliability
Advanced learning management systems offer reliability. Simply meaning its available when you need it. Secure, stable, and capable. Sized to fit your needs and scalable to meet your demands. Restorations, audits, hardware upgrades, software updates, secure connections to it, and adaptable to make changes and be ready to roll in the now.
Rowlette Dynamic offers everything listed above and more. An advanced learning management system. Learning management doesn’t have to be limited. It doesn’t have to be hard. Learning. Anytime. Anywhere.
There are different options to deploy a learning management system. That simply means how you install and access your LMS. They include:
Local Deployment or Private Cloud
A self-hosted approach, meaning you store it all on your hardware, where you buy a license and install the server and associated files on your computer. Users access it via a client installed on a central server. Typically users will access this style of learning management system onsite or through a controlled means like a virtual private network (VPN) access to your business network. Size and capability are determined by the license and the hardware and software selected.
This approach requires some know-how by your staff, normally your information technology (IT) team, or a vendor to handle the deployment for you. The upfront and long term, the cost associated with this approach need to be carefully considered. Cost to consider is the server hardware, networking hardware, software (LMS licenses, server licenses, operating system licensing, virtual machine [if used] licensing, etc.) licensing needs, machine level, and LMS patching, device/network/application and security, administration of the system, and life cycle assessment.
Cloud Deployment
A cloud LMS environment is available via a third party. The cloud access is typically made available to a subscription pricing model. Many advanced LMS providers operate like this. Rowlette Dynamic offers a solution like this. Why? The hardware, software, accessibility, security, reliability, and performance are more easily managed and cost minimized using this approach. You don’t have to worry about the challenges found in a local or private cloud deployment.
Rowlette Dynamic offers a solution that meets your needs, and there are no hidden catches. No surprise tiers. Just solutions that meet your needs and ensures you get the return on your investment. Utilizing a cloud makes your learning resources available when you need it. It minimizes the cost of maintaining and operating it. It is the heavily preferred option, and most learning management system providers are leveraging it.
Many learning management systems offer everything listed above. A google search will present several fine choices. What makes Rowlette Dynamic different? What is the Rowlette Dynamic advantage? Why would you choose Rowlette Dynamic for your learning management system solutions?
An appropriate question, and here is the simple answer. We’re all-inclusive.
You get the cloud-based advanced learning management system (LMS) and content. No surprises, no upcharges, no hassles.
That’s access to new learning the day it’s released at no charge. No special tier.
That’s access to a proven LMS and top-notch security on day one.
That is mobile device accessibility on day one.
That’s hosting of your training FOR FREE.
That’s unlimited storage size, meaning no cap on classes or resources.
That’s access to a personal Account Executive to work with you directly.
That’s access to workshops and resources for your team instantly.
You get it all. It is truly all-inclusive.
Like we say,
Learning management doesn’t have to be limited. It doesn’t have to be hard.
Rowlette Dynamic offers a learning management system solution that will help you. Our LMS offering comes in two formats.
A learning management system offering that gives you access to the LMS and content.
A learning management system and services offering that gives you access to the LMS, Content, and Staff to manage your learning management program.
It’s that simple. Hopefully, this has shed light on what a learning management system (LMS) is for, what an LMS is capable of, and how Rowlette Dynamic can help with that.