Everything You Need to Know About Learning Management Systems
A learning management system shortly referred to as LMS is a web-based system that helps organisations automate training. An LMS provides business establishments, companies and even learning institutions with a virtual hub where learners can access all training resources remotely. This makes the learning process more cost-effective, streamlined and organized.
How Learning Management System Works
To get a better understanding of how LMS works, let’s look at a basic example of why and how the same can be deployed. Figure a scenario where your organisation wants to launch a new product. You will need to educate your sales team on the new product so that they know how best to market it.
A Learning Mamagement System provides you with course builder functions that help will help you deliver the content in bite-sized documentation or even slides depending on your preferences. You can also create quizzes that will gauge your team’s understanding. The LMS can also provide learners with certificates once they complete the course.
As a course administrator, you can track each of your learner’s progress. You can view how each of them is moving through the course material, who has qualified and who needs more help and in which topics.
To further put this into context, the 2019 pandemic has affected the schooling of more than 1.2 billion children across the world. Learning institutions are now making use of learning management systems among other internet technologies to ensure that learning continues effectively.
What Are the Basic Components of an LMS?
- Multi-channel access – organisations today have to cater to the needs of a workforce that’s tech-savvy as well as tech-dependent. Through the multi-channel feature, learners can access the course content at any time and from anywhere be it from a personal computer, a desktop, a tablet or a smartphone.
- Course creation – while it would appear obvious that all LMS software have a course creation module, some do not. Instead, you have to create the content separately and import them into the system. Obtaining an LMS with a course creation module provides you with a more streamlined e-learning experience.
- Skills and certification tracking – this is one of the key features of LMS systems for nearly all users. While it’s nice to train your employees or induct new ones, you will not have benchmarks to measure their performance without the skill tracking feature and at the very least a course completion certificate.
- Course calendars – any LMS system should have a feature that supports the creation and publication of training material, course schedules, deadlines and quizzes.
- Security – the LMS system will not only hold the learners’ personal data but also your organisation’s learning material that may be of commercial or proprietary value. Therefore, you need to ensure that the LMS you choose is securee
Different types of LMS Systems
Cloud-based or Software as
a Service (SaaS) LMS
A cloud-based LMS is hosted on the internet. This means that you do not have to install any specific software or hardware to access and use it. Rather, you only need to pay some amount of money as the subscription fee to use it. This way, you can scale up your subscription to meet your current business needs. If you settle for a cloud-based LMS, you are relieved of the burden of carrying out system upgrades, maintaining the system’s infrastructure and freeing up bandwidth.
Hosted/Installed
LMS
A hosted LMS is stored in your organisation’s servers. This implies that you will be fully responsible for its oversight and management. This often the go-to option for organisations that deal with highly sensitive data. A hosted LMS is often customizable and is often better than most ‘off the shelf’ options. A hosted or installed LMS might take some time to set up and implement depending on your organisation’s IT abilities and structure. Also, you will need on-site technical experts to constantly maintain the infrastructure.
Open-Source and
Closed LMS systems
Whether you choose a cloud-based or hosted LMS, you can opt for and open-source or closed learning management system. Open-source LMS systems are more often than not free. This makes them an ideal option if you are just starting on your organisation’s digital transformation. However, the features in such a system may be limited. Some LMS providers will provide you with a free trial period before you settle for a closed LMS system. Once the trial period is over, they will provide you with a list of plans from which you can choose one that meets your needs. Such plans range from monthly to yearly paid options. They may also be different when it comes to their features.
What are the Advantages of Using LMS?
One of the key advantages of using an LMS system over conventional methods of induction is that it saves you time and money. Such a platform provides you with an admirable level of training automation and content programming and management in line with your needs. Rather than having your new or existing employees travel for training sessions and stay in hotels, they can learn online at their own pace. This is particularly helpful for organisations with multiple sites or branches.
An LMS system provides your organisation with a centralized source of learning. This implies that all training and development content is offered from a single source at all times. This ensures consistency in content delivery.
Learning management systems give you a chance to evaluate users before, during and after they finish the course. This means that as an employer, you can evaluate your employees’ retention levels by scheduling periodical assignments and quizzes. If a leaner is unable to reach a predetermined performance milestone, you can provide them with supplemental resources that suit their learning behaviours. Also, you can continually review your records to measure your level of success.
LMS systems allow you to efficiently manage sign-ups, course registrations, content management and learning groups. The roles of trainers, learners, supervisors and administrators can easily be managed on the platform. Messages, notifications and reminders can easily be sent out.
Once you’ve uploaded your content onto the LMS and published them, learners have unlimited access to the content. This means that even though they have already completed the course, the content is still available for reference. They do not have to wait for the next training session to perfect their tasks or develop their skills as long as they had taken part in the training and have access to the internet.
The best learning management systems allow you to integrate social learning into your organisation’s e-learning strategy. As the course content is already online, you can include online forums, LinkedIn groups or even Facebook and Twitter pages where learners can interact. You can also create peer collaboration exercises.
How Induct for Work Can Help with All Your LMS Needs
Improve your employee engagement by using Induct for Work: a simple yet intuitive employee induction platform. From simple inductions for visitors to your premises to complex employee training, Induct for Work not only simplifies your induction process but also tracks your learners’ progress. Thus, you can identify training gaps and address them accordingly.
Some of the reasons why Induct for Work has repeatedly been preferred over other LMS tools include:
1. You get all your training needs covered in a single platform
Whether you need to upload your onboarding content or you need to retrain your existing employees, you can upload unlimited courses on Induct for Work. This means that employees handling higher roles can be given extra modules that cover their relevant fields.
You can also upload audios, videos as well as images to serve as scenario training for things such as health and safety. You also get to create schedules and report on metrics from an intuitive cloud-based LMS system.
2. Induct for Work supports flexible learning
Employee, contractor and visitor training is a fundamental part of the induction process. For your employees and stakeholders to hit the ground running, you must dedicate your time and resources to training and supporting them right from the moment they accept your job offer.
Induct for Work makes it possible for you to train your new employees or contractors before they even set foot on your premises. Apart from enabling you to send the necessary documentation ahead of time, you will also have a record of when the training was completed and how each learner faired.
3. It ensures compliance with local rules and regulations
Different industries are subject to numerous rules, regulations and compliance standards. These may include consumer protection, health and safety as well as environmental waste. Your organisation needs to be aware of the current compliance laws.
Induct for Work keeps up with the changing compliance laws and ensures that the course templates reflect these changes. You can also update your induction course content depending on current regulations. Induct for Work enables you to keep your new and existing employees informed on the latest compliance rules thus helping you avoid costly penalties and/or litigations.
4. It supports microlearning
All your learners can learn through apps that can be downloaded for Android as well as iOS devices. Through such, training and learning is available even for mobile workforces. As an administrator, you will also have an easier time controlling users as you can easily scan their ID cards from their mobile devices.
5. Favourable pricing
Unlike other LMS platforms for which you must have lock-in contracts, Induct for Work features an automated billing system. Alternatively, you can pay annually without incurring any credit card surcharges.
6. Induct for Work is constantly improving
The Induct for Work team is constantly improving our learning management system portal. For instance, we recently added a background check functionality that enables you to verify that job applicants or existing employees are who they claim to be. Our background checks include qualification checks, employment checks, police checks, Vevo Visa checks, traffic and licence checks, credit checks, international checks and predictive assessments.
Your organisation can be held liable for negligent hiring should you fail to uncover an employee’s unfitness or incompetence. This is one of the key reasons why you need to carry out background checks.
7. Induct for Work supports isolated learning
Through our online induction learning portal, you can tailor your onboarding content by department, branch, facility or site for a more effective induction and onboarding process.
8. Auto re-invite
Induct for Work follows up on all unanswered online induction invites on your behalf. It achieves this by sending automatic reminders to all users who have not responded to your initial invite. If they still do not respond to the reminder, your content administrators will be notified.
Now you know what an LMS is and that implementing one in your organisation does not have to be hectic. Induct for Work’s course building tools and intuitive interface will help you transition to an online platform with just a few clicks. You won’t need an in-house IT team to set up and maintain your platform. You can personalize your training platform with your colour themes, domain names, customized certificates and so on. Take advantage of all these features and so much more by signing up for Induct for Works 14-day free trial. New customers who choose the yearly subscription plan benefit from a 30-days free induction.
Do you have any questions or great tips to share?
Induct for Work – the only online induction system you would need to run online inductions.
