What is an LMS?
Your Ultimate Guide to Learning Management Systems
What is a Learning Management System?
A learning management system (LMS) is an eLearning software that allows you to create, deliver, track, and report on training courses and L&D programs. It gives you a single, centralized platform to train, assess, and track the progress of learners in your organization.
In this guide, you will get to understand what an LMS is all about.
What Does LMS Stand For?
Learning
- Serves as a single source for eLearning courses and training materials in your organization.
- Provides a platform to simplify learning and enhance the expertise of your business.
Management
- Allows you to manage your courses and learners effectively.
- Helps analyze training results and offers insights to improve your course offerings.
System
- Provides an integrated system to digitize the creation and delivery of training materials.
- Offers learners access to your training content. Also helps you track and assess your learners’ performances.
What Is the Use of a Learning Management System?
LMS platforms help training institutions, government departments, and many other organizations to upskill employees and meet training objectives and compliance requirements.
Here are some of the most common uses of LMSs in corporate training.
Employee Training
Manage all the aspects of your employee training, right from creating courses to delivering training content and tracking courses and learners.
Onboarding Training
An LMS allows you to provide a smooth and structured onboarding experience to your new hires. It gives your employees everything they need to hit the ground running and helps them align with your company culture.
Continuous Training and Development
An LMS connects your corporate priorities and skilling needs with your workforce's training goals and learning activities. Helps your employees identify potential career paths through personalized learning journeys.
Department Training
Each department/team in your organization will have different training needs. Using an LMS, you can deliver targeted department-specific training, without overloading your people with irrelevant training.
Remote Training
With a mobile-enabled, cloud-hosted LMS, you can easily train your distributed, remote teams. Your people can log in to the LMS and access courses from anywhere, at any time, using any device.
Compliance Training
Every organization needs to align their operating procedures and work policies with their respective industry's legal and regulatory standards. An LMS allows you to offer your employees regular and up-to-date compliance training relevant to their job roles.
Upskilling and Reskilling
An LMS supports skills-based learning by using AI to generate personalized learning recommendations and learning paths that align with specific skills, learning preferences, and business requirements.
What Are the Different Learning Modes Supported by an LMS?
Self-Paced Learning
Allows learners to consume the training material at their own pace and on their own schedule. Absorbing the content does not require the immediate intervention of an instructor.
Instructor-Led Training
Learners and instructors can interact and discuss the training material on the LMS, either individually or in a group setting. Instructors may deliver training in a lecture or classroom format, or even virtually, using video conferencing.
Synchronous Learning (Live Training)
Synchronous learning refers to a learning event in which both learner(s) and instructor(s) are in the same place, at the same time, in order for learning to take place. Live online meetings and live interactions or discussions are examples of synchronous learning.
Asynchronous Learning
This approach refers to instruction and learning that do not happen in the same place or at the same time. Examples include watching pre-recorded training lectures or demo videos.
Blended Learning
Also known as hybrid learning, this approach combines online learning materials and online interaction opportunities with physical location-based classroom methods.
Microlearning
This learning strategy focuses on breaking down complex concepts and topics into bitesize training modules that are easy and quick for learners to consume. Examples include short and snappy quizzes and one-stop scrolling pages.
Social Learning
Social or collaborative learning breeds a culture of knowledge sharing and learning across the organization. An LMS facilitates social learning through features like direct messaging, forums, and virtual classrooms.
Mobile Learning
Mobile learning gives learners access to their LMS whenever, wherever. M-learning enables learners to pursue their learning goals without compromising their daily work schedules.
Who Can Use an LMS?
The two primary users of an LMS are administrators and learners.
Administrators
LMS administrators are responsible for course creation, learner assignment, evaluation of assessments and quizzes, and monitoring learner progress. The admin interface consists of the tools to build and organize courses, run knowledge checks and assess them, and view reports.
Learners
Learners are the end-users or recipients of the training offered in an LMS. The learner interface provides learners access to view the learning materials, submit quizzes and assignments, and track their own progress.
Leading Industries That Use Learning Management Systems
LMS solutions are used by several small, medium, and large-sized organizations where various stakeholders need continuous training. Here are some of the industries that use online learning management systems widely:
What Are the Benefits of Using an LMS?
- Organize and manage all eLearning courses in a centralized location
- Track learner progress and measure training effectiveness
- Create personalized learning paths for individuals
- Create and deliver engaging and up-to-date learning materials in different formats
- Assess the understanding of learners through online quizzes and assignments
- Save the costs involved in carrying out classroom training
- Reduce the time and effort required to create training resources
- Ensure content reusability
- Ability to access courses from anywhere and at any time, on any device
- Enhance knowledge retention through self-paced learning
- Submit online quizzes and assignments and receive feedback from mentors
- Access individual (self) learner reports to analyze their own progress and performance
- Reduce the dependency on instructors
What Are the Key LMS Features?
To deliver effective employee training, an LMS must include the following key features:
What Are the Common LMS Pricing Models?
If you are planning to choose an LMS for your organization, you cannot ignore the financial aspect. Top LMS pricing models are listed here:
Pay per learner
This plan is suitable for your organization when the number of learners is stable and your training requirements are obligatory.
Pay per active user
If you need to conduct one-time training or add temporary users, or if you want to evenly spread training for multiple batches of learners throughout the year, it’s good to elect this plan.
Pay as you go
If you are not sure whether there will be a consistent demand for learning, choose this option to pay only for what you use.
Subscription/ license fee
This plan is suitable for large organizations with more users. The license or subscription fee is set periodically (for a year/ for six months, etc.) based on the included features.
Free and open source LMS
This plan allows you to avoid vendor lock-in. However, you need to hire a team of IT professionals to customize and maintain the LMS. Though open source LMS access is free, you will have to spend more on setting up the LMS with features tailored to your needs.
How Can You Choose the Right LMS?
Here are the initial steps to take up when considering a corporate training LMS:
- Understand your challenges and identify your needs
- Know your target audience (LMS users—admins, learners, instructors)
- Define your LMS requirements, including scalability, software integrations, mobile support, etc.
- Shortlist and evaluate the LMS solutions in the market, including their pricing plans and features
- Determine your budget and get stakeholder buy-in
- Test the LMS, or ask for a use case or demonstration
- Finalize the LMS that ticks all your checkboxes
How Does Skill Lake Make a Real Difference to Your Training?
Here is what makes Skill Lake different from other learning management systems:
- Scalable to any number of users
- Customized learning paths
- Options to custom-brand your LMS
- Training for external users—customers, partners, employees
- Dynamic and engaging learning feed for each learner
- Powered by smart technologies—AI, AR, VR, and a lot more
With a modern LMS, you can train employees faster, deliver the knowledge and skills they need to perform their roles, and ultimately stay competitive and relevant in a fast-changing work world.
Are you looking for a modern, powerful, and easy to use corporate training platform?
