Simply put, a learning management system, or LMS, allows you to create, deliver, and report on training courses and programs. The role of an (LMS) in today’s world goes beyond the administration of learning, course planning, classroom instruction, mandatory compliance training, and certification. A Learning Management System (LMS) is integrated online software used to create, deliver, monitor, and report on educational courses and outcomes.
A learning management system, often abbreviated as an LMS, is a software application that provides a framework to manage all aspects of the learning process.
It’s where learning content is hosted, delivered, and monitored. LMS stands for Learning Management System, a software that allows companies and educational institutions to create and manage courses, courses, quizzes, and other learning materials. An LMS is a software that helps you create, manage, organize, and deliver online learning materials to your audience. With an LMS, you can organize and manage your online courses, participants, and outcomes.
Improved business results
With an LMS, employees are given quick and easy access to all the learning tools that are available. This gives them the opportunity to become better at their jobs.
LMS provides and manages all types of content, including videos, courses, and documents. In most cases, organizations use LMS to facilitate access to learning materials ranging from written materials and presentations to videos and interactive lessons. The LMS learning system is widely used in schools and higher education institutions to conduct classes in a convenient online format. With LMS, educators can offer their courses and lessons online.
Why Use a Learning Management System? Benefits
LCMS refers to software designed to help developers and administrators create and manage eLearning content. LMS refers to a type of software designed to create and deliver virtual training and support to employees, partners, customers, or students. An LMS helps provide optimal support for an implementation process for training, learning and knowledge sharing. The administrative load will be reduced and relationships with employees will be improved.
The primary purpose of an LMS is to support and facilitate learning within an organization. This common use case for an LMS is to support talent management, training, and development of existing employees. Choosing an LMS for training means employees can continue their learning away from the office at their convenience.
The implementation of an LMS can be extremely beneficial for various businesses and educational institutions. An LMS can offer some benefits and features that will make business learning more effective.
Benefits of a learning management system
With LMS, educators can create and integrate learning materials, formulate learning objectives, align content and grades, track progress, and create individualized tests for students. You can use the LMS for all kinds of learning activities (as indicated by the “ L ” in the acronym). LMS is used by businesses of all sizes and in virtually every industry, including healthcare, government, higher education, and consulting. Numerous learning management systems are available to suit any business, size, and budget.
Many companies are already using LMS to deliver courses and train their employees. For training, the company uses the course creation feature in its LMS to create slides, condensed documentation, quizzes, and certificates. This is where the learning manager creates, manages, and delivers courses, adds students, analyzes reports, automates notifications, etc.
The most basic LMS contains a basic functional platform that allows administrators to upload educational content, offer lectures to students, send notifications, and communicate with authorized users. In some cases, the learning management system may even have built-in e-learning authoring tools that allow you to develop online learning materials without additional third-party software.
Successful LMS
LMS helps schools maintain the integrity of their educational programs by enabling educators to effectively and efficiently design curriculum, deliver learning, facilitate communication, facilitate student collaboration, assess student progress, and provide other learning resources to support. Defining a Learning Management System LMS allows you to create, manage and deliver e-learning courses just as word processors (like Microsoft Word) help you write documents and mail servers (like Gmail) help you manage your mail.
Types of learning management systems
The different types of LMS deployment options are:
- Cloud-based
- Self-hosted
- Desktop application
- Mobile application
Is the LMS dead? Absolutely not. With the current skills gap crisis affecting multiple industries, Millennial’s desire for continuous educational opportunities, and lack of leadership skills within companies, the learning management system has a firm footing for many years to come. Choosing the right LMS for your business can result in improved employee retention, increased productivity, lowered training costs, and better compliance.
An LMS can help track the number of learner activities. Formal learning metrics and reports include:
- Course completions
- Course subscription dates
- Total time spent on courses and learning plans
- Active courses
- Most viewed courses
- Test/assessment scores
- ILT classroom course sessions
- E-commerce transaction data
- Learning plan reports
- User activity reports
- Audit trail reports
- Certification reports
- External training activity reports
Industry-specific LMS: These are more niche and are typically developed for a specific industry that hosts any learning materials and assets the organization requires. Assets could include certifications, online games, and other training activities based on industry-specific skills and tasks.
The cost of quality training content is something some businesses overlook when costing the deployment of an LMS. If you’re writing a proposal for deploying a learning management system, consider a cloud-based system. These are cheaper to deploy, and you can use some of the cost savings to pay for a good course author.
This means a good LMS will pay for itself quite quickly by reducing travel costs and speeding up the training process.
Small- and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs)
Do you think that an LMS is only for large enterprises? Now, even a small company can launch eLearning to educate employees and develop their skills with fewer human resources and training costs. By empowering their staff with technology, they scale the growth of their business and adapt to the constantly changing market.
Among the other LMS users there are nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and educational institutions.
10 LMS Facts
- The LMS market is a $2.5 billion in the corporate sector alone
- Moodle currently has the most users at roughly 73.8 million
- Edmodo and Blackboard each have around 20 million users each
- SaaS LMS offerings are increasing, specifically LMSs running on an internet private cloud
- Government institutions are the lowest users of LMSs
- Despite mobile learning enhancements, a recent survey found that roughly 89% of users access their LMS from their desktop computer (76% from laptop)
- 31% of LMS buyers have switched from their previous LMS to a new one
- On average, 32% of organizations have used the same LMS for the past 2-5 years
- The most cited reason for switching to another system is because additional features are required
32% of LMS purchasing decisions are based primarily on price
How to Choose an LMS
If you perform an online search for “LMS,” you’ll get millions of results, many of which will be different vendors promoting their products. It’s not that easy to choose the best one for your business when the options are so numerous. So, we created a 5-step guide on how to choose an LMS that might help you.
1. Identify your training needs
2. Define your LMS requirements
3. Explore the market
4. Evaluate vendors
5. Choose an LMS
Future of the LMS
The LMS is changing. As eLearning standards continue to evolve with emerging technology and learner needs, so will the LMS. SCORM turned the LMS into a powerhouse for storing online learning content, and for the first time gave instructional designers insight into how learners were interacting with online content. xAPI broadened the LMS’s definition of online content, and provided a deeper understanding of the learning experience. Combined, these data on learning content and the learning experience are creating a new understanding of what learning is, which in turn informs new standards for online learning.