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Now that your e-learning program is up and running, you’ve evaluated it, made changes, and the organization loves it. Can you sit back and relax? Absolutely not. Your e-learning program requires a constant eye on various areas to ensure that nothing goes off track. One tiny flaw can create large problems, and with large problems comes a loss of users. Organizations have made the mistake of letting the e-learning program “ride”, only to find that one day no one is using it. Let’s discuss how you can monitor your program at all times.

First, continue to monitor user data. This data includes the evaluations that you’ve taken the time to create and integrate. But remember to monitor at a deeper level than the evaluations. Are your user numbers up or down? Are the evaluations themselves changing in trend or tone? For example, a course evaluation that was consistently a 5 on a 5-point scale that moves to a consistent 4 is not exactly failing – but is it as good as it once was? You can also see from this type of data if your audience is growing and becoming more (more…)

Your e-learning program has rolled out and has come under constant evaluation. What are you doing with the evaluation data? If you’re filing it away, that’s not quite enough. Every piece of data you receive, whether it seems small or not, can help you modify your e-learning program, keep it fresh, and move it into prominence with your organization. When you consider modifying your program, look at three common areas: system, course design and delivery, and marketing.

Remember that during evaluation you are looking at user data, evaluation data, and even survey data. When you look at modifications to your system, think about that data in system terms. Are users reporting problems with accessibility? If so, you may need to look at the number of users, the organization’s bandwidth, or its overall technical architecture. Any of these characteristics can show you specific and overall problems with the program. In specific areas, you may find that accessibility problems are caused by a slow running system, malfunctions in video streaming or interactivity, or overall system preparedness. If you determine that there are issues with your system, make a list of the problems. But don’t stop there. Make a list of the solution you’d like to see. For example, if the system is functioning slowly, know what the optimum time should be. Once you have a list of requirements and optimum functions, go back to the vendor or in-house IT department and present it. (more…)

Before you even begin the selection and implementation process for your LMS, you should first turn your attention to the analysis and assessment of various aspects of your organization, its structure, and its learning needs. We will treat this analysis and assessment as steps one through four of the ten-step LMS implementation process. Plus, you’ll also need to assess your own learning and development organization’s needs in regard to the system, but we will discuss that as a separate step in your process.

To start with, you’ll want to analyze and assess the audience in general. This may seem easy, but some organizations have a diverse population in terms of technical experience, corporate or organizational learning experience, and even willingness to use online or hosted systems in regard to their personal development. In order to assess your audience, you may want to consider a survey that asks the organization’s members about their technical experience, their willingness to register for courses online, their ability to take courses online, and also their perceptions of learning management system tasks, activities, and functions. (more…)

A corporate university must have some sort of unified delivery system for scheduling, online courses, classroom course schedules and descriptions, tracking, and instructor and facilities scheduling. It would be difficult to plan so heavily for the roll out of the corporate university only to find out that there is no way to deliver. So the next best practice is to purchase or build a Learning Management System (LMS).

Choosing an LMS is an important step for any Learning and Development organization. In fact, some organizations may already have a functioning LMS when they make the transition from training department to corporate university. But if you do not have an LMS, the setup phase of your corporate university is the time to buy, build, or “freeware” a system. You definitely don’t want to have to backtrack in order to catch up on scheduling, curriculum paths, and course tracking after the university is up and running. (more…)

Your LMS can manage various aspects of your training life cycle as well as content. Consider how much manual management is involved with curriculum development and management, career-pathing, certifications, testing, and evaluation. With an LMS, once these items are in place you can allow the system to manage and track all of them. Let’s look at each of these functions a little more closely.

In relation to curricula, the LMS enables you to build curricula based on business unit, position, or other criteria, and then place each curriculum on the system. When someone is hired or moves into a position, he or she will get access to that curriculum. From there, each learner, and his or her manager, can work on completing courses and learning interventions that better prepare them for the job. Some organizations may even have multiple curricula for one person. For example, your organization may require every employee to go through “basic training” in your industry or company. Then, you may have a curriculum that goes with that person’s job or job group. Your LMS helps you manage all of these. (more…)

One of the most effective abilities of an LMS relates to your online learning content. Your LMS can help you not only to deliver and manage content, but also to develop it. And it typically does not matter what the source of the content is; most LMS vendors provide pathways for their own content, your internally developed content, and externally licensed content, as well.

First, content development can be an important part of your learning initiative. Suppose you’ve decided to develop your own eLearning content. Without a content authoring tool, provided by and LMS, you’ll have to develop courses in HTML or using another content authoring software, and then package the courses into SCORM-compliant formats. Although this may be a preferred way of doing things, an LCMS that provides content authoring can cut this process down in time and cost. With a content authoring tool, your edited content becomes course-ready as it’s being created in the system. In this way, it also becomes ready to deliver upon completion. In some organizations, both Instructional Designers and Subject Matter Experts have access to content authoring. However you do it, content development via and LCMS allows you to provide rapid deployment for just-in-time initiatives, plus the ability to customize and brand the content to your organization and its various audiences. (more…)

In today’s environment, your learning and development department must be many things to many people. Managing that environment may have become difficult, but Learning Management Systems are making all facets of training management more efficient-and easier. In this series, we are going to examine the Learning Management System as the foundation of your training initiative, so let’s look at the basics first.

You may have seen or heard terms relating to learning management, like LMS or LCMS, or content management. To begin with, an LMS is a Learning Management System, while and LCMS is a Learning Content Management System. Both provide virtually the same services with one major exception: content development. An LCMS usually has a content development “engine”, which allows you and your staff to develop eLearning content in the system and have it available for delivery fairly quickly. So what are the available features with Learning Management Systems? Keep in mind, we will discuss each of these features in detail in this series. (more…)

A Learning Management System (LMS) can provide tremendous benefits both for the training department and for the organization in general. There are numerous choices for LMS providers, as well as functionalities, so an LMS implementation project can become quite confusing. Just what are the LMS basics and how can a system help your organization?

To start with, let’s discuss what an LMS really is. In basic terms, the LMS is a system that helps you deliver and manage training in numerous formats. One of the first misconceptions about an LMS is that it is used solely for the delivery of online courses. While this is an important component, it is not the only reason to use an LMS. The LMS consists of a few separate parts. First, the management system consists of the tracking and reporting of the organization and individual learning activities. Second, the content authoring system (or LCMS) allows the training department to create and or upload its own in-house or purchased learning content and courses, and the third part is the content and courses themselves.
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