LMS is a vital part of an effective eLearning strategy and its efficient use would result in improved learning outcomes for students. Before purchasing a learning management system, you should take into account a number of factors that will help in the decision-making process. Here is a guide to the things you should consider.
Course Creation
An LMS can help you create courses within a short time span. It enables you to save your course in the form of files, presentations, or any other media that can be accessed by learners. You also have the option of arranging content in the right sequence and providing its metadata while creating courses. The folks at edwize.org/teachable-vs-thinkific explain that course creation has two main points to look at depth and ease of use.
Ease of use includes whether it is easy to publish courses, update them, add new modules and content. It also covers if the system allows you to create learning paths along with creating course exercises, quizzes, etc. Degree of depth refers to how much information can be stored in that platform or the number of features the system has. Some LMS have options that are more robust than others which allow greater interactive capabilities for users.
Performance Management
A reliable LMS can provide you with all the information required to make better decisions when it comes to performance management. It also makes it easier for supervisors and managers to keep an eye on employee or student activities and progress in real-time. You can even set up automated reports that will be sent directly to your email address at preset intervals of time which means no more logging in and out of the system just to track something. These reports would help you see how every member is performing, their progress over a period of time, who needs additional training or coaching, and so on.
Information Security
Security is an important aspect when choosing an LMS which enables secure storage of sensitive data such as customer data, financial records, personal information, etc. If an LMS is not planned properly with security in mind, it can lead to data breaches and expose your organization to a number of risks. For this reason, you should look for an LMS that has robust physical, mobile, and logical security controls along with the ability to encrypt all kinds of digital information such as passwords and credit card details, etc.
Platform Compatibility
The platform compatibility refers to whether the LMS will work on different devices including desktops, smartphones, and tablets. An important point to consider would be how many operating systems the system currently supports since there are so many different OSs available today and more keep coming up. You should also find out if it works well on browsers other than Firefox or Chrome since most applications work better on their native browsers than others and it is important to make sure all your employees can access it on their preferred browser.
Hosting Type
The hosting type refers to whether the LMS would be hosted in-house or by a third party. If you choose an LMS that is located externally, then there are many advantages of choosing this option include:
- It will cost less money since most external platforms don't charge for updates or new modules anymore
- You won't need to spend time administrating the platform
- It can be accessed from any device using your unique login credentials which means you don't need to download it locally every time you switch machines.
Managing Your Resources
When it comes to managing your resources, choosing an LMS that helps reduce operational expenses would come in very handy. For example, you should look for an LMS that offers flexible pricing models and usage-based subscriptions so the cost of training can vary with the number of users or total content minutes used etc. The tool should also enable bulk licensing which allows you to purchase licenses at discounted rates to save money on individual purchases. This way, your budget won't go down the drain when you need to purchase licenses for every user across the company.
Delivery Method
Your delivery method will usually be either instructor-led or self-paced training. Most learning management systems allow you to deliver your courses in both these forms however there are some that work better with one type than another. You should also consider how easy it would be to transition from one mode of delivery to another since you cannot simply abandon one form overnight since students and employees might not be able to cope up with the change in time and this could result in them stopping their studies midway through which can lead to loss of money and resources spent on them.
When speaking in terms of choosing an LMS, it is important to look at all the factors before making a decision. There are many advantages associated with using a learning management system but you need to make sure you are not sacrificing quality over convenience when deciding which one to choose.
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