What is a learning management system?
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application or web-based technology that is utilized for the purpose of planning, implementing, and assessing a specific learning process. It is employed for eLearning practices and its most common form generally consists of a server that carries out the base functionality and a user interface that is operated by instructors, students as well as administrators.
A learning management system will generally offer instructors a way to build and deliver delivery content, monitor tudent participation and evaluate student performance. The platform may even provide students with the ability to use interactive features like threaded discussions, video conferencing and discussion forums.
LMSes can enhance traditional educational methods, while also help organizations save substantially on time and money. It allows institutions to efficiently manage elements like user registration, content, calendars, user access, communication, certifications and notifications.
What is the importance of LMS?
Learning management systems are important because they allow students to learn at their own pace. With traditional learning, the student might not feel comfortable asking an instructor to explain a concept all over again because they are worried about what their peers might think. But with learning management systems, the students can go back and whenever they want so that they can get a through understanding of the concepts they are learning.
They’re also important because they make it easier for institutes to track the students’ progress and performance in the course via in-built features that keep track of the students’ records, grades, submissions, and engagement with the course.
What are learning management systems used for?
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Learning management systems are used by several kinds of organizations including higher education institutions and corporations. The main use of learning management systems is knowledge management (KM). Knowledge management involves gathering, organizing, sharing and analyzing an organization's knowledge in terms of resources, documents and people skills. But the specific use of the learning management system will be in accordance with the organization's training strategy and goals. An educational institution’s uses of a learning management system would be pretty obvious, so let’s see how a corporate enterprise would use them.
In corporate environments, learning management systems are most widely used for employee training and onboarding. In such a situation, the purpose of the LMS is to help train new employees by providing opportunities to access training materials across various devices. But that’s not the only way an LMS could be used in a corporate setting. But that’s not the only way an LMS could be used in a corporate setting. There is an array of LMS features that can be utilized by businesses.
A learning management system can be used for extended enterprise training purposes. This includes customer, partner as well as member training. Customer training is a very common use case for learning management systems in software and technology companies where users need to be taught how a system works before they can use and benefit from the software that they purchased. Offering customer training reduces customer effort, improves the customer experience, and helps companies increase their customer satisfaction levels.
Corporations can also use learning management systems for employee development and retention. It can be used to assign the necessary courses to current employees to make sure they are developing effective job skills, stay informed about product changes and maintain relevant knowledge through new product and compliance training.
What are the types of learning management systems?
The types of learning management systems include:
- Cloud-based
- Self-hosted
- Desktop application
- Mobile application
Cloud-based LMS
These learning management systems are hosted on the cloud and generally tend to follow a software as a service (SaaS) business model. In this model, the vendors take care of maintaining the system and carrying out any technical updates or upgrades. Online users can gain access to such a learning management system from anywhere, at any time, using a username and password.
Self-hosted LMS
Such a learning management system needs the software to be downloaded by the user. This type of learning management system offers your institute a greater degree of creative control and customization, but users must maintain the system themselves and often have to pay for updates.
Desktop application LMS
A desktop application LMS is a learning management system that is installed on the user's desktop. But the application could still be accessible on several devices.
Mobile application LMS
A mobile application LMS makes mobile learning possible. The whole point of such a system is to make learning accessible wherever and whenever through mobile devices. This platform deployment type enables users to engage with and track their online learning initiatives wherever they are.
What are the advantages of LMS?
The advantages of learning management systems include:
Makes learning accessible
When you upload and publish your learning materials to your learning management system, your students get unlimited access to the information, whenever they need it, irrespective of where they are at that moment. Even if they’re commuting to school or work or are traveling to a distant location, they can login to the e Learning platform via their smartphones, tablets, or laptops, so that they don’t need to wait till their next online coaching session to develop skills.
Consolidates all learning material
An LMS allows you to compile all your institute’s learning materials in one place, so that teachers and students don’t need to hunt across a million different locations to find the material that they’re looking for. It eliminates the need for having several different systems and paper files that users would otherwise have to look through, putting all the coaching material in a single place.
Reduces costs
Using an LMS helps an elearning institute save on the costs associated with traditional learning. It helps lower the travel costs for instructors, and the site accommodation cost. Learning management systems also are cheaper to deliver than traditional face-to-face courses.
Automates administrative work
The uses of automated learning management systems allows users to forget about tedious, monotonous tasks like user enrollment and certification distribution and concentrate on more important activities.
Increased knowledge retention
Online learning offers students a greater degree of control over the learning process. They get to learn complicated concepts at their own pace and even have the liberty to go back and review past modules whenever they need to do that. The Research Institute of America evne found that elearning boosted retention rates by 25-60%.
