E-learning is undoubtedly one of the success stories of the past decade. By 2025 it will be worth another $350 billion globally and more popular with the average internet user than ever before.
But to maximise this potential, you'll need to devise innovative ways to take your online training products to the next level.
To help you do that, we'll reveal the top five features of learning management systems you need this year and beyond.
1. Course Templates
One way to boost learning, improve engagement and retention rates is by properly structuring your online courses.
You could spend time, hours perhaps, researching how to structure learning material. You might eventually figure out how to maximise learning outcomes. But it doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel if an LMS has already figured that out for you. That's why learning templates are such a handy feature in a modern Learning management system. Typical course templates might cover topics such as: onboarding, compliance, human resource, health and safety and business operations.
A template will give you a framework that's easy to follow, enabling you to "fill in the blanks" with your custom course material. The minor details can often make a big difference to a student, such as always providing a recap on each topic you've covered.
Some templates will also prompt you to add or rearrange content that might not have crossed your mind when writing your lessons.
This will help your company look professional, too. A template will keep your content organised, and you'll show a brand that's taken the time and effort to perfect its learning content.
Platforms like Intuto offer a choice of templates. That way, you have the flexibility to find the one that works in harmony with your brand and learning materials.
2. Self-Registration
Whether you're delivering e-learning to association members, volunteers, staff or customers, they all expect a smooth and frictionless experience. That applies to your online learning products too, so consider administration automation along with learning experience features when determining your LMS.
With many types of learning management systems on the market, a helpful differentiator is whether or not your eLearning platform will allow you to integrate your learners journey in its entirety.
For example, when your learner proceeds with their payment, will they get access to their eLearning content automatically? If yes, they can avoid waiting for an administrator to set them up with an account. This enables a 24/7 sales platform which could boost your revenue.
With this in mind, one feature you should look for in an e-learning platform is whether or not it has a self-registration facility for users and a fully flexible user management feature set.
Once a learner has completed their registration, they should be able to manage and change their user details from inside the system. They won't need to contact customer support.
That might include options to buy new courses, change password and personal details, view reports of past learning and cancel their account.
There should also be functionality for administrators to add new users, assign training courses, and monitor users' progress on assigned courses.
Don't forget that security and privacy are also important considerations in your LMS buying criteria.
The more flexibility you have in e-learning user settings, the more your learners will enjoy not just their training but their whole learner experience.
3. Advanced Analytics
Analytics are a key tool in your toolbox to grow and improve your e-learning offering.
Advanced analytics tools will tell you everything from whether your course content is exceptional to something as granular as whether users complete the course introduction.
Look for a platform that has a suite of advanced analytics and custom reports. Spend some time with a pen and paper to brainstorm the data you need in your reports to ensure you find a platform that fits your business needs.
Do you need to track every sign in? Every completion? Every page click? Or every right and wrong answer in a quiz?
4. Email Communications
Here's a common scenario that many businesses see with their online training products:
A learner signs up after reading a compelling sales page or watching a captivating webinar. They begin the course with enthusiasm, and then something happens.
The learner stops logging on to complete your course. Perhaps that's due to no fault of yours, maybe they got sidetracked, had new and urgent priorities, or forgot about it.
It happens more often than you might think. In fact, according to some research, the average online course has a completion rate of only 5%.
So what must you do when faced with this situation? After all, if you have a high number of learners dropping out of your course, it could negatively impact your reputation. It might even cause you to lose future customers if you sell multiple courses and want learners to undergo further training.
One solution is to create an email autoresponder campaign to keep the conversation going with your learner. When a new email drops in their inbox, it will remind them about the course and prompt them to keep learning. You can even use email to add extra snippets of advice and tips as an added extra to your class. In short, adding email features to your course will help boost engagement and completion rates.
Alternatively, look for LMS that has course reminder features, or at least has reports that highlight learners inactivity so you can quickly see who may need encouragement to complete their course.
This will keep your completion rates higher, leading to more satisfied learners.
5. Gamified Learning
If you've studied the learning industry for any length of time, you've probably come across a term called gamification.
Gamification refers to the trend of adding fun games and rewards into an e-learning platform. It mimics the addictive behaviour of console games.
When you add gamification into your learning, you'll engage and motivate your students to progress with your course.
Customers place a higher value on a fun and interactive course, so they're also more likely to pay a premium for future training courses you may sell.
Example of Gamification
Quizzes are a perfect example of gamification in action.
Instead of pushing content to your students and moving on to the next section, you can use a quiz to help them retain and recall information and check whether your training approach is effective.
When shortlisting e-learning management platforms, find out whether they offer quiz features and other gamification features like engaging videos, scores and progress charts.
At Intuto, we have a suite of gamifying features built into the platform to help you engage your students and boost your course completion rate.
You can add quizzes, set a pass mark, and provide meaningful feedback to students if they answer the quiz incorrectly.
You can also strengthen your learning objectives by allowing students to repeat quizzes to help improve their overall scores. As a course administrator, you also have the ability to review your student's progress.
This is a fantastic way for you to spot problems. Suppose your students consistently perform poorly on one of your course sections. In that case, it might be time for you to revisit and improve that content.
Being able to see trends can help you preempt issues that could cause your students frustration and risk a negative online review for your courses, which could hurt your long-term revenue.
If you add gamification to your platform, make this feature central to your sales page. It's an excellent way to make your product sound exciting and unique when converting leads to customers.
The Strategy for Finding the Perfect Learning Management Systems
It's an exciting time to be launching new online courses.
You've heard about some of the benefits of our LMS at Intuto, and now it's your chance to discover if Intuto might be the LMS for you. Meet with us for a one-on-one consultation where we'll discuss your needs and goals and work with you to see if Intuto might be the LMS for you.
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