In short a Learning Management Systems, or LMS, is software that lets you:
Many LMS platforms are now online and delivered under a Software as a Service model. This means that there is no software to install, users and admin alike access the LMS through a web browser and the software is paid for on a reoccurring subscription basis.
Online training and online training systems; also known as E-learning software, have become increasingly popular as a direct result of cheaper, more accessible internet access, mobile phone adoption and lower IT costs. This has resulted in a proliferation of Learning Management System providers of varying feature sets and cost structures.
There are many different types of online training systems and e-learning software available to choose from. Each caters to slightly different audiences and training needs so it’s vital that you have a good understanding of your internal resource and capability. What’s important to you in your training, what is your budget and what are you trying to achieve in order to find the best solution for you.
Few Learning Management Systems are flexible enough to cover this range of industries with their varying staff numbers and content needs.
There are plenty of other tools that can be used to facilitate online and distance learning and when considering training and teaching online.
LMSs can have a lot of features that are specific to the type of industry or audience that they are trying to cater for. A University in the USA will have different needs and want a different feature set to a hotel in the Swiss Alps. This is why it is important to research the available options and trial different LMSs before purchasing. One thing that shouldn't be overlooked and which isn't on any spec sheet is the level of support you'll receive. You can have all the bells and whistle features you want but without adequate support you're unlikely to ever to realise the full potential of that LMS.
At Intuto we believe sharing knowledge effectively can help build better businesses. However not all businesses have the resources and expertise to implement and manage an effective online training program. That's why we created Intuto; to provide a full software and service training solution for small and medium businesses.
Our software lets you create, share and report on training all from one platform while our service combines content loading, design and administration support.
Intuto has been created by a team of online learning experts who have been delivering online training to some of the world’s biggest brands for almost 20 years and who wanted to make online training simple, fun and affordable.
20 years ago when eLearning was in its infancy, getting content out of a subject matter expert’s head and into an online format was slow, complex, expensive and the result was usually static and boring.
With the creation of a number of technologies such as Flash and Storyline Articulate, technologists were able to create the interactions inside third party tools, reducing the need and the expense of a software developers’ time. These courses or interactions would then need to be exported (usually in a SCORM package) to be imported into the delivery system, usually a complex LMS.
While this development was an improvement, there was still a gap between the subject matter expert and the final interactive content, often requiring the cost of ongoing rewrites. The final eLearning product remained costly to develop and deliver.
The expense of creating custom content led to many content libraries being created. These helped reduce the cost and made it possible for common ideas to be taught in a simple, cheap way.
Having observed the limitations of the existing online learning environment, at Intuto we decided on a radically different approach. That was, to develop a full delivery platform where the authoring tool is embedded, to provide an expanding course library to help companies get started with subjects driven by customer need and to do so with no limits to the number of users, authors or courses. The market also told us that there was a need for an outsourced authoring service to maximise the efficiency of their online learning programmes. And that is what Intuto delivers every day of the week. For comparison, the cost of utilising the Intuto outsourced delivery service is about 3% of the cost of creating one hour of online content in 2000! A significant step toward truly democratising online learning.
There is a key element of workplace training which is often ignored; tracking employee training.
Tracking employee training is important for several reasons:
Fortunately, Learning Management Systems (LMS) are ideally suited to tracking training engagement. An LMS can track who is logging in, when users are online and for how long, where they are coming from (IP address) and how they interact with their online training. Crucially the depth of online reporting can be used to understand where staff are struggling or succeeding. In other words, knowledge is power; for the learner and the organisation.
If you’ve been managing all your training offline up until this point, moving everything online might seem like a mammoth task. But don’t stress – the biggest barrier to moving online is just getting started. As they say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single click. Or something like that...
Essentially, Intuto will make moving your training online as simple as possible, you just need to decide on a few key elements for your program.
A common concern in implementing training in a new Learning Management System (LMS) is: "how to get people to complete the training?"
Let's face it, there's no point in getting people into the training if they don't complete it – and hopefully enjoy doing the training at the same time.
Here are five tips to motivate e-learners:
1. Communicate with users.
Make sure you let your users know what your plans are in terms of any training and this is particularly true of online learning where users are often at a distance. Keep your communications clear, positive and motivational. Where you are using email to communicate, make sure you use a service that lets you confirm that the user has received and opened the email. If not, you can follow up so that there is no confusion.
2. Make it easy on the eye
Intuto allows you to make your training courses attractive, interactive and engaging. If a course is boring to look at, it will be boring to work on and will discourage positive outcomes.
3. Show progress
The first rule in successful goal setting is to set small, achievable goals rather than one large one. Regular achievements increase motivation and encourage learners to keep working on their training and improving their knowledge.
4. Have fun/be engaging
Use interactions created in tools like H5P to keep users engaged. At the very least, keep the tone positive and the language simple and concise. Nothing turns learners off like pages and pages of dry text.
5. Reward completion
The way your business works may enable you to create a real-world reward system such as a poster board congratulating learners who complete or excel at a course. You may even be able to provide prizes such as gift cards or hours in lieu.
You can create Certificates in Intuto to be issued automatically when a user completes the necessary learning. This positive reinforcement motivates e-learners who can be further supported using emails generated automatically from within your Intuto site.
