LMS (Learning Management System) or learning platform - What is it?

An LMS, also known as a learning platform, training platform or e-learning platform, is a digital environment for managing training courses and their participants. It is used in schools, but also in companies for in-house training or corporate courses.

An LMS serves as a tool for distributing digital courses and managing all the elements around them, as well as for monitoring the learning that takes place.

• Login - personal login ensures that the right course participants can securely access the right information while keeping sensitive course material from being accessed by unauthorised persons.
• Course management - allowing you to add new courses and update existing ones.
• Management of users - both in terms of assigning courses to users and tracking who has completed what, and in terms of managing the user itself; how to create users, importing multiple users simultaneously or exporting.
• Follow-up - it is important to be able to follow up on learning, to take out reports for your own use but also to follow up with other stakeholders such as managers, customers, etc.
• Integration capabilities - because today it's so important that all the digital systems we have can talk to each other, so we don't have to do the same job multiple times.
• Automation - to minimise unnecessary manual work

How to choose the right learning platform or LMS?

It is not easy to know what to look for in a learning platform for your needs and requirements. There is a lot to consider, and traditionally it has been associated with both long commitment periods and start-up fees that make it costly to test different ones.

In addition to cost, functionality requirements also come into play. These also differ from case to case, of course, but below we have gathered some important points to consider when choosing a learning platform.

Functionality requirements

Most learning platforms have a reasonably similar set of basic functionality covering the points we presented above. They may look slightly different in how they work but aim to achieve roughly the same overall goal. The difference lies in the details.

When looking for a learning platform, it is therefore important to look at what is on offer, understand the differences between the different systems and define what is important to you. If you are training your customers on the system, you may have different needs than if you are training your employees. Are you prepared to do more manual work or do you want a lot of automation? Does the user management work in a way that makes it easy for you to create a structure and hierarchy that matches the rest of your organisation?

Once you have a list of what is important to you, it's good to review it again and define what is actually a requirement, and what would really just be nice. More often than not, you will have to compromise on some item on the list.

How many users?

Most learning platforms have a licensing model that is in some way linked to the number of users. For example, our model is based entirely on the number of users, where the actual number of users in a month is the only thing that drives the monthly cost... and then it follows the exact number from month to month without you having to do anything.

Instead, other systems have different levels where you need to commit to a level, for example between 300-500 users, and then get a slightly higher cost per user above that. This can certainly be an option too if you know how many users you will be from month to month and are prepared to commit to that.

Another important aspect when looking at user numbers and the licensing model is to make sure that the level you end up with has all the functionality you want. It is quite common for different learning platforms to limit the functionality for those at their lower user levels.

For what purpose will the learning platform be used?

If you want to sell training, you will need some parts of the platform that are not needed if you only want to use it for internal training. If you want to use the platform for compliance training, you may need a different type of monitoring and reporting than if the training is more general.

So when it comes to choosing a learning platform, it's good to define your main purpose, then fill in with what other areas you can see for the system. It's not uncommon to start with in-house training, then realise that this digital training is something that could be good for your customers as well to increase customer value or reduce support moving forward.

How many courses, and how many courses?

This question is important partly to see how the actual course management will be carried out. If you are going to have a lot of small courses, you may need a smoother management of assigning the courses to the right users at the right times than if you are going to have a few larger courses for all employees.

Will you want larger course programmes where access to courses is triggered by completing courses at the previous level, or will you want courses to be more stand-alone?

Existing course material or starting from scratch?

If you are starting from scratch, it is important to look at how you create the courses that will be added to the learning platform.Do you want a system with built-in authoring tools? Do you want to use an external authoring tool? Or, as with Evercate, do you want to skip authoring tools altogether and produce videos and self-study materials in the software you're already comfortable with and then just package up the final step of the platform?

If you have existing material, other questions immediately arise. How is the material created and is it easy to upload to the learning platform? For example, if you have courses created according to old standards such as SCORM, you need to decide if you want to continue with them or if it is time to redesign them.

Another aspect to look at is who will produce the courses. Do you want to be able to do it yourself or do you want to outsource the job? Today it is quite easy to create an effective course yourself, as you have the technology you need available (a computer and a mobile camera go a long way). If instead you want to outsource the course creation, you have to look at whether you want to pay a little extra for a dedicated e-learning producer or go to another production agency?

Cost?

We have left one of the most important questions to the end. What is the budget? Unfortunately, not everyone's wishes often match what things turn out to cost, so budget can many times be a big factor in the decision.

In addition to the monthly cost itself, which is usually based on the number of users, the number of courses or similar, it is important to look at the costs around it.

• Are there start-up costs to get started with the LMS you want?
• What about commitment periods?
• What does it cost to go over the number of users you have set?
• Is support included or does it cost extra?
• What are the costs if you want to request a missing feature in the system?

Many times, the small peripheral costs of a system can add up to a little bigger surprise than you were prepared for. Then there are the costs of producing the content, if you decide to buy in that service too.

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