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Top 8 Overlooked Features of an LMS
Features of an LMS (Learning Management System) have become one of the essential assets for organizations, institutions and companies. They help them in imparting training, sharing education material or managing important e-manuals. The streamlining of the education or training material through adaptive LMS has become the ultimate talk of the town.
However, significance must be given to the fact that not every LMS is suitable for each kind of operation. Let’s discover how the concept of LMS evolved out and how it has altered the employee training management as well as the student’s access to eLearning content.
What is an LMS (Learning Management System)?
A learning management system (LMS) is a web-based application or software technology to plan, implement and share training or education material. It is mostly employed for training of the employees or education of the students. It usually comprises two main elements, a server and user interface. The former one stores the data and provides accessibility whereas, the latter one is operated by instructors, users and administrators/management personnel.
LMS are now being frequently employed by both private and public sector organizations as well as educational institutions to impart training and provide educational material to employees or students through online means. Instead of employing a traditional system with a specific requirement for a physical location, an LMS discards the need for it. It can be accessed by users remotely and even track their performance or training material effectively.
Basic Features of an LMS
Usually an instructor creates and delivers the content in written, oral or video format as well as monitors the performance of the employee or a student through an LMS forum. A student accesses the content, shares the report/assignments, becomes a part of discussion forum/video conference/webinar whereas the administrator, usually a network or IT expert, manages the overall performance of the LMS.
Let’s discover the basic features of an LMS that must be inherent to it irrespective of the purpose for it is meant to be employed:
- It must streamline the training or education process so as to track and maintain the system properly.
- It must provide an engaging and intuitive learning experience to the users via effective communication.
- It must make use of the latest technology to impart centralized training.
- It must allow the users to access the content and register up for new courses.
- It must allow the trainers or educators to evaluate the users, share performance reports as well as course material and layout.
- It must make accessing educational or training material for the users convenient along with the ability to access it anywhere.
Top 8 Features of an LMS
Different LMS come with different features based upon the requirement of the organization and its user base. Colaraz has recently launched its eLearning system for both corporate organizations as well as educational institutions to streamline their training & schooling processes.
Let’s discuss the main features of the Colaraz eLearning as well as other LMS for effective operation:
Supporting Data Migration
Data stored on the training or educational content on an LMS is of an asset value and any discrepancies related to it would cost the company a lot. Data migration allows the companies and institutes to transfer the data from one storage space to another one in case of migration or up-gradation in the software technology. Hence, through data migration features, an LMS allows an administrator to seamlessly transfer the data without losing them in the first place.
Creating Personalized Learning Paths
One of the benefits of having an LMS system is that it allows the trainers and administration staff to manage hundreds and thousands of users seamlessly and provide them with a tailored custom experience. Though this seems like an overwhelming task indeed, however, through personalized learning paths, the users are able to choose the skills training or courses accordingly. Even the management is able to assign the users a particular training material or educational course as per the requirements.
Social Media Support and Integration
In this era of digital technology, all human beings are connected to each other through social interaction mediums. With the passage of time, social interaction has become more of a necessity than a hobby. Through social media support and integration in an LMS, the users are able to interact with each other, communicate through various social forums & groups as well as learn closely from peers as well as subject experts. These often lead to creating user-generated content and improve the LMS experience.
Certification and Skills Tracking
For an LMS to provide a seamless experience to both trainers and users, it should incorporate the feature of the certificate as well as skills tracking. Through this feature, both the parties are able to track and evaluate their performance as well as progress against a set standard baseline. Often, this progress can be accessed and made available through an exportable spreadsheet or portable document. Moreover, the certifications and training tracking allows the trainers to report on the employee or student’s performance.
Gamification Tools
Learning for the purpose of learning has become a traditional concept. In order to make the learning process more interactive and fun-loving, it needs to be innovative. Through gamification, learning and education become more of a friendly competition. Moreover, the users can track their processes effectively, engage in learning incentives and even, speed up the coordination and compliance with learning modules.
Asynchronous Learning
Asynchronous learning has become one of the essential elements and features of an LMS. With asynchronous learning mode, the users are able to complete their training or educational course without having to worry about meeting up with a deadline or keeping track of the schedule. In order to make this feature available, the material is made available in video lectures, messages, written documents, training manuals and audio lectures, which can be accessed by users at any time.
Customized Reporting
An LMS must have a reporting feature in order to qualify as an excellent feature. Through this feature, management, administrators as well as trainers are able to know and realize the overall impact of a particular course or training program. It usually comprises survey responses, exam results, progress layout, training histories as well as overall performance. It allows them to identify the trends, tailored the training as per experiences and even, update the training as per the user reviews and their preferences.
Progress Tracking
As a result of LMS, the overall management team, admin, trainers as well as educators are able to track the progress of users as well as themselves. They can not only know about users’ ability to keep up with the course content & assignments but also allows them to track their progress and impact of their course or training material as well. Moreover, the trainers or educators can realize the importance of how well the course was received, how the students were able to comprehend the material and even, realize the overall progress realistically through statistical analysis.
