We came up with four different options to explain a learning management system in 140 characters or less:

Technology changes so rapidly these days it’s hard to predict what will be next and how it - whatever “it” is - will shape the way that we live. Social media has impacted the way that we communicate with old friends, catch up on news, and even do business, but 10 years ago, social media had a completely different landscape.

Growing up, my dad would always point out advertisements in a silly way. What I mean by this is: when he would see an advertisement for a tanning salon with really fit people, he would say “Wow, if I go in there - I’ll come out looking like that!” And he wasn’t just referring to the shade of the person’s skin. Advertisement is powerful and marketing departments work hard to showcase benefits - tangible or intangible, but sometimes that can set consumers up with high expectations that can’t be met. As much as I wish applying sunless tanner would then give me a six-pack, that’s an expectation that absolutely will come to actualization…. bummer.

Whether you’re new to online education systems, or e-Learning, it is important to get on the same page as your vendor or sales person to really get the most out of what may be taught as it relates to your learning management system. A quick review of the most common terms used when it relates to learning management systems and online training will be helpful for quick education and to get you up to speed when talking about your new software.

So, you, possibly a training manager, believe that your company could benefit from adopting a Learning Management System (LMS), but your boss isn’t exactly on board? Convincing senior level executives can be a challenging task, especially where software is concerned. There are learning curves, expenditures, training, and more and proving how it impacts the bottom line can be challenging and oftentimes, that is exactly what your boss is the most concerned about. If your company has some sort of training program in place, isn’t that enough? What does your organization stand to gain from adopting a Learning Management System?

Compliance Management is evident in all businesses, large and small, new or old. While the types of compliance management necessary for success may not look the same, the underlying need for compliance is there and in many cases, controlled by more than one overseeing agency. From Federal to state governments, industry auditors and regulations, to meeting qualifications standards and certifications in an individual role - compliance is here to stay. Thankfully, with the robust growth seen in the learning management system industry, there is a much easier way to stay up on compliance efforts without adding a new product or vendor to manage.

Oftentimes it is standard practice to measure learning and development across an organization by levels of compliance. Compliance standards are typically set outside the company and audited, however, they can also expand to practices such as onboarding a new employee. In the latter case, employees go through onboarding to achieve a certain level of compliance that will deem them capable of working on their own, or show managers that they have at least marked a checkbox.

So, you’re looking for an LMS? Whether you’ve shopped around before, signed up with more than one, or are starting to look for your first - there are plenty of features and functions out there that you can find in every LMS. These features and functions are exactly what are marketed on just about ever learning management vendor’s website. Chances are you can name a few - authoring your own content, some sort of content libraries to supplement, quizzes, answer banks and more. Add in an extra layer or difficulty that your organization has lots of different learning needs that you are trying to meet within one system and things can get very messy, very quick. How do you prioritize which features are most important? How do you know you are choosing the best LMS?

If you work with a learning management system at an organization or business of any kind, it is likely that you are working to create courses and content for adult learners. Adult learners are different than other learners, say children or teens, for many reasons and as such need to have learning materials that cater to their specific learning styles.

If you’ve been using any sort of online learning in your organization, it is likely that your learning management system comes with many different reporting features and functions to help measure the effectiveness of your online training. With all these different numbers and figures to look at, what exactly should you pay attention to and then what are the appropriate changes to make to improve those statistics? Through this blog post we will be dissecting some of the important metrics to pay attention to, what to do if the numbers don’t look good, and how to continue to improve the content and courses you offer.