What is an LMS?
What is an LMS and What is it Used for?
LMS is an acronym for Learning Management System. The term refers to software that enables the online delivery of complex courses and trainings. An LMS is the system you need to create and deliver educational content that engages virtual learners and helps them retain material over time.
Why Use an LMS?
When comparing online content delivery systems to more traditional training methods like training manuals, non-interactive videos, or human trainers that teach in real time, it’s easy to see why Learning Management Systems emerge as the winner. Here are a few of the reasons why the LMS has become so popular in recent years, quickly growing and being used by some of the world’s top companies.
Learning Management Systems Cost Less and are More Efficient than Traditional Training
When you require your employees to complete an in-person, real-time training, the costs add up fast. You have to pay the salary of whoever is conducting the training, whether they are an internal employee or an external training provider. Often, you also have to pay for transportation, food, an event space aside from your regular office, and more. Even if you have a small team and are only conducting training occasionally, you have to pay expenses for training and materials every time you onboard someone, which can make it massively more expensive to bring someone new onto the team.
But doesn’t choosing an LMS and creating and uploading your content take work and money too? Well, yes – but the beauty of an LMS is that it can become a “set it and forget it” tool. After the initial construction and launch of your training system, you will be able to seamlessly direct employees to the tool. Unless you need to perform updates to your content, you won’t need to reconfigure your LMS, and the only ongoing expense will be hosting and maintenance. Another facet of this cost-benefit analysis is that a learning management system is endlessly scalable and reusable with minimal cost increases. While one trainer can only really successfully teach a certain number of learners at a time, an LMS is interactive and can be adapted for everyone’s use. It can be used over and over again while you update only the pieces that need a refresh, and the entire system can grow with your processes and your company.
Learners Retain More through E-Learning via an LMS
In addition to the benefits of reduced cost and increased ease, data shows that students retain more when they use e-learning systems as opposed to more traditional learning methods.
Using e-learning systems is connected with positive results like better retention, increased engagement, increased access, and cost savings of 50% or more. Regardless of the size of your business, it’s probable that a large portion of your costs come from employees being unsure how to complete a task or needing to re-learn a process. Having e-learning options available can not only help your employees retain more of the information the first time they’re trained, it can also make it faster for them to find and review the information if they have questions later on.
Better Data Collection and Training ROI
As a business owner, you know that data collection and metrics help you improve over time. If you want to make progress and achieve your goals, you have to know where your starting point is, and you have to have some way of measuring your progress. This is where an LMS comes in. With traditional, in-person training, you have very little understanding of the data at hand. Unfortunately, this is just the nature of the beast. However, with online training alternatives, you have a wealth of information at your fingertips. In in-person classes, the most conclusive data you can usually collect is a pre-test and post-test or similar to understand how much learners know coming in to the training and how much they know when they leave. With an e-learning course, you can get these metrics (without having to manually mark scores and key them into Excel or another tool) and so much more, without any extra effort on your part. You can understand how long learners are spending on each part of the course, how long they hesitate before answering quiz questions, and how much of each video they consume. You can build in interactive elements and determine which ones draw clicks.
An LMS brings to bear all the power of the internet and channels it into helping trainers and businesses know what’s going on in their training courses. If you want to know more about how people are interacting with your lessons, an LMS is the answer.
Over time, having access to this improved datacan help you tailor your course to your processes and learners. If people aren’t engaging or don’t seem to be performing well on certain sections, you can improve those items to make sure your trainings achieve their maximum effectiveness over time.
If you’re still on the fence about whether an LMS is right for you, or wondering what price point might be appropriate for a learning management system for your business, reach out to us through our contact form today. We love helping businesses train their employees (or even their clients!) and would love to be your LMS development solution.
