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Did you know over 80% of all online activity is due to video web activity, with the majority being educational or training clips? Yes!, this is why many companies have made the decision to move their corporate training to an online platform and are spending millions of dollars to meet the learning and development needs of their employees.
In fact, IBM conducted a study that found that for every dollar spent on employee e-learning and training, there is a $30 increase in overall employee productivity. So, creating an e-learning culture within an organization has come to be an effective way to improve performance and innovation.
One big challenge organizations face when implementing their E-learning strategy for training their employees, is choosing the right tools, including the learning management system (LMS). As there are the many options that the market offers, it can be an exciting but confusing and frustrating journey.
This is why today we will dive you in to valuable info that will make the task fairly simple if you know what to look for.
In this article, we will take a look at the following:
- – What is an LMS ?
- – How it helps to train and upskill employees?
- – What are the different types of LMS?
- – Which LMS is the right for me?
- – What is unique about the Open edX Platform?
What is a Learning Management System?
An LMS is a software platform designed to create, manage, deliver and track e-learning courses.
Learning for delivering on-demand training courses and programs.
Management for organizing how you administer these courses.
System for a method of delivery, as you do everything online and keep all info in one place.
The LMS is a great tool that has become handy in closing the communication gap between instructors and learners due to the enormous benefits it provides.
A global survey conducted by Gartner, Inc. found that 88% of business organizations all over the world mandated or encouraged all their employees to work from home as the pandemic started, and Upwork also estimates that 22% of the employees (36.2 Million Americans) will work remotely by 2025.
This means that whether you’re a startup, an NGO, a private company, or even a government agency, you should consider E-learning to train your teams.
For example, you might want to provide new employees with training, or teach existing employees new skills during the work journey, but the reality is that the average employee can only devote 1% of their time at work to professional development, it means 24 minutes peer week which is not enough for a good program.
Therefore, an LMS (or Learning Management System) can be an excellent option to get ahead and be proactive to increase your team’s engagement and retention rates by eliminating business disruptions associated with traditional learning, allowing them to study the material online at their own pace with cutting-edge technology.
How it helps to train and upskill employees?
In a corporate environment, the process to improve cost efficiencies is iterative, and training properly the employees with the right LMS can provide significant value. Because as we explained, an LMS is very helpful to developing, delivering, and managing your staff training programs while boosting their growth. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a multinational or a small business. Making the switch from classroom-based training to a learning management system (LMS) brings big benefits for businesses of any size.
LMSs are effective for online learning because their components allow organizations to handle online course creation, course and content management, and administrative processes, helping to automate repetitive tasks, saving time, and lowering costs.
Besides, with an LMS you can design and deliver interactive self paced eleaning courses using different types activities like SCORM’s, AICC packages, Quizzes, Assignments, Feedback’s, Videos, Files (PDF’s, PPT’s, ) etc. Engage your learner by grouping multiple courses to create, personalized role centric learning paths, review learner performance and gain insight into training effectiveness.
What are the different types of LMS?
There are different types of LMS. Open source LMS and proprietary or private LMS.
The defining feature of all proprietary LMS platforms is the licensing fees and ‘closed code’, a computer code that is locked for free use. If you want to use this platform you need a license (by purchasing) for the individual, team or, organization who developed it.
The Open-source LMS as the name says are based on open-source software, referring to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification and is usually developed as a public collaboration which make them widely used.
This model clearly has a number of distinct advantages, including the ability to create a truly bespoke, optimized learning initiative , but it comes with its own set of requirements. Just because the source code is free does not mean there are no costs involved.
While open-source software can be installed and customized for free, organizations must have the infrastructure and necessary background in coding and the technological field. Because to have a fully operational LMS, it requires hosting servers with a team able to run and maintain them. It also requires an L&D team familiar with the platform.
Because of this, many organizations have found the best way of building a top e-learning program could be hiring an Open source LMS dedicated team through a managed hosting solution, that should has high standards of performance, scalability, security , and constant ongoing improvements.
Here you can see a comparison of different Open source LMS:
What is unique about the Open edX Platform?
The technology Edunext provides is based on Open edX, which, unlike other e-learning platforms, can go beyond simple interactions in an online classroom with the help of xBlock plugins. Besides, it includes a learner/user interface that is easy to use and access, and with different tools that allows boosting the learning experience in different ways.
Like connecting the platform with other digital tools such as video conferencing as well as collaboration tools. These components allow the LMS to meet the goals of creating and delivering a highly engaging and effective learning experience.
Benefits of the Open edX platform for training your employees:
- – It’s simple, understandable, and ready to use whether you’re building an online course for the first or the hundredth time.
- – It’s very adaptable, with an interface that can be extended and integrated, with the features sophisticated users require.
- – Not only that, but it’s used by some of the best educational institutions around the world with the Highest-quality, outcomes-focused content.
- – Likewise, it’s used for employee training including onboarding new hires, and compliance training, with tools to create, deliver and assess your employees in one place to enjoy a streamlined training initiative.
- – It’s very scalable, whether you’re a team of 5 or 50,000 users Open edX offers flexible options to work with your employee training.
To see more about What Makes the Open edX® Platform Unique visit here.
Which is the right service model for my organization ?
Open-source LMSs are typically deployed and managed by different vendors, which constantly work to maintain the platform’s upgrades, and often have a large developer community involved with the solution
.
While there is no one-size-fits-all in regard to what LMS software will be the best for your organization, by asking yourself a few questions first, you’ll find a system that works best for your learning experience.
Knowing which LMS would work best for you mainly comes down to understanding what problems you need to address.
Open edX is the leading online course creation platform with over 19 million users and 25% are using it to train their employees, thanks to its openness, cross-platform nature, and comprehensive set of features . This is why modern and advanced providers, like Edunext provide different kind of solutions to implement it :
On-Premise – a type of implementation, where you must purchase the network infrastructure, power, servers, operating system, database storage. You are responsible to maintain all of this to keep the platform running, safe and up to date. Then, once you acquire the services of Edunext or any vendor for the installation and support, the software is installed on your servers, and it can be managed by your own team or the vendor’s team.
Hosted – Like on-premise, you acquire Edunext’t or vendor services to use the software, but rather than purchasing all the hardware and infrastructure, you rent it from the vendor or another third-party provide like Amazon AWS. It is remotely hosted in your own cloud.
Software-as-a-Service- this is a method of delivery and licensing in which the LMS software is accessed online via a subscription, rather than buying any licenses or infrastructure you will have a shared Cloud. The only cost is a monthly or annual fee for the cloud services, which include servers, network, and software, all maintained by the provider.
To see more about these services, visit here
All things considered, try to be sure your employee training LMS investment is sound. Having the right features list (and adequate budgets) heavily contributes to that. Remember, a good LMS can greatly impact your employee training and retention outcomes, as it helps to create, manage, and provide quality content but is up to have a clear roadmap and implement the correct tools.
How to use Open edx?
If you are deciding to take that leap, Edunext as a provider offers on top of those benefits comprehensive solutions for each project, with the expertise of a top class team that has been working since 2013 with the Open edX technology.
Whether you’re looking to create your first course, Moocs ,optimize and manage the costs of your Learning Management System, integrate your CMS with the LMS ,or need any other eLearning solutions for selling online training courses (eCommerce), we can provide you with the consultancy and expertise to help you reach your goals.
Start testing the platform with a free account here !
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