Learning Management System – Different Scenario Calls For Different Features

Learning Management System – Features of a LMS

In this article I’ll share the features that are must have for any LMS and good to have features. As an organization for deciding on a LMS there are few important factors to consider

1. Your goals for having a LMS and does the LMS that you are selecting have the features that will help you achieve those goals
2. What is the Implementation model that you are most comfortable with – SAAS, On Premise, White labelled, Proprietary and the support model available

In this article I’ll discuss about the goals and features of the LMS that will help you to shortlist and pinpoint on the LMS that you should have.

1. LMS for your Internal employees/students for learning and training purpose
2. LMS open to public with free and paid content
3. LMS to be provided to multiple clients/customers like educational institutions on SAAS model

The three goals are quite different from each other and based on your specific need and goal you can decide on what are the feature sets that you are looking for.

LMS for Internal Employees/students

1. Dynamic Categories: As an organization or an educational institution what needs to be seen is does the LMS cater to creation of multiple categories for content so as to cater to different skillsets. Skillsets can vary based on area of work and study, years of experience or the class that the student is studying. The LMS should give the flexibility to cater to one and all through dynamic category management
2. Course Content variation: Course content for different skillsets of people, area of work and area of knowledge will vary. Some content maybe video based, other can be textual, some can presentation based other can be Live classes. The LMS should be able to handle all sorts of courses
3. Ease of Course creation: As content creation is a continual process which involves adding new contents and updating existing one, so the system should be very easy to use and should provide this functionality which is very user friendly and not too time consuming and should be divided in steps for easy understanding.
4. Skill Set Mapping: Based on the different courses and Quiz and tests the LMS should be able to present what Skills the employee/student need to be trained it. The system even if does not involve AI (Artificial Intelligence) should be able to present reports of Quiz and tests that can be interpreted manually by reporting manager/teacher to assign the trainings
5. SCORM Compliant: All LMS must follow the standard content format. One of the most common format is SCORM. This is a must have feature for any LMS.
6. Artificial Intelligence (AI): A good to have feature but not a must. AI based LMS system based on the activities of the user and the response or results to quiz, questionnaire, test can evaluate and suggest the trainings a person is required to have and in the analysis also incorporates the area of expertise or subject the person is in.
7. Gamification: A sense of competition is always good to create the motivator and providing gamification as a standard feature in the learning process among peers and students always gives a boost to the overall usage of the platform and learning of individuals. Giving badges for course completion or completing a test is a good way to show the growth in learning of an individual
8. Mobile LMS: Either a mobile app of the LMS should be available or the web version need to be super responsive. The preferred is mobile application as more and more people are looking at learning, games, entertainment of all sorts on mobile devices now. This is an important factor.
9. Performance of LMS: Everyone is looking for applications which are high performing in terms of speed, so the LMS should be fast in churning out content and should not keep the users waiting. Apart from user friendliness and ease of flow the time taken to go to any place on the portal without waiting is something that will play an important role in keeping the users happy and coming back.
10. Certification: As a motivational factor the LMS should provide certificates on completion of trainings. The system should understand what is course completion and when to generate the certificate.
11. Reports: An important module is the report where in as an organization you can measure the penetration, user involvement and success of the LMS system among the users and meeting the goals for getting the LMS at the first place. Ease fo report generation as well as flexibility to either create dynamic report on the run or getting the reports developed as per requirement.
12. Live Classes: With pandemic showing everyone a new way of working the LMS should also be pandemic ready i.e. should have option for Live streaming. The system can either have its own live streaming facility or can be integrated easily with streaming solutions like zoom, team, gotomeeting, youtube live streaming, etc.

LMS open to public with free and paid content

Apart from the points that we have seen above in this article there are additional points that we need to take care of in an LMS that is open for public and where people are paying.

1. Super Search: For any LMS that is open to the public one of the most important feature other than performance is a very fast and accurate search functionality that helps users get to where they want to go. The faster the visitor reach their destination the higher is the chance of converting that visitor to a user
2. Marketing option: The LMS apart from providing content and courses is also the main marketing tool. So having things like newsletter, abandoned cart, visitors, etc are an important feature from the organization perspective as it gives you the power to not only keep your existing users but also grow them.
3. Notification option: The system should have good notification options like informing users about upcoming meetings, new courses, announcement from organization about promos, etc. Reminders are an important thing when it comes to meeting or online classes and trainings and people appreciate it as a lot of times they tend to miss the time and a reminder is helpful.
4. Multiple Payment option: There should be multiple payment option which should cater to all types of payments as well as must allow international currency so that the user based is not restricted. Some of the common payment methods that are globally accepted are Paypal, Stripe, Authorize, etc.
5. Packages: Option should be there to provide promotional stuff like creating packages for users that encourages them to but more at a discount.
6. SEO Option: Option should be there in the system to make the LMS search engine optimized so that it is available when anything relevant is searched on different search engines. Option to add google analytics and tracking to enhance the system is also required.
7. Multilanguage Live Classes: A very good to have feature will be to have a Multilanguage translation service integrated in the Live classes to auto-translate the conversation for all users in their native language thus truly breaking the boundary of online education.

LMS to be provided to multiple clients/customers

Above two use cases I’ve discussed when LMS is being used for yourself either as an organization for internal use or as an open public system. Features that needs to be looked up when you are providing your LMS to your clients/customers on SASS model; apart from the above features what we need are:

1. Multitier management: The LMS has to be multi-tiered i.e. you can manage the LMS as Super-admin while the organization to whom you are providing the service has two-three tiers comprising of Admin, Subject matter expert / trainers and Customers / Students
2. Dynamic theme management: As super-admin you have the option to manage the theme so as to give you quick option to create a system and deploy for your client customized with their colour and brand
3. Easy and fast deployment: Creation of account and deploying the system for your client should be a few hours’ job and should require minimal technical know-how so that even

Conclusion

Depending on the requirement and goal of the organization / business there are multiple things that needs to be looked into before deciding on the LMS to be procured or getting a Learning Management System partner. At Tecziq we have create a multi-tier Learning Management System that can cater to all the 3 scenarios mentioned above. We provide a white labelled solution to you which can be hosted on premise or on cloud. You can also get the entire application for yourself as a licence basis and implement it on SAAS model for your clients without any limitation. One of the most unique feature of our LMS system is the integration with our meeting application for Live classes with real-time multi-language translation. You can get in touch with us at info@tecziq.com to explore more or to get a demo please write to us at sales@tecziq.com and we will be more than happy to setup a demo for you and also walk you through the system.