LMS 101: Part I LMS vs LCMS

Transcription

1 LMS 101: Part I LMS vs LCMS (813) info@elogiclearning.com elogiclearning.com

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Overview 3 What is an LCMS? 4 LCMS Features 6 Differences Between an LCMS and LMS 8 Real-World Examples 9 BONUS: What to Look for in an LCMS 12 Conclusion 16 About elogic Learning 17 page 2

3 OVERVIEW One of the many things that I love about being a Solution Architect in elearning is the occasional opportunity to take my demo hat off and help a customer understand the elearning world. One of the issues I run into most frequently is the confusion first time or new learning management system (LMS) buyers have concerning what an LMS is and/or what is does. They know they need online training and believe that everything they ll need (namely content) comes with an LMS. However, in most cases it doesn t. That s where an LCMS comes into play. In this post, I ll discuss what an LCMS is and the differences between it and an LMS. - Brad Newell, Solution Architect at elogic Learning page 3

4 What is an LCMS? What is the size of the LMS market? LCMS stands for Learning Content Management System. The main difference between an LMS and an LCMS is the the C which stands for content. That one little letter makes all the difference in the world. An LCMS is software that builds content, and ultimately SCORM or TinCan/xAPI packages, for use within an LMS. (We ll discuss SCORM and TinCan in a future blog.) Let s say you re a retail organization with a new promotion that you need to train employees on or a manufacturer that has a new product it needs to educate its distributors on. You can build a PowerPoint, but how do you get into the user s hands and report on it? That s the job of the LMS! It s built to distribute content and track the registrations and completions of the people who take the courses. Now, you may quickly realize a plain PowerPoint doesn t actually track if the user viewed all of the slides. Or, maybe you want to add an exam and allow the user to return to where they left off. That s the job of the LCMS and that s not all it can do. page 4

5 What is an LCMS? What is the size of the LMS market? Building a course in an LCMS can be as simple as uploading a PowerPoint or PDF and automatically creating it as a SCORM package. This is the easy way to get into building online courses. But most companies eventually begin creating their own graphics, animations, voice, music, video, text and blend it together to build a course and make it more engaging for their learners. It s a natural progression for most companies to move from PowerPoint to full blown interactive courses. And LCMS s today give you libraries of animations, sounds, videos and interactive tools to work with. After building the course, an LCMS also provides you with some key features that can help report on the effectiveness and management of the course. We ll go over these features next. page 5

6 LCMS Features Who Uses an LMS? Here are a number of features that an LCMS provides: Designing the Look and Feel of content Colors Screen size Buttons, menus and progress bars Fonts and formatting Navigation through the course Interactivity Scoring rules Completion rules Asset Management Review Cycles page 6

7 LCMS Features For companies that create a lot of content, the last two, Asset Management and Review Cycles, are probably the most important. The LCMS can tag and organize all of your media assets (video, voice, music, graphics and even text) so that they can be quickly reused in other courses. Also multiple authors and SME (Subject Matter Experts) can review the content as it is built, providing editorial and validation workflows. A LCMS can also quickly import your Word, PDF and PowerPoint files and easily create them as SCORM packages. In fact, this is how many companies begin to create their own online courses. Once the content built in a LCMS, it typically uploaded into a LMS. This is a AICC, SCORM or TInCan/xAPI package. (We ll have a discussion on what each of these are in a future blog.) Once in the LMS, the Administrator of the LMS can create a description, add metadata, and assign it to people who need to take the content. But the LMS doesn t create the content. In fact, we frequently get asked if our LMS has an LCMS in it. No, and you don t want it to either. More on this later. page 7

8 Differences Between an LCMS and LMS For the visual people, here s a break down of the basic differences between a LCMS and a LMS: page 8

9 Real-World Examples I frequently counsel our customers on two things when looking for an LMS: Keep your content authoring separate from the LMS Keep your exam creation separate from the LMS These are the two hardest functions to recreate when switching software systems. In my experience, most companies will stick with their LCMS much, much longer than their LMS. Why? Though the cost of LCMS is a fraction of what an LMS costs, the time committed to building the content far outweighs the time put into managing the LMS. Let me give you some real-world examples to show you what I mean page 9

10 Real-World Examples Example #1: Keep your content authoring separate from the LMS I administered a LMS that generated $1.2 million in revenue a year. I spent about 10 hours a week, once it was up and running, maintaining the LMS. But our content was constantly being created and revised as new products and regulations were introduced. And we had over 12 people working on the content side whereas there was just little ole me as the LMS administrator. Imagine if all that content was housed in the LMS or another LCMS and then we had to switch to a new LMS or LCMS. We d essentially have to recreate all our content! You see, while most LMSs can rapidly import any historical data, batch upload existing content (though not always 100%) and create the integrations that are necessary to automate the system, an LCMS will need to move all of the assets, re-tag and categorize, and rebuild the content using the new authoring tool and templates. It s a complex and time-consuming endeavor, which is why keeping the LCMS separate from your LMS benefits you in the long run. page 10

11 Real-World Examples Example #2: Keep your exam creation separate from the LMS In fact, I ran into the exact scenario I mentioned on the last page with the aforementioned company we wanted to switch LMS vendors as the current vendor was no longer giving us the support needed for a $1.2 million revenue stream. Problem was, we had 14,000 questions built into the LMS. The LMS could give me a spreadsheet of the questions, but what about the hotspot questions, image-based questions, or branching questions? We would ve had to recreate them in our new system. Instead, we made sure the LMS was fully SCORM compliant and decided to rebuild all of our questions, answers and exams in our new LCMS tool. I don t wish this process upon anybody as it took far longer to get our content rebuilt (1 year) than to rebuild an LMS (10 weeks). However, it did help us future-proof the system and allowed us to create much more complex exams that had branching, reference points and even additional content. page 11

12 What to Look for in an LCMS So, now you understand the differences as well as the benefits of a LCMS. But what should you buy? That s the million dollar question and, really, it can only be answered by you and is dependent on your resources and what you want to create. Here are some basics you ll need for any LCMS: Import and Conversion Ability to rapidly import SCORM, Word, PDF, Excel files into the LCMS and create SCORM packages. Library of Assets Many LCMS s give you access to their pre-built assets such as graphics, audio, video, animations, templates and interactions. Make sure that these can be edited, if needed. But also look for a LCMS that will allow you to upload your own assets and manage them through the system without having to re-import them for any new course you build. It s a huge timesaver. Auditing - Keep track of edits, versions, comments, drafts, and virtually anything else that happens when creating or editing courses. page 12

13 What to Look for in an LCMS Publishing and Output Types Make sure the LCMS supports all of the standards (SCORM and TinCan/xAPI) as well as outputs to straight HTML5 and PDF. Adobe Flash is a dying format because it doesn t work on Mobile devices so you must have HTML5 for your interactions, animations, etc. PDF is always nice because you build simple overviews, job aids, or other support documents based on the course. Also, make sure you can preview everything in multiple device formats. Responsive Design Going along with HTML5 is Responsive Design. What s this may you ask, we ll discuss in depth in a later blog but simply, it s the ability for content to be displayed on any screen size. Think about the differences in mobile phone screen sizes. It s mind boggling how many there are. A LCMS that automatically builds this into your content is crucial. Review/Collaboration Capabilities Ability for Subject Matter Experts (SME) or any type of reviewer to view the content easily and within context so that the author can make edits quickly and easily within the LCMS. Also, don t force the reviewer to take a precious license. Only authors should have to have a license. page 13

14 What to Look for in an LCMS Exam/Quiz Tools Many LCMS tout the ability to create exams or quizzes in their tool. Check to make sure you can do the following: Timed questions Feedback for individual distractors (answers) Audio Listen to a mp3 and answer questions on it. Matching Branching If user answers correctly, give them question A. If they answer incorrectly, give them question B. Reference Ability to reference in the content where the answer is. Also, give the option to take the user to the answer. Hotspots Video Watch a video and answer questions on it. Drag and Drop Matrix questions Likert Scale Randomize Questions and Answers Comprehensive Summary Not only show them what they got right and wrong but take them to the content for retraining. Fully SCORM Compliant Many LCMS say they are. Test it! page 14

15 What to Look for in an LCMS Intergration One of the largest problems with using a LCMS is exporting the SCORM package. The package can easily get corrupted or improperly built. This can easily be fixed by integrating with an LMS. This called PENS (Package Exchange Notification Services). PENS allows a LCMS to publish directly to the LMS without having to create a SCORM package. To have this, both the LCMS and LMS need to support it. Advanced Features - Here are some advanced features that are coming out in LCMS today which may interest you: Geo-location for mobile devices Gesture based navigation for mobile and touch devices. Storyboarding TOC and Aggregators Language Translation Ability for a use to switch the language to their native one in the content. page 15

16 CONCLUSION Of all the acronyms thrown around in the Learning Management world, LCMS is probably the least used yet the most important. It s the foundation that all online learning is built upon. Picking a good LCMS is essential as it will become as important as Microsoft Outlook, Word or Excel if you want to enter the online training world. While elogic is focused on developing a world class LMS, we acknowledge the need for an LCMS by partnering with the dominknow Platform (provider of the Claro authoring tool) as our LCMS and have built integrations between the two systems to ease the content upload process. elogic also has a full time content development department that can help you get started with templates, guidance and even full courses built for your organization. About Brad Newell Brad has over 20 years experience as a content developer, LMS Administrator and Solution Architect. He has worked on 7 different LMS systems and 5 LCMS systems. He also managed a LMS that generated over $1.2 million in revenue a year and oversaw the replacement of multiple LMS systems. page 16

17 ABOUT ELOGIC LEARNING elogic Learning is an award-winning industry leader in learning management systems, custom course content and learning strategy development. Founded in 2001, elogic provides personalized solutions to each of its client partners to help their learning and OUR MISSION Enriching lives and advancing companies through training and development. OUR PROMISE Quality. Integrity. Continuous Improvement. Responsiveness. development efforts succeed. Why We re Different We Give Back Our commitment to fully understanding your business and objectives is what truly sets us apart. We provide high-touch implementation and support services that ensure the essential LMS exceeds your expectations now and in the future. Our agile development process guarantees clients consistent functionality enhancements at no additional cost. We are committed to devoting our time, resources and efforts to benefit the world around us. That s why with each new client or sale, we celebrate our success by having our employees select a charity where we donate a portion of the proceeds. It s our way of saying thanks and giving back. Learn more Request a live LMS demo with a product specialist Visit our website for more information Contact or info@elogiclearning.com page 17