The Learning Management System (LMS) was developed in order to provide educational and government organisations with the opportunity to conduct online lessons and refresher courses. It allows you to create an individual development plan for employees and conduct their training. Most of these systems are organised in such a way that every user can understand them without special skills.
In today’s article, we will talk about what an LMS system is, the difference between eLearning and an LMS and how LMS can be useful for you.
What is LMS?
LMS-system is a special service that provides users with various educational materials: from online lessons to full-fledged annual courses. The LMS is based on a SaaS platform, thanks to which the process of learning management and assessment of results is available. In addition, many systems allow you to work via a smartphone, which allows training from anywhere in the world.
LMS and eLearning: what is the difference?
The LMS and eLearning are essentially the same, but there is a small but important difference. eLearning excludes face-to-face formats, hence the nuance in meanings. The LMS system allows you to conduct courses not only remotely, but also offline. It is a tool for organising any educational process that uses a type of blended learning. eLearning courses assume the use of only an electronic format for transferring information.
Not everyone pays attention to these differences in corporate training. Use whichever is convenient for you, but remember that there are very clear technical and organisational differences. Keep in mind that the functionality of the LMS is much wider.
Where are LMS systems used?
The use of LMS is quite extensive – they are included in registries, registration controls, document management and access to various devices, distributed databases of students and teachers, course timetables, knowledge assessment tools, and much more.
The main purpose of such management systems is to organise the learning process. Thanks to them, the process of creating courses is minimised. Most often, people use such systems when they need to:
-conduct training for employees to improve their qualifications;
-develop an individual development plan for employees;
-create a corporate mobile portal;
-conduct certification;
-organise training for partners;
-create a unified internal knowledge base;
-collect statistics and conduct analytics.
Types of LMS
There are two types of LMS systems – cloud platforms and on-premise. Let’s consider what are their differences.
Cloud platforms
This is the most common type of LMS, which is usually a web service with all the necessary functionality. Such systems are extremely simple, which allows any user to launch courses without the help of specialists. In most cases, it is enough to register on the service and create a training program using the constructor.
On-premises
If the previous type is more suitable for the tasks of ordinary users, then on-premises solutions are mainly used by organisations and educational institutions. Such LMS systems are supplied as software that is installed on the client’s server. In such cases, qualified technicians cannot be dispensed with, since additional skills are required to maintain the system.
The peculiarity of such systems is good data encryption, which minimises the leakage of any information.
In addition to on-premises and cloud platforms, there are open source systems. These systems are free, but require programming skills to get them running.
Purpose of use
As we have already found out, LMS systems allow you to track student learning. These can be both ordinary students and already qualified specialists who need to get additional education or simply improve their qualifications. With the help of LMS and RTO training materials, this task becomes easier.
In the corporate sphere, the Learning Management System is used for individual training programs for the adaptation and development of employees. Typically, organisations use corporate software to track employee progress and schedule courses.
Another subtype of software is institutional learning management systems, which are software platforms for teachers in educational institutions. Such products are used to manage and organise online educational courses and provide students with a single place to organise all curriculum materials.
In addition to this, the LMS can be used to conduct tests, assign marks to students, analyse results and much more.
Conclusion
Now you know everything about LMS. Our advice: It is better to analyse LMS capabilities in depth at the stage of choosing a provider, for which it is necessary to clearly define the goals and objectives of corporate training in your company.