The Components of a Good LMS (Part 1)

It is easy to identify basic components within a Learning Management System (LMS), such as Course Creation (template or standard), Course Quiz / Examination, Learning Feedback (Assessments), Communication process between Instructor / Learners, and many others. All of these are correct answers. However, "Course Content Creation" as well as "Learner Profile & Learning Activity Analysis" constitute the two superior elements in this blog writer's beliefs.

We plan to discuss "Course Content Creation" in this article, where more description on "Learner Profile & Learning Activity Analysis" should be expected in the incoming item.

There are several perspectives from "e-Learning Course Content Creation" point of view:

Learning Content: Identifying and organizing course content (the subject at hand) is the primary thing to think about it. Need analysis, in deed, is the direction of thinking in this element. What do you want to talking about or illustrate in your learning content. What is the knowledge level of your target audience, are they subject-matter expert? Are we presenting our materials in a way logically describe our technical points and remove any of the learning difficulty hidden points?

Upon your budget availability, it is definitely possible that we relay the writing of those learning materials to any 3rd party vendor / company, as those companies are good at logical thinking and material writing. (with easily-digestible material.) When a corporate LMS decides to adapt this methodology, there are some points we need to be very careful. For one, a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) should be communicated and signed by business entities. In addition, if this is product-related hands-on materials, make sure those hardware / software products are timely available to content writers, with the communication among Product Mangers in establishing the mutual consensus on the key points planned to be described in the materials.

To show our respect on intellectual property rights, any of the learning content should prepare internally. When any specific materials are collected from 3rd party vendor, the description of content source is definitely necessary.

Question: nowadays many LMS vendors claim they are able to offer "Gamification" as their application. From the learner perspective, what kind of Gamification you would like to experience?

File Format: Most of the LMS in the market provide a variety of accepted eLearning content technical standards, such as File, Video / Screen recording, xAPI, SCORM, AICC (Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee) and others. That kind of availability should also work with our predefined delivery strategy. If face-to-face instructor-led classroom training is not financially durable, are we able to justify the knowledge digest and receiving via other file format?

The following screen shot is one of the configuration screens in Docebo where you can see available options are displayed.

Some of the LMS products also offer the function of slides converting, among the format of PowerPoint and/or Openoffice files. (This function mostly likely is not available in those open source tools)

Optimal Length of A Training Content: Attention spans are vary, where most people are aware that it is shrinking. Most of the traditional learning material are description-based, in plain English, a large amount of words. One of the strengths inherent in this blog writer is writing Hands-On Guide in long pages, a few hundred to thousand. By collaborating with "Use Case" or "Configuration Scenarios" this type of Hands-on Configuration learning content does get attention. However, if lack of application practice / exercise, the learning effectiveness is not easily to be measured.

If the learning content is video basis, 7 ~ 10 minutes should be a proper suggestions, where dynamic format is also recommended. Some of the managers may suggestion to put short Quiz inside a video, where, if any question is not correctly answered, that video is not suggested to continue broadcasting.

Content Delivery Platform: It depends on the platform or system where your learners are going to read / watch your learning content. As such, make sure proper network throughput / performance is calculated and reserved, when you have a great amount of video content and/or interactive sessions. Any unnecessary video delays has undoubtedly made a bad situation much worse.

Conclusion: The agreement on Course Content Creation standard among your stakeholders should be clearly discussed and then practiced. Some of the classic confrontation during the discussion period is always unavoidable but workable, as long as none of the single party opinion being downplayed.