The Components of a Good LMS (Part 2)

In last article, the writer believes that"Course Content Creation" and "Learner Profile & Learning Activity Analysis" constitute the two superior elements as the components of a Good LMS. The former item has been described in last article, where the second subject should receive the spotlight here.

Learner Profile: In a Corporate LMS, learner profile definitely can be associated with corporate HR database, including name, date of hire, office contact number, job title, division within an organization's. As of the training center, that should cover other items, such as employers, contact number. The following screen shot comes from https://academy.dlink.com/register_signup.asp, indicating the user information D-Link Academy collects for account application.

"Username" is one of the fields reserved / designed for user to login to system. In some LMS, e-mail ID is commonly being used, where in Moodle, you are given the opportunity to create an unique user name for your personal reference.

In Moodle application, when creating a user account (menu: Site administration  > Users  >  Add a new user), it also offers several authentication methods to accept new user, in addition to the account being manually added. This reserves the possibility that when we need to migrate or database synchronize from other existing database. As such, the Sys Admin does not need to spend additional time and duplicate resources in managing user account generation & validation.

Some of the LMS allows new users to make user application. The workflow to grant user account application should pre-defined and stated in the application page. Some of the LMS do not have 7*24 customer support services, thus, you need to ensure customers are aware of the fact that this type of account application might be processed under reasonable business work schedule.

Learning Activity Analysis: refers to any of the activities or achievements a specific user has been conducting in this LMS. For example, the date/time this user login to this system, the course being attending, course reviewed, similar to the following Moodle GUI.

Other vendor would take this feature to initialize a professional report. The following diagram shows a screen shot from a test case when using Docebo. This customized report is carries the benefits of "User-centered design (UCD)."

There are some of the public LMS also play the role of document (learning content) FTP server. In that type of application, record of any download materials, by which user is also recorded. The writer of this blog would also take this type of reports to (a) understand the region which have more target audience, and (b) communicate with those learners to improved the content being written as well as going to be developed.

Of course, we are able to review individual's other learning activities, such as any webinar being registered, but fail to attend the course, taking a Quiz but unable to meet the requirements of challenges questions, or quick downloading all of the on-line videos without a comfortable schedule to digest the content on line. In the writer's view, Big Data technology should also find out a valuable operation when analyzing learners behavior.