What is a learning management system (LMS)?

What is a learning management system?

A Learning Management System, in short LMS, is a software platform. It is used in organizations and companies so that continuing education can be made more professional. An LMS provides support through automated processes and is the central instrument for the systematic qualification and development of employees in many companies.

What does LMS mean?

The abbreviation LMS stands for the English term Learning Management System. Learning is “managed” through a learning platform. This saves time and money, as it enables personnel development to make a wide range of learning materials and training offers available to employees centrally and digitally.

• Materials and learning content are uploaded via so-called admin interfaces and managed by a company's learning managers.
• It is possible to determine which (digital) content should be available to which employees. This can include, for example, face-to-face training, learning videos, or your own content, but also digital courses from external providers and sources from the Internet.
• With a modern LMS, various learning paths can be designed, learning formats used and played out for target groups. A distinction is made between freely selectable offers (on demand) and assigned content, which is often mandatory, such as safety training or instructions.

Staff development without an LMS

Without LMS, employee development is extremely time-consuming and rather prone to errors. As soon as many different learning materials or even entire qualification programs (over several months) have to be addressed specifically to people, this often means manually checking lists. Who took part in the training and who has already successfully completed the course? Statutory training courses can also pose pitfalls, for example as soon as training content has to be revised due to new legal rulings.

Practical examples: What is an LMS used for?

to make personnel development more efficient!

With a LMS staff developers manage all learning materials and participants efficiently. For example, the learning platform recognizes which learning content must be repeated because the score has not been achieved and provides information about learning successes and which content must be kept up to date. Lend modern learning platforms In the best case scenario, the corresponding certificates. If a course is forgotten, the system automatically sends emails as reminders to the respective participants and informs personnel development if further omissions occur.

Optimally manage formal learning with an LMS!

Every company continues to train and train its employees through training courses. Strategically on the one hand, with a focus on your own goals. On the other hand, also with regard to safety, for example when it comes to fire protection, IT or occupational safety. That is often Training that is mandatory by law.

• However, companies, for example, need different training materials and content for workers in factory halls than for salespeople or other people in the company. With a learning platform, targeted approval of many different content is easy and formal learning can be optimally managed.

Develop self-directed learning and enable flexibility.

LMS also enable employees to independently choose when they want to learn and what the pace of their own development should be.

• An LMS helps with this, for example through micro-content, i.e. small learning bits (also known as “learning nuggets” that take 3-5 minutes), which can be easily integrated into everyday working life. This increases memory and motivation to learn and decreases the forgetting curve. Comprehensive learning modules can also be consumed better if they are designed as micro-learning and can be accessed quickly in the LMS from the workplace or on the go.

To design learning paths that also enable individual learning!

In many companies, continuing education is no longer just a matter of personnel development, which centrally manages relevant learning content. Learning is becoming increasingly individual and is linked to the personal aspirations of employees who want to continue their education more often and faster. This should be promoted individually. Learning platforms can also make an important contribution and reflect individual developments — today, it is no longer just the classic central learning approaches that are made possible by LMS, the trend goes beyond that.

• Personnel developers and administrators can set up individual learning paths in a targeted manner, through various e-learnings that qualify employees at various levels as required, at short notice, or even over long periods of time.

Why use a learning management system in a company?

7 good reasons for a learning management system

An LMS is particularly suitable for organizations that...

• Personnel developers and administrators can specifically set up individual learning paths through various e-learnings that qualify employees at various levels as required, at short notice, or even over long periods of time.
• who want to optimize and professionalize centrally managed learning
• who want to relieve their personnel development.
• who want to qualify many different target groups efficiently, uniformly and in the long term.
• want to align continuing education with the company's strategic goals.
• who want to enable more individual development and self-directed learning.
• who want to expand their learning offerings and formats in a targeted manner and as a methodological mix.

What are the benefits of an LMS?

A modern LMS Does today provide a highly professionally set up infrastructure, which is also designed for complex learning scenarios and qualification requirements. If an LMS is used in a company, it benefits various groups of people in the company:

• for employees and their team leaders.
• For personnel development and human resources (HR).
• For the company as a whole.

Just Staff benefit from modern LMS because the user interfaces and content are very appealing these days. The usability is high and information is very well prepared didactically and methodically. Modern learning content also ensures memorization and motivation to learn through interaction and gamification elements, which personnel development overall and ultimately the company helps. Personal initiative, self-determination and playful elements create a change in attitude towards learning. This can develop a new attitude towards learning or trigger a change in the learning culture in the company. Also because offers outside the compulsory program can be accessed more independently.

The benefits of an LMS at a glance: fast, efficient, inexpensive

• A LMS streamlines centralized learning.
  Many different target groups can easily be further qualified — multilingually and with uniform materials, across national borders and locations.
• Increased memory — the forgetting curve decreases
  How many employees are likely to enjoy learning the content of a safety briefing? With modern LMS, the infrastructure enables various media. Explanatory films are set up in an entertaining way and dry compliance topics can be set to music as audio crime dramas, for example. The motivation to learn increases and the so-called “forgetting curve,” as it is scientifically known, decreases.
• Gamification elements — Motivating employee development
  Modern LMS support regular training and competence development through aesthetics, usability, original learning content and gamification elements. Interactive quizzes and small tests are also used to query knowledge, but are playful.
• Develop learning paths and Personalize trainings
  Learning paths can be used in different ways with an LMS. As a long-term skill development or short-term qualification. During the onboarding process, for job training when starting a job, or as teamlead development for prospective managers.
• An instrument for Analytics and data
  An LMS can also provide information about user behavior and provides data. Patterns and progress can be identified and evaluated more easily and serve as a data-based basis for further measures and decisions with regard to (strategic) continuing education.
• Transparent and user-friendly
  Nowadays, learning is becoming more and more self-determined. Thanks to LMS, employees can freely allocate their time. How long the respective learning units last is usually shown in advance.
• Self-determined and with personal responsibility
  The aim is to create a positive learning mindset with an LMS and elements such as gamification and appealing aesthetics. In the future, employees will increasingly take on an active role in their own development and a modern LMS can already lay the foundation for this.
• Learning via assignment (compulsory training) or learning on demand
  If an employee wants to register for a course, an approval email is sent to the manager, or vice versa. The tedious task of filling out applications is no longer necessary and the use of learning content is barrier-free and very easy thanks to an LMS.

What must an LMS be able to do? How do you choose an LMS?

On the one hand, an LMS must be easy to use for administrators. On the other hand, it should also offer employees good usability and easy access. There are various LMS with different functions and with modern technologies such as artificial intelligence.

An LMS should always be selected in such a way that it remains multifunctional and scalable: The learning platform should also be able to be easily reconciled with the company's strategy in the future. It should be able to meet future needs with modern technologies, tools, or other services so that the successful development of employees and the company is guaranteed.

What are the most important selection criteria for an LMS?

• Browser-based LMS — for quick availability
  The company's learning materials and continuing education offerings should be quickly available via Internet browsers, including for mobile access (responsive).
• Automate processes
  An LMS must be able to automatically manage participants. This is the only way it offers the necessary administrative support for seminar planning and communication with trainers.
• Target group focus
  An LMS makes it possible to grant usage rights to the respective target group. Learning content should be able to be individualized accordingly and adapted to the specific requirements of the company.
• Data-based — for more strategic planning
  More and more organizations are also using modern LMS to better reflect the growing challenges in strategic personnel planning. An LMS must therefore be able to provide information about usage behavior in order to tailor qualification measures based on data.
• Certificates with validity periods
  An LMS should also be able to issue certificates, i.e. digital learning badges. These should be able to be set with validity periods so that the system automatically reminds learners that training must be refreshed or repeated.
• Single point of entry
  As the central gateway in the company, an LMS should provide easy access to all learning environments. Thanks to single sign-on (SSO), users can quickly move anywhere and also embark on learning paths themselves, communicate with trainers, or set up study groups.
• technical support, key tools, and AI
  Modern LMS can integrate various additional tools that help administrators and employees work. Talent management can often be integrated, but so can tools such as notes or chat functions that support daily work. A variety of applications can be connected to an LMS via interfaces. This synchronizes the data and provides employees with the best possible support in learning.
• scalability as required
  The learning platform should be geared to the company's current and future needs (e.g. through a variety of offerings, blended learning opportunities, approvals and learning paths for more individual learning) and offer various options.
• Versatile and adaptable
  The user interface of an LMS should be adaptable to your own corporate design. You should also be able to easily incorporate new content, such as updates, new training or adjustments to comply with the law.

On-premise vs. cloud: Which LMS is the best?

Which is the best LMS depends on the goal that a company is pursuing with it. External hosting is now becoming more and more common. On the one hand, because technological developments make it more cost-effective, but also because the requirements for professionalism in continuing education are increasing, but also because the demand for data security is increasing. Professional providers have the appropriate capacities and are usually better able to comply with the high standards.

On-premise vs. cloud

An LMS running on the company-owned servers is operated (On-premise) consumes enormous resources today: in-house IT maintenance or security updates, as well as scaling and legal security. This requires a lot of personnel, but also IT know-how and could become a problem in view of the shortage of skilled workers and high costs.

The advantage of cloud-based LMS is that it offers flexibility and enables mobile working, because access also through single sign-on (SSO) and SaaS (“Software as a Service”) is simplified. An IT service provider operates the platform and provides services and maintenance.

Companies are now also facing a new dimension of cyber attacks, meaning that companies are also moving to the cloud because — depending on the professionalism of the provider — they can be more secure. The belief that data is more secure, especially on one's own company servers than in the cloud, is usually no longer true.

Hosting: Where is the LMS operated?

Criteria such as GDPR compliance also always play a role in software solutions or external hosting. The location of the servers is important, for example, so as not to create any risks with regard to data protection requirements.