Learning Management System (LMS) – Ten Tips for SME Buyers
What constitutes an SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprise)? Being classified as an SME will depend on an organisation’s employee headcount, turnover or even the balance sheet. The exact classification will also depend on which part of the world you live in. For example, to be an SME in the UK you would need to employ fewer than 250 people and have a turnover of no more than £25 million (pa). Meanwhile in Europe the turnover is measured at €50 million, while the USA and Canada set the standard employee benchmark at 500. SMEs often fall into one of three categories: Micro (<10), Small (<50) or Medium (<250) based on European classification.
Learning Management Systems, often referred to as an ‘LMS’, were first introduced into organisations in the late 1990s. Today it’s estimated that there are over 1000 Learning Management Systems on the market; elearningindustry.com have over 466 listings on their website alone, targeting organisation buyers. The LMS market has historically focused a lot of its sales efforts at larger organisations. It is estimated that over 90% of organisations who employ more than 2500 staff have purchased a Learning Management System. SMEs are not such an attractive sale to LMS suppliers due to their lack of staff (‘users’ in LMS language). LMS pricing is most often based on user numbers, so less staff equates to a lower sale price. It is estimated that only 30-50% of businesses with an employee base of up to 500 staff currently have an LMS.
In the United Kingdom (and similar in other countries) SMEs make up over 99% of businesses and employ 60% of the population. In truth most of these are either micro-businesses with less than 10 staff or businesses with zero staff (76%), the latter commonly being sole traders. The other 250,000 SMEs (10-250) employ around 7.5 million people, only 32% less than the 11 million employed by the 8000 larger organisations (>250).
When it comes to buying an LMS, SMEs may have different needs to those of large organisations who might have comprehensive HR support as well as training & development personnel. So, what should SMEs look for when buying a Learning Management System? Here are our ten top tips:
Intuitive Design
Learning Management Systems have two main user roles. SMEs will have one or two administrators who will be responsible for tasks like loading content onto the LMS, adding users and running reports. Most employees fall into the second category , the learner. These are the individuals that use the Learning Management System to gain experience with the subject they have been enrolled into.
We are all familiar with Facebook, Airbnb, Netflix, or internet banking; these are all intuitive platforms that offer users an easy to navigate and well-designed user interface (known as UI). These positive experiences exist because the designers built the LMS with the user experience in mind (known as UX). Good UX and UI design are important when selecting an LMS.
Traditional Learning Management Systems (some of the more popular LMS on the market) have been around for 20 years and were built more for administration purposes than around the user experience. In a sense, they were made for practicality over aesthetic. Some of these ‘established’ systems have attempted to improve the user interface to make the LMS look better on the surface, but this is like putting a plaster on a broken arm. If the LMS was not initially designed with the user in mind then a complete overhaul is required. When evaluating a Learning Management System SMEs need to be careful not to form their judgement of the LMS based on the provider’s website, which is often slick and well-marketed (as this is much easier to do than improve an LMS). On a modern website any LMS can look great, but the real experience is often quite different. Most Learning Management Systems offer a free trial and it’s vital that buyers jump in and have a good play around with the actual system. Remember the old saying: do not judge a book by its cover. This could not be truer when it comes to evaluating the right LMS for our SME.
If the Learning Management System is not built around excellent an UX and UI the platform will probably not feel intuitive and employees will get frustrated. This means additional support will be required from the administrators. Invest some time during your trial period to effectively test the system’s main features. Does it feel intuitive and easy to use? Does it have a modern look? Does it feel like the Learning Management System has been built around the UX with a good UI? Buying an LMS with poor UX or UI is like buying your family a black and white TV in the 21stCentury.
Mobile Friendly
Statistically, 80% of SME employees use their mobile phones or tablets to access Learning Management Systems and e-learning courses. Research has indicated this will only increase in the future. When choosing a Learning Management System (and its authoring tool) ensuring the LMS is mobile friendly is essential. While many Learning Management Systems claim to be mobile friendly or ‘responsive’, it’s worth investigating if this applies to the management reports as well as the learning itself. A large proportion of administration tasks will take place on a desktop or laptop, so this is not as essential. However, managers will often have to access their teams’ learning records using a mobile device while out in the field, so check these reports are responsive.
Easy Configuration
At this stage, it is worth mentioning that a lot of SMEs may not have many dedicated training and development professionals, if any at all. The LMS is often managed by an office manager or administrator whose time is in demand. Make sure you buy a Learning Management System where the initial and ongoing configuration is intuitive and easy to use. The key things to look out for are:
The Right Pricing Structure
The cost of an LMS is always going to be important to any business and even more important for an SME who may not have the cashflow to lay out a large investment. Buyers need to first identify what features the Learning Management System has identified as a ‘must have’, which are identified as ‘preferred’ and which are not required at all. Lots of LMSs list the pricing structure on their website while others will ask you to request a quote. In many cases the pricing structure depends on the number of users required, with the price decreasing exponentially for more users. Here are some key pricing considerations:
World Class Support
The support you will receive with your Learning Management System will vary from provider to provider, with some offering paid options for premium support. When purchasing an LMS you will need support during the initial set-up, collaborating the portal, uploading users and content, and most importantly support to train the administrators, managers, and learners. The most vital support required will be for employee/s who will be administering the system as they will be the first ‘go-to’ point of contact when the learners have any issues.
SMEs need to consider the support they will receive to set-up the Learning Management System and to aid them throughout the duration of the subscription. There is nothing more frustrating than not getting the appropriate level of support quickly.
Here are some questions around support to consider when purchasing a Learning Management System:
Email Management
When purchasing a Learning Management System look for one that has an internal email management process wherein emails are automatically triggered by an event in the LMS. These events might include a welcome email, a course reminder email, or a ‘forgot my password’ email. As an SME you do not want to be managing these from Outlook. Ideally the Learning Management System will give the administrator the freedom to update the text and brand the emails with your logo and colours.
Certificate Management
You may want your Learning Management System to manage your employee certificates. Look for an LMS that allows you to create automatic certificates for the learner upon the completion of any kind of content. This process should also keep a record of the certificates so the user can view them, and managers/administrators can run reports on them. In the event where certificates are not available, ensure the LMS has a clear way of viewing and reporting on completed content. As a small business manager, you will want to be able to access this information at the touch of a button.
Let us say you employ 20 forklift drives who need to complete a forklift certification course every year. You want your LMS to easily record the completion date, generate a certificate and record the certificate expiry date. Managers can then run simple reports showing them which certificates are coming up for renewal, so the organisation is not placed under any risk.
Free Content
LMS content availability usually falls into one of three categories: content that is free, content that you must pay for on top of the LMS subscription, or no content at all. Of course, SMEs can always create their own content, but this is time consuming so its always good to have at least a basic selection of free content your users can access. Ideally, you will be looking for a mix of popular off-the-shelf free content and internally developed content which is unique to your organisation.
Free content may include some of the following.
SCORM Capability
A lot of SMEs will not have heard of the term SCORM before, let alone having considered creating a SCORM course. SCORM is a specific kind of file (.zip file) that is loaded into a Learning Management System to run a course. You can compare a SCORM file to a PowerPoint file which has the extension ‘.pptx’. In the same way, you can compare a Learning Management System to PowerPoint (the software). Another way of thinking about it is that a SCORM file is a record, while the LMS is the record player.
A Learning Management System is far more powerful and diverse than PowerPoint. For example, any decent LMS will allow the administrator to load and download (even run in some cases) a .pptx file (PowerPoint presentation), while you cannot run a SCORM file using PowerPoint. The main reason (among others) we create courses using SCORM is that it allows the LMS to record and track the learning completed. If you create a quiz in PowerPoint there is no way of tracking those results alone, but if you convert the quiz into a SCORM file, the Learning Management System can automatically track, record and then report on the users’ results, which of course is useful and at times essential.
The other reason we like SCORM is because it is recognised as the industry standard way of developing e-learning content. Further, it does not matter what Learning Management System you use, as any SCORM file will play on it.
To create these SCORM files you need to use an authoring tool which can publish (export) the content into the SCORM .zip file. Some Learning Management System do not accept SCORM files but use their own internal tool to create the learning materials. In our opinion we think this is problematic and is something we will highlight in tip number ten.
Choosing the Right Authoring Tool
Internal Authoring Tool v External Authoring Tool
Internal Authoring
Some Learning Management Systems have a built-in authoring tool wherein the content creator can create the learning inside of the LMS and publish directly to the LMS library. Some internal tools allow for these files to be exported as a SCORM file while other tools are not SCORM and only allow the content to be run using that specific LMS.
A good example of this is rise.com from Articulate. Rise (as opposed to rise.com) is one of several excellent authoring tools developed by Articulate and forms part of their Articulate 360 product. As a standalone product Articulate Rise is a great authoring choice for SME. It creates excellent e-learning courses which can be published into a SCORM format and, most importantly for SMEs, it’s extremely easy to use (I cannot overemphasise this point). The only downside is the cost, which at $1,000pa per author will stretch the SME’s budget. There are other more affordable options entering this marketplace, with our favourite being edital.co.uk. They offer a similar experience to Rise but at a much reduced price tag which comes with a monthly payment plan if preferred.
Further, Rise.com (as opposed to Articulate Rise) is an LMS that has the authoring tool ‘Rise’ built into it. So far so good right? The downside is, anything you create in Rise.com cannot be exported, meaning you are stuck with Rise.com forever as an LMS unless you want to start all over again with your content creation. We are not fans of this model at all as it makes it hard for the client to switch LMS providers in the future.
One more point to make is that even if the LMS allows you to create content and export it to SCORM, you are still creating that content in the authoring tool that the LMS provides you with. So while you can export the file initially you would require their authoring tool to be able to update the content. LearningPool is a good example of this. Their LMS uses a tool called ‘Adapt’. Let us say you create a course in Adapt but one day you switch LMS providers, export your SCORM files and load them onto a new LMS. The issue arises when you want to change that course, as you will need to make those changes in Adapt. LearningPool would argue that Adapt is freeware and available to anyone, however in reality LearningPool have upgraded the tool it offers their users and the free version is complex to install and use and in our opinion a large percentage of SMEs would struggle with this.
So, with internal authoring tools you cannot export the content, or you won’t have access to the authoring tool to change the content, should you choose to leave one day. It is however good for the LMS provider because its ties the client in and makes it difficult to leave. So, what is the other option?
External Authoring
Separate your Learning Management System and the authoring tool. Although you still have the issue that you are tied in with the authoring tool, we view this as the lesser of the two evils. You can create your courses in a standalone authoring tool, publish/export them into a SCORM file and load them into your LMS platform. The export/import process takes a few minutes and as an SME you have a lot more control over your content.
There are 133 authoring tools on elearingindustry.com. Below are the most well-known (but not always the best). My personal favourites are Articulate Storyline, Articulate Rise, and Edital.co.uk (new software):
Conclusion
Every organisation that is looking to purchase a Learning Management System should always start with the end in mind and ask the question ‘what do I need the LMS to do at the end of the day?’ This question will drive your decision making. For the SME a Learning Management System can be a great investment and makes running the training and development of the organisation a lot more professional and streamlined than using something like a shared drive. But before making a commitment we hope you will consider these LMS tips. Good luck!
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