The first thing to get out of the way when we discuss Tin Can or Experience API (xAPI) is that they are the same thing.
“Project Tin Can” was just the name of the original research project that resulted in xAPI. So that’s one less term you need to look up.
xAPI is a standard format for communicating and storing learning data. It tells everyone what data to store and how to write it down whenever a learner completes a learning experience. Storing individual experiences, not just quiz scores, is the driving factor of xAPI and Tin Can. But where does xAPI fit with the rest of the educational technologies out there including SCORM? Is it a replacement for SCORM? We’ll find out more as we dig into this topic!
Background
xAPI was created by the Advanced Digital Learning Initiative (https://www.adlnet.gov/), a program of the US government to promote best practices in digital learning. They knew that a common language that allowed many different learning software to communicate with each other were crucial for the industry.
At the time Tin Can was first imagined, around 2010, the internet was evolving and new web development principles were emerging. 2 examples that we see applied in the xAPI architecture are client-server separation (a web app should separate storage and interface so that they are independent on each other—thus xAPI focused only on storage) and statelessness (the data in each request should contain all the information required to understand the request without additional info from the server—thus xAPI includes many more variables in the stored data). Part of the need for xAPI was to keep up with modern best practices.
Like SCORM, xAPI provides a standard for the communication of learning data between systems. It further recognized that learning can happen formally or informally in many different contexts and formats; simply recording that something is “complete” or “incomplete” is not enough anymore. Educators want to know if it was a live seminar, an online quiz, an observational assessment, or more. All these experiences are significant to a learner’s journey so why not record them all?
xAPI stores each learning experience (whether it’s answering a question, completing a quiz, attending a seminar, or completing a course) as a “statement” encoded in a format called Javascript Object Notation (JSON). A statement can include some or all of the following information:
Actor: who is doing the learning? This includes a name and an email to identify the learner.
Verb: what did they accomplish? xAPI includes many possible verbs to describe what the learner did (for example: passed, failed, completed, attempted, attended, commented, and more).
Object: a reference to the learning content including a URI to the resource.
Context: is the activity a part of something bigger?
Result: Did they pass or fail? What was their score?
Timestamp: when did the learner complete the experience?
Authority: who is providing the training activity?
Extensions: if there is any relevant data that doesn’t fit in the areas above, put them here.
A learner’s records could include hundreds or thousands of statements and these need to be stored in a Learning Record Store (LRS) to be used later. The end result of xAPI is meaningful data about a user’s learning experiences. Having all of the information above on a learner would give you a very thorough picture of what they have learned so far!
It’s important to note that xAPI is only concerned about the format of the data, not the technology used to listen in so it seeks to cover a broad set of learning situations, not just LMSs and Elearning.
xAPI (Tin Can) vs SCORM
To talk about how xAPI is different from SCORM, we need to revisit certain factors about SCORM. In our previous post, we described how SCORM defined standards for interactions between an LMS and the learning content. SCORM focused on questions, passing grades, and scores specifically in eLearning modules. It listened for when the learner started a module, entered a question response, and ended a module.
Compare that with what xAPI stores above—xAPI is designed to handle many more situations than SCORM. Data collected with xAPI is also much more descriptive; that’s useful if the data needs to be shared across companies, organizations, or schools. A key point to understand is that xAPI is a format for storing data, not an end-to-end tool that does it for you.
So does xAPI replace SCORM altogether? Not exactly. As we mentioned, xAPI is a format for recording data that goes way beyond SCORM, it does not tell you how to listen for that data or interact with learning content at run-time. SCORM requires javascript to interact with content while xAPI leaves it up to the developers and authors to handle those interactions. Technically, you could use SCORM to listen for user data and store that data in an xAPI format, you would just be limited to the variables available in SCORM. It is most likely that the creators intended for developers to come up with their own solutions for handling interactivity beyond SCORM but to store it in a standard format.
Pros and Cons of xAPI
xAPI made changes to the SCORM concept in order to expand on the kinds of learning data that can be captured in standard set of records. It provides:
More robust details on learning activity
Records that can be shared between different contexts
Flexibility to fit more learning situations
However, with more power and flexibility comes more work. xAPI provides many more ways to store learning data but it is up to instructional designers and programmers to make use of them. It is great to be able to store the results of observational assessments, but it means that developers must create tools that would enable that since many existing elearning authoring tools are not yet equipped for it.
Ultimately, that is the challenge of xAPI. SCORM provided 8 standard functions that LMSs and learning content authoring tools had to account for. Once those were programmed into these products, instructional designers could create whatever content they liked knowing those functions would be handled without any additional codes. However, with the unlimited possibilities of xAPI and less restricting requirements, it is much more likely that it involves some coding.
How to start using xAPI
OK, you are sold on xAPI but how can you actually start using it in a real world setting? Just like with SCORM, xAPI requires the LMS and learning content to be compliant.
First, you’ll need to set up a Learning Record Store (LRS). This is where the data is sent, stored, and then retrieved for reports. This will need to be part of your LMS or at least integrated with it. Look out for LMSs that support xAPI or build an LRS yourself.
Next, you’ll need to ensure the content you published sends xAPI data to your LRS. This can be configured through a content authoring tool (that supports xAPI) or custom developed with your learning content (e.g. a web page that submits data to the LRS on completion).
Lastly, you need a way to get your xAPI data back out from your LRS as useful reports. This should be part of the LMS but, as always, you can build it yourself.
xAPI is most powerful in the hands of developers, so if you really want to make the most of the learning data you collect, you might want to look into a developer or development team for your project.
Are you looking to implement xAPI or SCORM in your organization or want to just learn more about it? Get in touch with us!
One of the things I enjoy about working as both an instructional designer and as a programmer is using technical knowledge to come up with new instructional design solutions and showing them to other instructional designers.
While technical knowledge is not a must-have in an instructional design role, it definitely helps when planning an organization-wide training program or trying to use the right terms at an I.T. meeting.
In this post we’ll cover the idea of web servers and clients, one of the key concepts of the world wide web, and how it impacts the development of Elearning.
Elearning is very dependent on the internet. Although there are still non-connected elearning programs out there, they are now few and far between (remember when MS Encarta encyclopedias came on CDs?). Web developers use the concept of server side versus client side when designing and maintaining their applications and sites. This concept separates the many different technologies used on the world wide web into 2 categories that are made for very different purposes.
The server–side technologies are used to publish content on the internet; they are like libraries making their books available to everyone. Client-side technologies are those used to access data on the servers; they are like members borrowing books from the library. Although we would call all the pieces involved either “programs” or “computers”, they each have different specializations to consider.
In general, server-side technologies are best for dealing with data that is universal to everyone. Client-side technologies are great at creating an experience for the user. This difference can be helpful for any internet application and eLearning.
Web Servers
Web servers are not a single technology but a whole bunch of technologies working together in an interconnected way. The machines behind our web servers today are faster and hold more data than ever but the main idea remains the same: putting your content and communications online so other users can access them. Each web server is a computer with specialized software to store lots of data, run scripts, and make content available to an audience over the internet. These specialized software include operating systems, web server software, databases, scripting languages, and file systems.
Every web server on the internet has an Internet Protocol (IP) address, a set of numbers and letters that act as an address. Domains are user friendly names that point to a specific IP address so users can type in names instead of what feels like random characters to get to their destination (like “Cogcentric.com”). Universal Resource Locators (URLs) are text that points to a specific resource “https://cogcentric.wordpress.com/” including the domain name, the protocol (e.g. “https” hypertext transfer protocol secure), and potential more information to specify a certain page or file to open. The URL is what you would type in the address bar of your browser.
How are web servers useful in instructional design?
As an instructional designer, you will constantly find yourself needing to make your content available on the internet whether it is an interactive SCORM file or a PDF file you want your learners to download. On the internet, these files are stored on a web server so your users are just one click away from accessing their training through the use of URLs, domains, and IP addresses.
Commonly a Learning Management System software is installed on the web server to add even more capabilities for your training program such as content publishing and record keeping. Software that provide services for everyone that accesses the system is usually stored on the server side.
Devices and Browsers
In the old days, a connected device meant a big desktop computer that plugs into the internet. Now, there are many more devices that can connect to the internet through a wired or wireless connection. Desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones are everywhere now and each one can be used to effectively deliver eLearning content. Regardless what kind of device it is, its purpose is to connect to the web servers and bring information to the end user. These devices that connect to web servers are often classified as client side and they use specialized software to retrieve data, interpret data, and display data in human-friendly ways.
One of the most important software on a client side device is an internet browser. Browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, and more are responsible for accessing web content form a server and either downloading them or converting them into media like displaying text, images, videos, and more. Other client side software might include email clients (that send and receive emails) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) clients (get download and upload files).
How is knowledge of devices and browsers useful in instructional design?
How your content displays to the learner entirely depends on client-side technology and whether you are publishing your content as HTML, video, or even Flash (a technology that dominated elearning and web games for a decade). Considering client-side technology means identifying the tools your learners will use to access your elearning and building accordingly.
It can be hard to keep up with all the ways learners might be accessing eLearning content but it is important! Make sure to track the statistics on what devices your learners are using to access your online resources. Are your learners using large screens or small screens? Do they have touchscreens or mice? Do they have a camera and microphone enabled? These are client-side technologies that can shape the elearning approaches you might plan and implement.
Conclusion: know the difference between client and server side
Understanding the difference between client and server technologies makes a big difference in how you plan and troubleshoot your eLearning technology.
Example 1 |client vs server online assessments: When planning how to deploy an online assessment, you might consider options that mark the user’s answers on the client side or server side. If marking is done on the client side (such as an Articulate Storyline output), all the marking information will need to be sent to the client’s device. Tech-savvy users might take advantage of this to look through the codes sent and find ways to cheat. Marking handled on the server side might be a bit more secure. The answer are never sent to the client, only the client’s result are sent to the client.
Example 2 | client vs server side troubleshooting: If you troubleshoot an issue for a user, it’s always crucial to find out what device and browser they are using. A client-side problem can occur if a particular piece of functionality doesn’t work with a particular browser or device. Internet Explorer was the bane of many web developers because they interpreted web content so differently from the other browsers resulting in client specific problems. Server-side problems usually affect everyone equally. This can help you narrow down the problem to something happening in your content or an issue with your LMS.
I hope this post helps you join in the discussion on what client-side vs server-side with regards to eLearning technology. If the web developers have designed around this paradigm for decades, why shouldn’t instructional designers? What technologies do you implement in your training programs? Does it separate server and client functionality in a way that works best for you?
Instructional designers, like everyone else, have tendencies and habits and I can’t help but notice commonalities between them. Ultimately the goal of eLearning is to teach something but there are just so many ways to do it and everyone brings their own background and experiences with them.
In this regard, I often see these three attitudes of instructional designers out in the field and thought it would be interesting to compare notes with the community!
Feelers
I think many instructional designers start a new project with feelings; they focus primarily on how they would like their product to make others feel. Not just happy, sad, or angry, but the impression the product leaves with the learner. Do learners feel at ease or nervous when completing the content? Do they feel confident in the information and ready to apply their knowledge? Are learners curious to find out more or are they bored? Feelers often describe their goals for the project in these terms.
The feel of the content is incredibly important and feelers have the right idea; most humans make emotional judgments about the content they consume. It is important to set the right tone and use emotions to best communicate your message. That’s why dramatic movies can be so memorable or video games can be so addicting. The feel of the system also provides other benefits such as establishing the culture of an organization.
Feelers might run into problems creating content that achieves the feeling they want to impart to the learner. They might set their sights a little too high and have a hard time reaching their goals. Or they missed out on the details along the way. Often times, feelers have a hard time describing the steps needed to achieve their goals, they just know where they want their big picture to end up. This might lead to messy development processes and a convoluted end result.
Technicians
Another attitude is focusing on ensuring your project meets all the requirements. I call this attitude the “Technician” for their emphasis on practical steps to solve a problem. Creating a plan and following the necessary steps with as little deviation as possible is the route to success. Goals are measured quantitatively or in yes/no answers. The most important factors of a project are time and cost estimates versus actual results. Technicians think about instructional design like software engineering.
Technicians are most concerned with whether the learning materials they create checks all the right boxes. Did they cover all of the key points and concepts? Do the assessments test the correct knowledge? Are the examples accurate? This is a great way to verify that your materials followed the stated objectives. Approaching a project in this way helps to keep the project focused, on budget, and on schedule.
A technical approach might run into problems when human learners don’t behave as expected or the knowledge needs a little massage to be more human-friendly. Teaching requires a little bit of creativity. If users are not getting something, repeating the same information over and over like a robot might not be the best way forward! It’s also possible that overly technical content might miss opportunities to make learning more efficient with levity, humour, fun, or more. Lastly, a technical approach assumes that all the requirements and how to achieve them can be set out perfectly from the start, but we know from experience that there are often improvements and optimizations we find along the way and designers need to be a bit flexible.
Visionaries
Sometimes I run into instructional designers, training professionals, or content creators that just seem to have the whole process of creating their project in their heads from beginning to end. They even have the potential problems mapped out and are always ready with a backup route. Ultimately, they have a vision for what they want to produce and that vision is thorough enough that you can ask them how and why and they would have an answer for almost every little detail.
Visionaries tend to overlap with Feelers and Technicians because they think about how they want their audience to feel but they also predict the steps to get there. This attitude towards instructional design tends to create the most thorough, effective, and creative systems that fit their environments.
This does not mean that visionaries are perfect, no one can be. Their vision, even perfectly executed, might still miss the mark. Or execution might turn out to be more difficult than expected. In some situations, a visionary attitude is simply not needed and the status quo works (why fix what isn’t broken?).
Conclusion: understand yourself and take inspiration from others
Are you more of a feeler, a technician, a visionary, or none of the above? There is no right answer and a diverse set of perspectives is important to every project! Knowing our own tendencies helps each of us identify our strengths and weaknesses. If you care most about the feel of your project, can you thoroughly describe your steps to get there? If you find yourself most worried about preplanned requirements, have you considered alternatives that arose during planning or from learner feedback? Seeing these tendencies in our teammates might allow us to provide new input into a project.
This is an opinion and not a rigorously researched hypothesis. I’m curious: what patterns do other instructional designers see in the field when it comes to attitudes about training, instruction and eLearning?
It’s common for an LMS to take on a bit of clunkiness through development, right at launch or as more courses and programs launch on the system.
Clunkiness is a general feeling that something on the system is not right and it is not as smooth as it could be. It can sometimes be hard.
I’ve run across clunky LMSs that technically achieved it’s stated goals and where the content isn’t really that bad but you would still describe the experience as “clunky”. This can be frustrating when you feel like you completed all the original goals but the project still feels unfinished. Doesn’t everyone want their LMS to be quick, slick, and intuitive? The tricky thing is that training programs rare complex systems with many pieces and possibilities for diagnosing a problem.
Here are a few ideas on where to look when trying to declunkify your LMS.
Too many functions, are you focused on learning?
It can be tempting to add too many features at once into a training site. Although the focus should be on training, it’s easy to start throwing in distracting features once the project gets going. Contests, portals, special events, even vacation days are things we have seen added to learning management systems. Be careful because these features, although useful, can add clunk to your system!
Suggestions
Keep functions to a minimum and try to focus on learning. It might not be the most exciting but when users log in to an LMS and all they can do is access learning content, it’s hard for them to lose focus.
Launch new features over time, after previous features have been accepted by the general population. Try not to overwhelm learners who likely have many other things to worry about.
Navigation, categories, and searchability
Content can fill up quickly in an LMS and no matter how carefully the metadata and categories have been organized, it gets to be a bit of a mass. For learners, struggling to find the work that they are assigned to do is an extra layer of frustration they could live without.
Suggestions
Use consistent title, name, and category formats. Categorize and tag all your content. Organize content in the order that users are expected to complete it (left to right, top to bottom).
Ideally, provide search functionality so that users have multiple ways to get to their destination.
Get rid of “checklists of checklists”, usually these are documents that list “everything you have to do” but end up referencing other lists of “everything you have to do”. Instead, try to organize content in a natural way that learners should access them.
Avoid training on how to do the training. If the steps to do training is so complicated that it requires a training course, it might require simplification instead of more training.
Look and Feel
Company cultures can differ wildly and each company has their own way of working. This means different expectations, visuals, lingo, processes, relationships, and more. Do these things match your company’s culture and processes? If not, users might experience these discrepancies as “clunkiness”.
Suggestions
Plan design styles (graphics, writing, etc) that fit your company. Build your content to match real programs that are part of your company culture.
Collect information from your stakeholders.
Use guiding text and images, communication to steer your learners in the right direction.
User Testing
User testing is a key step in implementing your LMS. Even if the LMS has been deployed in many companies already, you need to know that it fits YOUR company with YOUR training programs loaded.
Suggestions
Test with members of your target audience. There are many different methods for user interface testing but in general the point is to have members of your target audience to perform basic operations on the system and record their experience.
Are they accessing content the way you planned or are they finding another route? Are there key misunderstandings? Is there enough communication to help them find their way around?
Conclusion
An LMS can end up feeling clunky even if you did everything right in the design and building stages. Don’t let that get you down, it happens to lots of people. The important next step is to start looking for why users find the system clunky. These might not be obvious right away (otherwise it probably would have been caught during planning and development) and it’s important to keep an open mind (because the issue might not be something you expect). It can take time to identify the things that make your system feel “clunky” but it is worth it!
Learning Management Systems have become an integral part of how a modern organization operates.
In 2020, almost every business surveyed by the Association of Talent Development (ATD) reported using an electronic system to help manage training; up from 75% five years prior (Association for Talent Development, 2020). We can see that the trend of applying technology in training is increasing. This has become more significant as global events such as the Covid-19 pandemic emerges. Thus, it has accelerated the need for flexibility and adaptation to keep organizations moving.
The reasons to implement an LMS have become overwhelming and it is a standard requirement for a modern business to operate.
Scale: electronic systems allow training to scale with growth of employees, clients, and geographic locations.
Saving time and money: the ongoing need for training means that streamlining content online reduces time and resources spent. 75% of organizations say the cost of their LMS is justified by its results.
Standardization: standardized training content and record keeping across large organizations to prevent fracturing information and records.
Performance: improved training means improved employee performance. 59% of organizations report that they can tie learning outcomes to business objectives. In addition, 40% saw an immediate return on investment when implementing an LMS.
Data collection: gain immediate insight into the skills and knowledge of your organization that results in better informed decision making.
Leadership: managerial and supervisor training is where businesses have been publishing the most content and seeing the most return.
Retention: training means more engaged employees who see long-term benefits for their career. These employees are more likely to stay with an organization longer.
Safety and Compliance: training reduces workplace incidents and helps to ensure legally required procedures are followed. Digital records allow faster inputs and reports of compliance data when you need it.
Culture: foster your unique culture from onboarding through to career mapping for every individual; the LMS has become the major touch point for learners and the greater company culture.
These and other reasons are why modern businesses have integrated LMSs into their day-to-day operations. It has become a necessity in the competition to pull ahead or simply keep up in many industries.
This paper explores the current general trends in the LMS space and styles of systems that have emerged through adaptation in different fields. The resulting insights will provide a set of factors to consider when assessing an LMS and its fitness for a particular organization’s vision.
Basic Features
Several LMS features have arisen as the main drivers of LMS technologies being adopted by almost all businesses. We consider these basic features of an LMS because they define the current minimum role the LMS performs in an organization.
(More businesses have adapted LMS technologies, it arises the type of LMS features it has.)
eLearning Delivery: an LMS provides a platform to deliver eLearning. Publishing content online remains the primary sought after feature of an LMS.
Progress tracking: an LMS tracks and records individual learner completion for the eLearning content.
Reporting: an LMS provides reporting functionality to view collected training data. Reporting is a key function of an LMS that allows you to connect your learning activity with business outcomes.
The eLearning Guild found the following 10 features that were most sought after features of an LMS (The eLearning Guild and Adobe Systems, 2016). This list of features confirms the 3 basic features we have outlined above.
eLearning delivery
Reports
Email notifications
Search
Version Control
Manager view of direct reports
Assign training
Testing and quizzes
Catalog grade book
We can summarize that businesses concentrate their LMSs on delivering eLearning and tracking and reporting on learner completions. These features remain the primary focus even as new capabilities (such as micro-learning, experience API, crowd sourced content, and more) have emerged. Ultimately, businesses are looking for a product that does the basics really well without a lot of extras.
LMS Considerations and Trends
As existing standards are being established, the LMS industry is already looking towards innovation and evolution. Surveying trends in the industry, organizations continue to focus on enhancing the core features of learning management, not bringing in unexpected or peripheral functions. These new improvements are directed at how to do the basic LMS tasks better.
The ATD and eLearning guild have predicted that LMSs will evolve in the following ways based on their research (Association for Talent Development, 2018; The eLearning Guild and Adobe Systems, 2016).
Personalized: personalized learning provides instruction tailored to an individual based on their interests, experience, preferred learning methods, learning pace, job role, or other factors
Adaptive: adaptive learning is personalized learning that uses computer-based technology to modify content to a learner’s needs. Applying algorithms or artificial intelligence, the technology modifies content in real time based on learner behaviours and interactions.
Micro-learning: storing content in bite sized chunks along with the ability to deliver just-in-time training that is searchable and reusable.
Integrated authoring tools: administrators are finding that integrated authoring tools that allow content creation right within the LMS site provides further simplification of workflows to publish and maintain eLearning content.
Ease of use: ease of use for all users of the LMS remains one of the most sought after features for all LMSs. Businesses have identified that user friendly systems are quicker to be adopted and less time consuming to maintain. As a result, this increases in the return of investment.
These changes come in response to common training solutions that are starting to show their limitations and where there is considerable room for optimization. Personalization and micro-learning are changing the way we deliver training content; content that specifically targets at the learner and available when they need it is more effective than generic content full of distractions. However, maintaining content to support these styles of content is work intensive and requires significant human effort if done manually. Adaptivity, integrated authoring tools, and ease of use are features that compliment the new styles of eLearning delivery by making the LMS administrator’s job easier or automating the process altogether with programmed algorithms.sazw
While these trends appear to benefit LMSs across many different industries, specific styles of LMSs are evolving for distinct use cases.
Styles of LMSs
Categorizing LMS styles can be tricky because there isn’t a flat set of categories that capture the various types of LMSs; instead there seem to be certain areas of functionality that differentiate them. A style of LMS describes an overall evaluation of an LMS based on these suggested areas of functionality. There isn’t a single “best” solution for every situation. Instead, each LMS tends to perform better in some areas than others base on how each company use these LMSs.
In each area of functionality, it is best to consider a scale of how well the LMS executes each piece instead of a simple yes or no answer. The rating should assess how well the systems handle the function: usability of the end product, effectiveness in achieving learning outcomes, ease of administration, fitness to your organization, and more.
Content Style
External content (SCORM, xAPI): created and edited externally and embedded or linked by the LMS.
Internal content (HTML): created as HTML and saved in an LMS database and is editable from within the LMS.
Content Assignment
Dynamic Assignment: content is assigned to the learner based on programmed rules. Manager Assignment: content is manually assigned to learners by an manager or administrator. Learner Assignment: learners select the content they want to access.
Content Structure
Monolithic: large course content that take a significant amount of time to complete. Modular Learning Objects: individual modules with content that can be arranged into a hierarchy.
Management Structure
Single Organization: users are either learners or administrators within a single, hierarchical structure. Distributed Responsibility: access levels can be broken into a combination of roles (learners, managers, authors, admins, etc) and responsibilities can be distributed within “bubbles” of users.
Custom Features
Scheduling: the ability to schedule events with a time and place. eCommerce: the ability to perform payment transactions online to access content or services. Announcements: the ability to share announcements or news on the system. Discussion Forums: the ability to start discussion threads and post questions, comments, or replies.
Styles of eLearning
eLearning styles cover how the content is presented, the interface used to navigate through the content, and the process of completing the content. These patterns arise from common practices in online training; some focus more on video content while others on readings and documentation. The styles applied are the ones best suited to the content of the program.
As with styles of LMSs, it’s better to consider how well each eLearning style is executed instead of a yes or no answer. The rating of each style of content should consider: the effectiveness on learning outcomes, the usability of the end result, the ease of authoring and maintenance of the content, and more.
Slides: content is broken up into slides that are roughly the aspect ratio of a computer screen. Each slide contains enough content to maintain relatively consistent sizes of slides. Content is presented in the form of text, images, videos, audio clips, questions, etc. Users click a next/previous button to navigate through the content. Slides were made popular by classroom training often stored as slideshow presentations.
Video series: a series of videos are presented one at a time. Each page only contains one video or media content but sometimes also includes metadata in the area surrounding the video player. Users watch each video and click the next/previous button to navigate through the content. Interactive content like quizzes can be interspersed through a course but the content is primarily video based. Paginated videos were made popular by applying interface features of video players to online training formatted as videos.
Long page: content is made up of different kinds of elements combined to form a long page. Elements can include videos, images, interactive pieces, questions, and more. Users scroll through the content from top to bottom. There can be multiple long pages in a course but each long page covers a particular topic and isn’t restricted by page length. Long pages gained popularity for mixing interactive elements with multimedia elements and the adoption of tablets and phones as learning devices.
Documents: content is provided through downloadable documents such as videos or PDF files. Sharing documents was an important way to deliver eLearning before browsers and devices could support more multimedia rich content.
Full interactive: a single interface controls the navigation of the page as well as handles delivery of multimedia and interactive activities (such as in a game or simulation). Fully interactive training has been applied in educational video games and interactive documentaries.
Evaluating LMS Styles
The LMS industry has gained traction in many industries and has continued evolve in each environment. We believe there are universal trends that are emerging and becoming the new must-have features to run a modern training system. In addition, we also see styles of LMSs and eLearning that are adapting to fit their use cases.
Selecting an LMS has never been about finding the best overall system, but now more than ever with the extreme variety of LMS styles, the most important thing to consider is fitness in your specific operations and culture.
Below, we suggest a criterion that can be used in addition to your business requirements that evaluate an LMS from an instructional design perspective.
Basic features: these features are the core learning management features that allow you to deploy an online training program. It’s important to ensure these features line up with the training program you plan on implementing and its interactions with other business operations. Trending features: these are the state-of-the-art features that every organization can utilize and are beginning to see significant traction in the industry but have not yet become ubiquitous. Trending features allow you to benefit from the latest innovations and stay relevant into the future. LMS Styles: each LMS may excel in certain areas but struggle in others. Having a detailed vision and knowing what you want to build early on means being able to ensure your LMS strengths line up with your needs. LMS Custom Features: these features are specific requirements that you may or may not need but are not universally required. Sometimes, these features may be important enough for your project that they override other factors. eLearning styles: these styles determine how a learner will experience the eLearning content. It helps to plan out the types of courses and learning objects you are going to publish in the early stages of your design and assess an LMS based on how it can accommodate your vision.
Suggested LMS Criterion
Description
Score
Basic Features
Elearning delivery
How well eLearning delivery is handled.
Progress tracking
The depth and detail of records being stored.
Reporting
How well reporting is handled.
Trending Features
Personalization
The ability to personalize content for an individual.
Adaptivity
The ability to personalize content automatically and intelligently based on user inputs.
Micro-learning
The ability to organize content into small, searchable, reusable chunks.
Integrated authoring tools
The ability to edit content directly in the online system.
Ease of use
How easy the system is to use for all users.
LMS Styles
Content style
Internal
Content is edited and stored within the system.
External
Content is edited with external tools.
Content Assignment
Dynamic assignment
Content is assigned automatically based on programmed rules
Manager assignment
Content is assigned by a manager or admin
Learner assignment
Content is selected by the learner
Content Structure
Monolithic
Content is structured into large blocks
Modular
Content is divided into small blocks that can be organized into a hierarchy
Management Structure
Single organization
Access is organized around one set of learners and admins.
Distributed
Access can be distributed to groups of users with specific permissions within each group.
Custom Features
Scheduling
The ability to schedule class or events.
eCommerce
The ability to perform payments online to grant access.
Gamification
Systems to reward and show progress.
Notifications
The ability to send communications through the LMS.
eLearning Styles
Slides
Content is broken up into slides of a standard size that contain text and multimedia.
Video series
Content is primarily delivered as videos with activities interspersed.
Long page
Content is made up on multimedia on a scrollable page.
Documents
Content is made up of downloadable documents.
Full interactive
Content is delivered through a single interface as a game or simulation.
Conclusion
The “basic” LMS, a tool that helps organizations deliver, track, and report on eLearning, is now a mission critical part of almost all businesses. In general, businesses look for tools that perform the core functionality well and not for peripheral features. Common trends in the space are improving the way LMSs perform their roles by focusing on personalization, adaptivity, micro-learning, integrated authoring tools, and ease-of-use. Additionally, the styles of LMSs have evolved to meet different needs in different use cases.
A criterion that takes into account these factors can be used to help categorize and identify fitness of an LMS for a specific audience and ultimately select the most suitable product. The criterion provided in this paper helps consolidate these considerations and evaluate the current slate of LMSs for fitness in both and short and long term. While these considerations are certain to change in the future, we hope they provide a useful tool when exploring the current market.
A promising trend we are seeing is more and more training departments wanting to create learning plans that grow.
These are learning plans that start off with just a few courses but add more over time based on what the learner needs. This is part of a larger trend in the industry towards personalized and adaptive training.
1. Why
Learning management systems are moving away from the old model of learning content “repositories” where heaps of content is stored and learners are expected to sift through all of it. This ends up confusing and overwhelming new learners who just want to start their job training.
Learning plans that grow start off basic and manageable, maybe only a few orientation courses. No learner should be overwhelmed on day 1 of the job. But training doesn’t end at orientation. Courses become available as the learner completes their current training, requires more skills, or wants more challenge.
2. How
Creating learning plans that grow means designing your training program to accommodate growth using metadata and rules. Go all the way back to your curriculum design—what courses are available to each major role in your company? What is absolutely required at the start of each role? What content is commonly added later? What courses are needed for a team member to advance their career?
In your curriculum, include when and how a learner should receive each course in a new column.
Here are some ways a course might be added to a learning plan:
Prerequisites: a course becomes available after another course (the prerequisite) is completed. E.g. product training only becomes available after the necessary forms are signed off.
Timed release: a course becomes available after a certain amount of time. E.g. an onboarding training program is broken up into 4 weeks with a course released at the start of each week.
Self assigned: learners can find a course in a catalog and add it to their plan. E.g. a learner is interested in advancing their career or switching to another department.
Manager assigned: a manager can assign a course to a learner. E.g. a manager wants to promote a team member to assistant manager and wants them to do some introductory management courses.
Conditions: a course is assigned if the learner performs a specific action in the LMS such as selecting a certain response in a survey.
Once you’ve updated your curriculum design, it’s time to implement these rules in your training program. Although most LMSs support most the conditions above, they might not support all of them. As is usually the case as an LMS admin, you might have to get inventive with the features you have available.
Growth works best when automated so your design scales with your organization, but certain steps might require a human touch. Managers and instructors need to be able to manually assign courses to learners when they need them.
2. Conclusion
The idea that online training simply means providing a massive repository of learning content for learners to figure out themselves is becoming outdated—learners want to be guided through the training program and be assigned content that matters to them and their career path. This can be achieved with not just tools and technology, but design and planning.
