The Must-Have Features of an LMS
By Dave Evangelisti

Discussions about the benefits of a solid learning management system have been cropping up around water coolers and in boardroom meetings. Many executives have heard the buzz and agree that they could use a good LMS. But in an era of belt-tightening, they wonder which bells and whistles they can live without.

Buying an LMS is a lot like buying a car. Really. Although a family of six has different needs than an 18-year-old, there are certain basic features that most everyone is looking for, such as air bags, power steering, side mirrors, and some amenities. Auto manufacturers have been kind enough to design features to fit most anyone’s requirements, and so have most good LMS vendors. But which LMS features are anti-lock brakes and which are seat warmers?

To be successful, an LMS must fit into an overall e-learning plan (see Answer Geek for more information on learning strategies.). Before deploying an e-learning solution, determine the business goals you want your LMS to accomplish. Basically, an LMS worthy of your time (and money!) must provide an infrastructure that allows you to plan, deliver, and manage e-learning programs in any existing and future formats.

So, having said that, what are the basic features (brakes and headlights) of an LMS?

• Supports blended learning. People learn in different ways. An LMS should offer a curriculum smorgasbord that mixes classroom and virtual courses easily. Combined, these features enable prescriptive and personalized training.
  
• Integration with HR. LMS systems that aren't synchronized with HR systems miss the boat. When systems are integrated, a human resources employee can enter a new hire's information into the HR system, and the employee is automatically signed up for training tailored to his or her role within the company.
  
• Administration. The LMS must enable administrators to manage user registrations and profiles, define roles, set curricula, chart certification paths, assign tutors, author courses, manage content, and administer internal budgets, user payments, and chargebacks. Administrators need to have complete access to the training database, enabling them to create standard and customized reports on individual and group performance. Reports should be scalable to include the entire workforce. The system should also be able to build schedules for learners, instructors, and classrooms. Most important, all features should be manageable using automated user-friendly administration screens.
  
• Content integration. It's important for an LMS to provide native support to a wide range of third-party courseware. When shopping for an LMS, keep in mind that some LMSs are compatible only with the vendor's own courseware, and others do little more than pay lip-service to learning content standards. An LMS vendor should be able to certify that third-party content will work within their system, and accessing courses should be as easy as using a drop-down menu.
  
• Adherence to standards. An LMS should attempt to support standards, such as SCORM and AICC. Support for standards means that the LMS can import and manage content and courseware that complies with standards regardless of the authoring system that produced it. Beware, unless the vendor certifies that the content will work, plan on additional expenses.

Now what are the features (air bags and CD player) that aren't necessary but enhance value?

• Assessment. Evaluation, testing, and assessment engines help you build a program that becomes more valuable over time. It's a good idea to have an assessment feature that enables authoring within the product and includes assessments as part of each course.

• Skills management. A skills management component enables organizations to measure training needs and identify improvement areas based on workers’ collective competence in specified areas. Skills assessments can be culled from multiple sources, including peer reviews and 360-feedback tools. Managers determine whether results are weighed, averaged, or compared to determine a skill gap. Businesses also might use this feature to search their employee base for specialized skills.

• Configurability. If an organization needs to completely re-engineer its internal processes to install an LMS or employ expensive programming resources to make changes to the LMS, then it’s probably not a good fit.
  
  Also, it's helpful if IT and designers can access the LMS behind the scenes; they need to set processes and standards based on company policy. To make some systems IT- and user-friendly, some LMS providers have user groups or customer advisory councils that provide insight into installing or upgrading systems.
  

Finally, there are features (lighted vanity mirrors and seat warmers) that may be used infrequently or only by a limited number of people. As a buyer you should know when someone is trying to sell you a patented rust-resistant undercoating.

• Online communities. A community learning or collaboration component supports communication across an organization through chat rooms, bulletin boards, newsgroups, online support, help desks, and so forth. This capability lets learners supplement information from instructors and online courses with knowledge from other learners. Although that seems like a compelling LMS feature, experience shows that many companies don’t have the critical mass to support viable online communities. By and large, only geographically dispersed and extremely large companies have the potential need to communicate via chat rooms and newsgroups.

• Content management capabilities use small learning objects to build courses and curriculums. For instance, three to four slides on how to evacuate a building could be reused numerous times for various instruction cycles. However, if your company is in the early stages of its e-learning program, you probably don’t have the expertise to develop content at the object level. This might be a nice piece of functionality down the line, but it’s not really a selling point for organizations just starting to use e-learning.

There's little doubt that an LMS is a good investment, but the overall selection process can be frustrating. Finding the system that's the best fit for your company requires a methodical selection process and careful survey of available features.

Vroom, vroom.

Published: March 2002