Getting The Most Out Of Your LMS
If you or someone you know has recently completed an online course, chances are you’ve directly experienced or heard about the power of a Learning Management System (LMS).
An LMS helps big and small organizations, like professional associations, distribution companies or universities deliver education online. This includes lessons, messages, quizzes, readings, videos and more. But to be effective, enhance performance among learners, and build a culture of learning, an LMS must be properly organized and used to its full potential. Here are a few tips on how associations can get the most out of their own LMS.
Know your objective
Associations that adopt and use an LMS do so with the aim of delivering online education. But apart from building a culture of learning, associations should have a good sense of what they hope to achieve through their e-learning efforts. Is it increasing non-dues revenue? Sharing subject matter expertise? Adding membership value? Providing professional development opportunities for members?
Identifying clear objectives and making sure your staff, board, and members are aware of them will allow your association develop a learning journey with goals that can be implemented and tracked.
Training administrators and educators
For associations to succeed in their use of an LMS, it’s imperative that their system administrators and educators know what features are offered and how to use them.
An LMS vendor, in addition to understanding what an organization aims to accomplish with their e-learning, ought to offer their customers significant training and resources in how to setup and use the features offered by their LMS. For example, administrators should have an understanding of how to generate reports that give insight into the effectiveness of their e-learning content and approach. They should be able to easily gather information about whether or not learners are completing courses that they have signed up for, and in general, how their learners are progressing through courses. Remember that a good online experience for your members is the best marketing for your courses.
Comprehensive training with ongoing support and resources will help administrators and educators deliver their educational programming in a seamless way, and will help them understand whether or not their efforts are working.
Differentiate and track progress
Associations can experiment with how to best meet their members’ learning objectives by differentiating content. For example, focus on offering hot topics and topics that are relevant now.
Develop new content regularly and experiment with various course delivery formats. Specifically, experiment with short video segments of specific topics, blended learning approaches, videos, course interactions, and more.
An individualized learning experience through the LMS
A highly functional LMS also allows organizations to individualize the learning experience, which helps students feel more empowered and committed to their learning experience. Personalization through an LMS can be done for example by having students take part in a pre-assessment survey or test prior to beginning a course so that their learning journey is relative to their baseline competency. An individualized learning experience means students will be able to learn at their own pace and receive personalized feedback in a way and on subjects that are relevant to their needs.
Save time when communicating with learners
Among the most valuable resource to subject matter experts is time. They are busy professionals. However, for online learners, their commitment and success will be influenced by the quality of e-learning content. Therefore, if you are working with subject matter experts to develop content or if the courses are developed by your internal staff, make quality a must.
Because time is at a premium, communicate with your members regularly to draw attention to additional resources and to provide help for individuals struggling with a particular module or topic.Using the full engagement potential of an LMS will let your members know that their instructors care about their success.
Take stock of user feedback and commit to improving
It takes time to perfect an LMS experience for users — both educators and students. But perfection won’t occur without careful consideration of their feedback. At some point in the process, LMS administrators will receive enough feedback that it becomes time to revamp and reoptimize their system’s functionality. Is there low uptake on courses? Do students complain about how content is organized or searchable? Associations should make it a priority to continuously improve and fine-tune how their LMS is working. To do so, it’s critical to keep track of what is and isn’t working.
For more information on how to optimize your LMS and e-learning experience, contact us at Vocalmeet.
