E-learning solutions are not just any other trend in the marketplace today. With the need for better and more accessible learning and the importance of skill development for professional growth, e-learning industry has created its separate niche in this dynamic and ever-changing business environment. Organizations are continuously investing in e-learning solutions and looking out for learning management system implementation so that they can provide their employees with a robust online training platform to leverage for skill and knowledge upgradation.
However, an LMS portal implementation can only be as successful as it provides value to its users keeping them engaged and interested in the learnings. There can be in numerous instances where LMS implementation has drastically failed for the simple reasons that the target audience was not paid attention to and their requirements not met. So, how do you make sure that this does not happen with your platform? How do you ensure that your LMS implementation is successful?
Well, here are seven full-proof ways that make sure to keep up with the user requirements providing them beautiful interface and excellent experiences thereby assuring you for the success of your Learning Management System Implementation.
7 Tips for Successful LMS Implementation
Access to the Learning Management System
The most important factor for achieving success for your learning management system is access to it. The users want portals and systems that are at their fingertips. They do not want to go through long driven processes or rely on particular devices, or even internet connections for using any system or software. All the users look for in this fast-paced world are software, systems, and applications that they can access at their comfort and convenience in real quick time, from any place, without any restrictions. So, it becomes critical for you to keep your LMS portal highly accessible in every aspect.
Here are certain areas where you must take care of the accessibility to the Learning Management System.
Remote Access
Providing remote access to your users for the LMS portal is very important. It enables them to take the lessons and courses at any time and from any place at their convenience without confining them to a single device. You can create user logins and passwords for the learning management system, using which the users can access the portal easily from just any place.
Mobile Access
Although remote access covers it to a significant extent, mobile access is still different from it. A system for which remote access is available may or may not be mobile responsive. However, if you want your LMS implementation to be successful, or for that matter, if you want any of your applications and software to give you expected results, make sure to keep them mobile responsive. The world is driven by mobile technology and it’s a device in every persons’ hands, very handy and easily operatable and accessible. So, when you keep mobile access for your online training platforms, the users can use the LMS and take up the courses and lessons even when they are commuting in public transports or such other places where using laptops or desktops is not possible.
Multilingual Access
The way the business environment works today, every organization wants to go global. Business diversifies internationally and thus it becomes important that this aspect be taken care of when designing and implementing learning management systems. It is always easier for the users to take courses and lessons in their native and regional languages. It’s easier for them to understand. So, it’s always preferable to provide multilingual access in your LMS so that it can support several languages and users can choose based on their preferences.
Internet Access
The world is run over by the internet today. People spend a lot of their time on the web. However, when it comes to using software and applications, they want them to be fast and never want slow internet connectivity to pose a roadblock to their experiences. They want the videos and lessons to be loading quickly and do not want to keep waiting for the buffer. So, you need to design your LMS such that it can even support low internet connectivity and not hinder the user experiences. Moreover, you can even have functionalities and features that may allow the users to access the LMS portal without the internet.
Automation
Automation is at its core in providing business with better capabilities to enhance the workflows and achieve operational efficiency. The technology is continuously growing in scope and probably finds its usage in every industry vertical. Using the technology for a learning management system can go a long way in catering to a successful implementation.
Automation helps you to schedule the routine and regular tasks to be performed on their own without any human intervention and this can save you a lot of time and support better functionalities in your LMS. You can use it for report generation, filtering and sorting the results, tracking and monitoring the user activities, etc. Even the account creation process on the LMS can be automated by simply syncing it with the employee onboarding process. Furthermore, the sending of important mails, as well as other marketing emails to have better engagement over the LMS, can also be automated. Automation can also help the users as well as admins set important reminders to keep a track of activities.
All these are excellent measures for bringing in traction and engagement on part of users and keeping the LMS effective and efficient.
Content Management
Content is what sells over your learning management system and it’s going to sell only when it’s interesting, engaging, attractive, interactive, and most importantly as per the user requirement. If the users don’t find the content to be providing any significant value to them, they will simply opt-out of your LMS portal, and the implementation will fail. So, you need to be very careful and proactive with the content management aspect of your online training platform.
You must make sure that the quality of content you are putting up for the courses, lessons, and training is rich and coming from reliable sources. It shall be a good move to throw in references with your content to vouch for their reliability.
The content needs to be well-planned. It’s not enough to just put up the content, how it has been put up also matters. If you give it all at once, it can become overwhelming for the users and they may end up getting confused or finding things very hectic. So, you need to give time for planning.
The better way is to drip feed the content to your audiences. You must plan the courses and divide them into lessons and topics so that it is easier for the users to follow up and get the best out of the training.
Another important thing is to keep variety in the content so that there is always something new for the users and they do not get bored. The bottom line, the content has to be well-planned, well-curated, reliable, attractive, interesting, and engaging so that the users keep up with it and the LMS implementation moves towards success.
FAQ Support
Learning Management Systems are software solutions, run by technology, and with technology, there are always chances and risks of technical issues. So, you need support to fix these issues. However, running to the IT staff all the time for such support can be hectic for you as well as the support team. A better option is to have handy solutions for easier issues that do not have much of the technical aspects involved. For that, FAQ support over the LMS portal comes out to be very helpful.
Additionally, there are many clarifications that the users may need, and putting in query requests and waiting for a response every time can get frustrating for them. In this scenario as well FAQ support comes as a rescue mission.
The FAQ support will simply have a list of common and general questions, queries, and issues with relevant answers to them that the users can easily access to instantaneously find their answers and solutions.
However, even with such support, it is important to keep the IT Support Staff ready for complex and critical level issues, the answers to which are usually not available or cannot be made available through FAQ support.
User Testing
Testing the Learning Management System before its implementation is critical to its success and can in fact increase the success rate by many times. With user testing, you can beforehand get an idea of the experiences the LMS portal is giving out as well as the shortcoming and improvements required.
The best way to carry this out is to prepare a team of users and a test environment. This team can use the online training portal, analyze it, and report on its performance. Based on the reports, steps can be taken to enhance the performance of the system.
This user testing is critical at the start, however, even after the LMS implementation, it should be followed as a continuous process so that any shortcoming during the journey are also identified and fixed before they become a roadblock.
Marketing
Marketing is the best way for selling yourself. It’s one of the best promotions and the more you promote your learning management system, the higher the chances of its success. So, make marketing plans for your LMS so that it can reach your target audience.
You need to make sure that your marketing plans focus on your target audience, surround them, and acquaint them with the benefits of your portal. Remember, you need to provide the audience with a value proposition for them to buy you and your product. As long as you are able to impress your target audience with your marketing strategies, they are sure to convert and contribute to the success of your LMS.
Performance Monitoring
Performance Monitoring and measurement is the final part and one among the many ways for ensuring the success of your systems and software. As you measure the performance of your LMS, you know where you stand, and it will give you a clear picture of what success is looking like. And even if the LMS implementation is failing, performance monitoring will make you aware of the fact, give you an insight into the reasons for failure, and then you can work on them to rectify them and lead your implementation to success.
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Conclusion
So, these are seven brilliant ways to keep up with your learning management system and make sure that it is giving the best value to your users while meeting your expectations. The LMS implementation is just the first step and if that goes right, you are sure to achieve success. You only need to keep your target audience in mind and remember that user engagement is the key. All the above tips basically focus on bringing, keeping, and enhancing user engagement. So, keep to that, and there you shall be achieving business growth along with skill and professional development for your employees with your Learning Management System Implementation.
