Best LMS?

Dec 10, 2012

My consulting firm is looking for suggestions for an LMS for a client of ours. The client is in the service industry and is publicly traded. The LMS would need to be able to support and track training from several different programs, including Storyline. Any suggestions of LMS's that you use or specific features we would need to be looking for in an LMS would be greatly appreciated.

19 Replies
Chris  Glass

Hannah,

 You said the following, "track training from several different programs." You had mentioned Storyline but can you tell us what are the others. 

You can use Moodle since it is a great product and we love how powerful it is. There are others like Articulate online, Docebo, Blackboard, and many more.

From what you are asking for is something that will allow SCORM, the ability to transfer/report to the LMS the results. Those listed above will do the trick. 

It really comes down to the other programs you may have and it will help to know what the other programs are. 

Chris  Glass

Well, with Storyline, you can change it to HTML5 and have the iOS app work with what you put out. 

TinCan API- That will eliminate Moodle but the others, Articulate Online, Blackboard, and Docebo all support the API. 

http://tincanapi.com/  - They will give more options as to who they support. 

PureSafety- What is the main purpose that they use this? Does it support SCORM? Could you dump the Storyline items into Amazon Cloud and have it report to the PureSafety? Their website is very limited with the amount of information about their products.

Patrick McLaughlin

You should check out Latitude Learning's LMS at www.latitudelearning.com. Originally built for a global Fortune 100 company, it is an easily configurable LMS with all the bells and whistles needed for a comprehensive eLearning regimen. It's also available at no cost for companies with fewer than 100 users. Check it out!

Karen Kahlig

Hi Hannah,

We identified the features we "had" to have and the "nice to have" features using an RFP template. In the "My Company Comments" column, we identified what we meant or why the feature was important to us. We used the "How the tool accomplishes it" column to identify if the tool could do it and how.  If you would like to see or use the template, private message me. I tried to attach it here, but I am not certain this forum allows MS Excel attachments.

We also did a bit of 3rd party research on capterra.com:  

http://www.capterra.com/learning-management-system-software?srchid=940559&pos=3

I hope this helps.

Dave P

I see that this is an old thread, but I'd like to provide my insight.  The options available today for LMS's are quite extensive.  I've been using LMS's for more than 15 years (and built a few of my own along the way), so I might be able to point you in the right direction.  You can go with the "free" LMS's such as Moodle and Patrick's suggestion above regarding Latitude learning with less than 100 users.  My experience with the "free" LMS systems has been that they are not really "free".  They take a very long time to configure properly and get working especially if you want to enable all the bells and whistles that they pretend are easy to set up.  I would steer clear of any "free" LMS, you'll get exactly what you paid for.

There are some really terrific LMS's available today that can handle content that's built in different applications such as Storyline, Lectora or even Captivate (although Captivate is not recommended due to Adobe having to plug more holes in their software code than there have been leaks in the Hoover dam in the last 100 years).  Many LMS companies such as Cornerstone or Meridian have decent working LMS's but my experience with them was not that great.  I think it was Cornerstone who got bought out while we were using them.  They had an almost non-existent support department and kept pushing code out to us that would break things and we'd have to go in and re-set them up again.  Not sure if they've gotten past all their glitches yet, but might be worth looking into.  There's another smaller company called EZ LCMS that I used for a little while.  I liked their system except it was built on old asp code and was a little dated at the time.  However, it did work pretty good and got the job done.  There's another company called eLogic Learning (http://elogiclearning.com) that has a terrific, easy to use LMS called "eSSential LMS" with a lot of power and functionality built in it that I really like that I didn't see with any of the other LMS's we looked at.  Things like text messaging notifications sent out to employees to remind them of upcoming training and built in WYSIWYG designers for creating Certificates.  We've been using this system for a while now and I am very pleased with it so far.

My one bit of advice for you when looking for an LMS, is do your research and ask a lot of questions.  Oh yeah, and if they tell you that their LMS comes with a built in "Authoring Tool", run away.  Run far, far away.  No matter how hard an LMS company tries, they will never, ever have as robust of an Authoring tool as Articulate has built with Storyline.  They are basically going to be selling you powerpoint on steroids.  LMS authoring tools are terrible.  Stick with Storyline as your authoring tool.  It's easy to use and you have a great community here to provide tips and knowledge on how to use it.

Hope this helps.


Dave

maren schubert

GreenLight - Who knows this LMS and has experiences using it?

I've read many of the discussions on evaluating/selecting LMS. Also looked at various rankings. 

I have not seen many comments on GreenLight from SilkRoad. 

Who has experiences with GreenLight? What are the pluses? What are the minuses?

I'm looking at an LMS for a manufacturing company with multiple sites, in different countries (languages).

Would start the test/application at a smaller site with 300 people. The whole company has about 3000.

One of the first things to achieve is centralize all existing training material, a good tracking and reporting.

Access for managers and learners alike.

It should be possible to group learners (a great percentage of hourly workers for certification training).

The LMS should have the potential to use more functionalities as the company moves forward.

However, the budget for an LMS is hardly existing.

Any suggestions for LMS besides GreenLight?

Kate Salvan

@maren if you are looking for lms that offers a variety of features for acceptable price, have a look at JoomlaLMS. The price per learner in a Standard license for 100 users is 3$, while the license for 10 000 users already offers 0,2$ as the price per learner and this amount can be even lower if you have unlimited number of learners. And it possible to purchase a license with a smaller number of users and upgrade later: with or without usage period  extension.

Tim Shelton

Obviously this question pulls any provider to show their wares. With that in mind we build and customise Totara LMS as an official platinum partner. This is a custom LMS which can be tailored around your requirements we can add to its features should you want custom modules or features. We can build to any budget and suggest other tools if they better fit your requirements get in touch to find out more.

We pair all our digital learning to LMS softwares we prefer to tie it into Totara as the functionality lines up best for both parties.

Get in touch if you'd like to know more.

If not good look with the service you choose.

Bobbi Bailey

Maren,

Back in January 2012, I was on the implementation team to implement Silkroad's GreenLight for the company I work for, which is also a global manufacturing company.  We had quite a few challenges and ended up bailing on that platform and implemented Cornerstone OnDemand Learning platform in June 2013 (which we are still using today).  If you are still in need of input regarding GreenLight from a decision making perspective.. or if you have already decided to go with GL and just want to network with someone who's been there, done that... feel free to reach out to me.  Just send me a private message through here and I'll be glad to provide you with my personal contact information.

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For those of you who are still trying to look for an LMS and are unsure where to begin or what to look for... I highly recommend Brandon-Hall's LMS KnowledgeBase which can be located at http://brandonhall.com/learning-management-systems.php  

The following is an excerpt taken directly from their webpage:

The LMS KnowledgeBase is an online, database-driven repository of information about learning management systems. It provides:

- 40-60 page profiles of more than 100 systems.

- Online tools to help you select and compare two or more systems side-by-side.

- A structured and proven methodology to help you identify your requirements and make a smart purchasing decision.

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Best of luck to all,

Bobbi

tin C

I am also doing some initial research and we want to be able to find a LMS vendor who not only has all the usual functions and features, but the ability to actually transfer our existing data from our current LMS into their LMS.

Has anyone gone through this sort of migration and how successful has it been, and which LMS would you recommend who can do this?

John roberts

Hello Hannah,

I have used three different LMS over the year following are...
1) Moodle: Moodle is the best tool that, I would recommend to most people.
It takes more time to read manuals and information about use it etc. But works very well when we understand it.

2) Saba: Unnecessarily big program that has more features, most people probably do not use it. saba have some problems with the SCORM object. so I think that reading is not always true.

3) Beetsol: I was recommended this platform from one of my colleagues as she knew someone at Beetsol. I hadn't heard of it before so I was skeptical of investing my time in it. I remember that I checked the website on my mobile and I had all the information I needed really quickly. This encouraged me to sign up for a free demo and I am glad I did. The platform has all the features that we were looking for but its best part is its ease of use and scalability. We had a free trial setup within minutes after our demo and we had everything we needed and more. The service and response times were great and I am glad we choose Beetsol.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

John.

Bhav Chahal

Hi Hannah,

GoSkills is a great solution for companies of all sizes. The platform is free, with optional premium upgrades that are priced on a sliding scale. 

The free plan includes:

Course creation by linking to any content on the web
Team creation and course assignment
Goal tracking for learners
Social learning 
Gamification
Reporting and analytics

By training from several different programs, do you mean standards-based courses? 

If so, GoSkills is able to host most standards-based courses (SCORM, xAPI, AICC, CMI5) as well as embedded videos, external links & resources, and classroom courses. This is made available through the enterprise upgrade, which will give your client a host of other benefits such as white-labeling, category creation, and a dedicated account manager.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out our platform here.

Hope this helps!

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