Marty, well done! I created a substantial RFP, but in the demos I let vendors drive when I should have asked them to perform these items for us...the ones on your list. Had we done that, we would have seen more of the clunkiness of our chosen LMS vendor. It gets overwhelming without this kind of focus. Nice!
It was absolutely the smartest thing we did. We did an extensive RFP, as well, and received thousands of pages back from the vendors. The original demos showcased what the vendors wanted us to see. The scripted demos gave us a real-life view of what the system would do and how it would impact us on a daily basis.
That also brings up another excellent point about the RFP process. It may not take long to add a question/requirement to the RFP, but it can be a mammoth job to review the responses that come back in response (A one-line question can bring back a 5 page response). I'd recommend assigning knowledgeable owners to the individual requirements up front. Ask them to be responsible for reviewing all the responses related to that topic and provide any feedback on the exceptional (good or bad) responses.
Yes, Marty, it feels a bit like congress dumping 1000s of volumes of books out that they know no one will be able to read in time for a vote...or lawyers doing the same in the interest of "discovery." You don't know how daunting the process is until you are in the middle of it, if you're not careful!
Currently we are trialing Litmos. Has anyone used that one?
Its got a good admin interface and reporting. Plus the ability to "sell courses". I'm still new to the company so I wasn't informed for all the exact reasons for the choice.
If anyone has any insights to Litmos or suggestions for other LMS that has the following capabilities let me know.
Capabililities:
SCORM compliant
able to upload HTML5 content for iPad/iPhone
able to track, report
API to allow single sign on
relatively lightweight
can support over 200 users (potentially)
easily to use interface (obviously)
I plan on developing the courses and materials using Articulate Storyline.
Hi Mike why not look at the Kallidus solution from e2train provides integrated LMS, Performance Management and Talent & Succession capability. Visit http://www.e2train.com for more details. High degree of client-end configurability, full domain functionality, flexible administrator role permissions (all controlled by your top-lvel administrators), powerful reporting capability courtesy fo the embedded Business Objects reporting engine. I used Kallidus for five years as a client and then joined the company in April this year to help others realise the benefits of it as a holistic, 'future-proofed' solution.
It supports both Scorm and AICC packages. The link below gives details of the LMS' features.
I found time to run the Articulate Online demo. Very user friendly both from admin and user side. So far, it seems to do everything we need which is, basically, publishing courses we design in '09 and/or Storyteller, maintaining the courses and reporting. It supports groups, which is huge for us. The best part is, I figured eveything out without having to look at a manual or post a help request .. it's that user friendly! I'm surprised no one else jumped in this forum string to support it (?).
Articulate Online is very good for the use that you described. (Tracking Articulate software generated content) In my own situation, I include content from a variety of software programs and need advanced features that can stand on their own. For instance, if you needed quizzing features (outside of your normal SCORM Articulate package) like question analysis or mapping to individual learning objectives, then a more robust learning management system with additional features might be necessary. I have not looked at AO in a while and they've probably added some features over time, but I'm giving you an educated guess as to why more people are not chiming in on the forums as using the Articulate LMS solution even though they use Storyline/Presenter all the time.
This has been a very interesting discussion. Marty, I think your idea of asking LMS vendors to step through specific tasks is a great idea.
Karyn, your story sounds a lot like mine. I was hired after we chose AbsorbLMS as our first LMS. We went live at the beginning of 2011. It has been a bumpy road. There are a lot of good things about Absorb and a lot of challenges. I work for an association and we use the LMS to keep track of our members' education, including CPE credits. The user interface is fairly simple, but some of our users had trouble with pop-ups, Flash, and security settings that can be hard to overcome because we have no control over their systems. But I expect that might be the case with a lot of LMSes. We also did SSO integrating with our association management system. I sometimes wonder if it would have been easier to use their shopping cart instead. Our other big issue is with our certificates because of the detailed information we need to include on them for CPE purposes. I'd love to have more control over them.
I can say that the people at Absorb have been very responsive when I've noticed problems, but I have had to create a lot of work arounds and figure things out for myself. Sometimes I think I'm just trying to put a round peg in a square hole.
I'd love to hear what other associations are using.
We are using Blackboard 9.1 SP8, its best among all existing LMS. unlimited features, app integration, easy accessibility, SCORM standard compliant, Assessment, reporting, monitoring task activity, report generation along with tools up-gradation, interactive learning, mobile learning, collaborative learning, Social activity synchronisation etc.
Does anyone have any experience, good or bad, with Inspired LMS. I've run some of their demos and it look good but would like to hear from anyone who has used it. Thanks.
Overall, I liked Adobe Connect's LMS the most. Is the eastiest to use (for learners) out of the three. I think the style and interface is the most current. The reporting features and back end functionality was intuitive and functional.
We are using JoomlaLMS for a year already, and are quite happy with the solution!
It has a wide list of features: http://www.joomlalms.com/features/ and is highly customizable. The prices are affordable. Thanks to the integration with JomSocial we created a social network to make learning less academic and more enjoyable.
Among cons I would mention weak reporting system and lack of mobile application (btw, in elaboration, as assured by their support team, let's hope... ).
We've been managing for a long time without one. The presentations write to a database which isn't ideal. We're now getting moodle 2.1 which should be installed next week. A partner company I have done some work for uses Totara, but I'm yet to see the benefits that it brings over Moodle. I mean it has good reporting functions and you can build in a company hierarchy which is great, but it's a lot of money for what is essentially Moodle with some plugins.
I'm not the buiggest fan of Moodle, but compared to our current method of reporting, it's going to be a blessing.
in the past I've also used Kallidus from e2train which was pretty good.
I think there is one common theme though when it comes to an LMS, we will always have our issues, whichever on ewe use because none of them are perfect and all of them have faults!
i agree with Rebbeca Hay, their isnt a perfect solution unless money is no objection. what you need to is make a comprehensive list of your requrements and list of functionality( regardless if you need them or not) so you dont get any surprises.
few basic things you need to consider:
1) interoperability- do you need to the system to interact with existing or upcoming systems
2) in house experts- will you guys be able to troubleshoot internaly
3) usability- how is it to use to navigate around the site from a user perspective
4) vendor background- this is often ignored. please check their credibilty, support level etc. sometimes this can make all the difference.
Agree with Rebecaa and Asif, but IMHO everyone should start thinking about moving away from LMS systems altogether. Really an LMS should be called an RMS because it's reporting more than it's fostering learning. If you were thinking purely about how people could "learn" you wouldn't use any of the LMS systems, because despite some doing social media better than others, they all are about one piece of content displaying in one particular course and as a general rule don't include much flexibility/adaptability.
In that regard any content management system would be far superior to any of the LMS systems mentioned for displaying content. Most LMS systems are structuring content (and courses) in a paradigm that may not even really exist 5 years from now.
I'll get off my soapbox now, but instead of thinking about what features any particular LMS system has that we need, we should all be thinking about what delivery platform the learners will want and that will work the best. Granted, I understand the need for reporting/regulators, but I think the LMS systems are putting us all in boxes that are soon going to be unnecessary.
There's a great article on Search Engine Watch about rewriting the rules of fiction and video. Strangely enough my first thought was how could an LMS system deal with this future and of course the answer I came up with is that they probably can't.
We are in trials now to select a replacement for our current and overly robust LMS. I chose the most user friendly for my short list and focused on funtions that are most important to us. Seems they all can deliver content to users equally well so I 'm concentrating more on how well they perform and, most of all, how easy they are to use on the admin side. The ones I chose for trials had either very basic authoring or none at all. I decided to search separately for a GOOD authoring tool knowing that most LMS's can handle scorm content.
We use Docebo: it is more "corporate oriented" than moodle, very fast and user friendly both on user and admin side, and with a very powerful and customizable reporting system.
We use Docebo too, for the same reasons as Alberto. In addition we think it is very good value for money.
I am a Docebo user, when I started to look for an LMS my choice criteria was:
- Online trial: I needed time to have my own installation to try and to activate online in order to evaluate features and simulate - Easy to use: You can start with simplified interface and use the ""Advanced features"" when needed. - Nice multimedia content player and fresh interfaces (Lot of LMS like Moodle, Blackboard have really OOLD look ...) - Customization possibility for: Template, Languages and Third party interfacement.
(They recently rised 3M U$ from a Venture Capital firm then I think they have budget to invest on the product ), it's a solution that you can activate online at http://www.docebo.com for free and test at your convenience.
301 Replies
It was absolutely the smartest thing we did. We did an extensive RFP, as well, and received thousands of pages back from the vendors. The original demos showcased what the vendors wanted us to see. The scripted demos gave us a real-life view of what the system would do and how it would impact us on a daily basis.
That also brings up another excellent point about the RFP process. It may not take long to add a question/requirement to the RFP, but it can be a mammoth job to review the responses that come back in response (A one-line question can bring back a 5 page response). I'd recommend assigning knowledgeable owners to the individual requirements up front. Ask them to be responsible for reviewing all the responses related to that topic and provide any feedback on the exceptional (good or bad) responses.
Yes, Marty, it feels a bit like congress dumping 1000s of volumes of books out that they know no one will be able to read in time for a vote...or lawyers doing the same in the interest of "discovery." You don't know how daunting the process is until you are in the middle of it, if you're not careful!
I'm currently searching for trade shows where vendors may be demo'ing their LMS.
Currently we are trialing Litmos. Has anyone used that one?
Its got a good admin interface and reporting. Plus the ability to "sell courses". I'm still new to the company so I wasn't informed for all the exact reasons for the choice.
If anyone has any insights to Litmos or suggestions for other LMS that has the following capabilities let me know.
Capabililities:
SCORM compliant
able to upload HTML5 content for iPad/iPhone
able to track, report
API to allow single sign on
relatively lightweight
can support over 200 users (potentially)
easily to use interface (obviously)
I plan on developing the courses and materials using Articulate Storyline.
http://scorm.com/scorm-solved/scorm-cloud-features/
Hi Mike why not look at the Kallidus solution from e2train provides integrated LMS, Performance Management and Talent & Succession capability. Visit http://www.e2train.com for more details. High degree of client-end configurability, full domain functionality, flexible administrator role permissions (all controlled by your top-lvel administrators), powerful reporting capability courtesy fo the embedded Business Objects reporting engine. I used Kallidus for five years as a client and then joined the company in April this year to help others realise the benefits of it as a holistic, 'future-proofed' solution.
It supports both Scorm and AICC packages. The link below gives details of the LMS' features.
http://www.e2train.com/products/learning-management-system-lms/lms-features
Andrew.
I found time to run the Articulate Online demo. Very user friendly both from admin and user side. So far, it seems to do everything we need which is, basically, publishing courses we design in '09 and/or Storyteller, maintaining the courses and reporting. It supports groups, which is huge for us. The best part is, I figured eveything out without having to look at a manual or post a help request .. it's that user friendly! I'm surprised no one else jumped in this forum string to support it (?).
@Mike
Articulate Online is very good for the use that you described. (Tracking Articulate software generated content) In my own situation, I include content from a variety of software programs and need advanced features that can stand on their own. For instance, if you needed quizzing features (outside of your normal SCORM Articulate package) like question analysis or mapping to individual learning objectives, then a more robust learning management system with additional features might be necessary. I have not looked at AO in a while and they've probably added some features over time, but I'm giving you an educated guess as to why more people are not chiming in on the forums as using the Articulate LMS solution even though they use Storyline/Presenter all the time.
Anyone here ever work w/ Intellum (aka Rollbook)?
This has been a very interesting discussion. Marty, I think your idea of asking LMS vendors to step through specific tasks is a great idea.
Karyn, your story sounds a lot like mine. I was hired after we chose AbsorbLMS as our first LMS. We went live at the beginning of 2011. It has been a bumpy road. There are a lot of good things about Absorb and a lot of challenges. I work for an association and we use the LMS to keep track of our members' education, including CPE credits. The user interface is fairly simple, but some of our users had trouble with pop-ups, Flash, and security settings that can be hard to overcome because we have no control over their systems. But I expect that might be the case with a lot of LMSes. We also did SSO integrating with our association management system. I sometimes wonder if it would have been easier to use their shopping cart instead. Our other big issue is with our certificates because of the detailed information we need to include on them for CPE purposes. I'd love to have more control over them.
I can say that the people at Absorb have been very responsive when I've noticed problems, but I have had to create a lot of work arounds and figure things out for myself. Sometimes I think I'm just trying to put a round peg in a square hole.
I'd love to hear what other associations are using.
We use TALEO Learn, it is SaaS, it works very good now is part of the Oracle-Taleo Suite to manage Talent Management
We are using Blackboard 9.1 SP8, its best among all existing LMS. unlimited features, app integration, easy accessibility, SCORM standard compliant, Assessment, reporting, monitoring task activity, report generation along with tools up-gradation, interactive learning, mobile learning, collaborative learning, Social activity synchronisation etc.
Everything is available in Blackboard !!
Does anyone have any experience, good or bad, with Inspired LMS. I've run some of their demos and it look good but would like to hear from anyone who has used it. Thanks.
I have experience using the following:
Meridian
Blackboard
Adobe Connect
Overall, I liked Adobe Connect's LMS the most. Is the eastiest to use (for learners) out of the three. I think the style and interface is the most current. The reporting features and back end functionality was intuitive and functional.
We are using JoomlaLMS for a year already, and are quite happy with the solution!
It has a wide list of features: http://www.joomlalms.com/features/ and is highly customizable. The prices are affordable. Thanks to the integration with JomSocial we created a social network to make learning less academic and more enjoyable.
Among cons I would mention weak reporting system and lack of mobile application (btw, in elaboration, as assured by their support team, let's hope...
).
We are using Blackboard but there are a lot of LMS out on the market.
i've created a report on several LMS solutions if anyone is interested.
just out out of interest has anyone used SharePoint Learning Kit?
We've been managing for a long time without one. The presentations write to a database which isn't ideal. We're now getting moodle 2.1 which should be installed next week. A partner company I have done some work for uses Totara, but I'm yet to see the benefits that it brings over Moodle. I mean it has good reporting functions and you can build in a company hierarchy which is great, but it's a lot of money for what is essentially Moodle with some plugins.
I'm not the buiggest fan of Moodle, but compared to our current method of reporting, it's going to be a blessing.
in the past I've also used Kallidus from e2train which was pretty good.
I think there is one common theme though when it comes to an LMS, we will always have our issues, whichever on ewe use because none of them are perfect and all of them have faults!
No perfect solution exists.
Make your list of must haves and nice to haves.
Pick the one that comes the closest.
(Kind of like when you are buying a house.)
i agree with Rebbeca Hay, their isnt a perfect solution unless money is no objection. what you need to is make a comprehensive list of your requrements and list of functionality( regardless if you need them or not) so you dont get any surprises.
few basic things you need to consider:
1) interoperability- do you need to the system to interact with existing or upcoming systems
2) in house experts- will you guys be able to troubleshoot internaly
3) usability- how is it to use to navigate around the site from a user perspective
4) vendor background- this is often ignored. please check their credibilty, support level etc. sometimes this can make all the difference.
Asif, I agree about those 4 areas you listed. Often times we just make it about the bells and whistles. -k
Agree with Rebecaa and Asif, but IMHO everyone should start thinking about moving away from LMS systems altogether. Really an LMS should be called an RMS because it's reporting more than it's fostering learning. If you were thinking purely about how people could "learn" you wouldn't use any of the LMS systems, because despite some doing social media better than others, they all are about one piece of content displaying in one particular course and as a general rule don't include much flexibility/adaptability.
In that regard any content management system would be far superior to any of the LMS systems mentioned for displaying content. Most LMS systems are structuring content (and courses) in a paradigm that may not even really exist 5 years from now.
I'll get off my soapbox now, but instead of thinking about what features any particular LMS system has that we need, we should all be thinking about what delivery platform the learners will want and that will work the best. Granted, I understand the need for reporting/regulators, but I think the LMS systems are putting us all in boxes that are soon going to be unnecessary.
There's a great article on Search Engine Watch about rewriting the rules of fiction and video. Strangely enough my first thought was how could an LMS system deal with this future and of course the answer I came up with is that they probably can't.
Todd
We are in trials now to select a replacement for our current and overly robust LMS. I chose the most user friendly for my short list and focused on funtions that are most important to us. Seems they all can deliver content to users equally well so I 'm concentrating more on how well they perform and, most of all, how easy they are to use on the admin side. The ones I chose for trials had either very basic authoring or none at all. I decided to search separately for a GOOD authoring tool knowing that most LMS's can handle scorm content.
We use Docebo too, for the same reasons as Alberto. In addition we think it is very good value for money.
I am a Docebo user, when I started to look for an LMS my choice criteria was:
), it's a solution that you can activate online at http://www.docebo.com for free and test at your convenience.
- Online trial: I needed time to have my own installation to try and to activate online in order to evaluate features and simulate
- Easy to use: You can start with simplified interface and use the ""Advanced features"" when needed.
- Nice multimedia content player and fresh interfaces (Lot of LMS like Moodle, Blackboard have really OOLD look ...)
- Customization possibility for: Template, Languages and Third party interfacement.
(They recently rised 3M U$ from a Venture Capital firm then I think they have budget to invest on the product
Hope it helps a bit :)
Best