Which LMS do you use and why?

Nov 03, 2011

Hey all,

Just a quick question to you....what LMS do you use and why? 

I use Moodle 2.1.2 currently.  Why?  It seemed like a good idea at the time!  Now I'm frustrated with the SCORM reporting and interface.

Any thoughts?

-Dave

301 Replies
asif raja

for thos who like Moodle but dont think its corporate then try Totara i have contacts if anyone is interested.

I've created report on the following if you like further info let me know:

E2train

Established in 2000, a UK based software house that specialise in learning and talent management. E2train boast a strong portfolio of high profile customers, such as O2, Boots, NHS and Transport of London. They have achieved the following accolades winner in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 UK and Fast 500 (2007/8) EMEA awards, the Software Satisfaction Awards (2008), World of Learning (2006) and the E-learning Awards (2012). 

Think associates

Formed 2004, Think Associates offers consultation for LMS solution but are limited to their partners (resellers). The solution proposed is Totara, a custom distribution of Moodle for the corporate sector. This product is being used in over 120 organisations such as, Tesco’s, Michelin (China), BMI Healthcare and Inland Revenue (New Zealand)

AccessplanIT

Established in 2001, is a UK based software house dedicated to development and support of learning and training management solutions. Portfolio includes Maersk training, University of the Arts and Northamptonshire Police.

Interactyx

A US based organisation founded in 1995. Interactyx launched Topyx in 2009 which heavily focusses on social learning and has since won several accolades such as winners of 2009 and 2010 for” best of eLearning”; awarded by an E-learning journal.

 SimpleLearning

Established in 2004, a reseller for the iLMS product. It has nearly 500 customers whom can be found in either the private or public sector. Such customers of the iLMS product are Johnson Control, McDonalds, Toys-R-Us and DTI Energy.

SumTotal

SumTotal is the largest provider of learning management system and talent management software. Over the years the company has acquired Click2Learn, Pathlore, GeoLearning, Mindsolve, Softscape, and now Accero and CyberShift. With more than 3,500+ customers and 45 million users worldwide, SumTotal has provided solutions for high profile clients such as CBS, Sony Electronics, AstraZeneca, Amway, GKN, Seagate, Aetna, Citigroup, DaimlerChrysler, Delta Air Lines, Harley-Davidson, Microsoft, Novartis, PNC Bank, Rolls-Royce, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Bancorp, and Vodafone.

ELearning force

A software supplier, specialising in the design for the delivery of E-Learning. Founded in 2003, the Denmark based company has an office in the UK. The LMS product (Share Knowledge) is written SharePoint. Customers of Share Knowledge are predominately from the educational institutions.

Aurion

Aurion are the sole Irish partners of the award-winning NetDimensions. Net Dimensions is best in class enterprise that fits into a Talent Management system. It also has another module (EKP) that which allows user to access the LMS independently from USB flash drive. NetDimensions has won many accolades, recognised by Brandon Hall and has won three consecutive awards for best Saas LMS since 2009. This product is used by over 800 organisations such as Hewlett Packard, BBC, American Stock Exchange, Endsleigh Insurance and ING.

Peter Zimak

Dave Newgass said:

Does Docebo have the ability to have a shopping cart type of feature where people can buy the course online and have immediate access?  (I hope that makes sense....)

Cheers,

Dave

 I know that you can sell a course... there is this option in the course management. But i never tried. Maybe you can check on their own website..  http://www.docebo.com/saas/index.php?r=site/index&lang=en_us.

Cheers,

P

Trond Kristiansen

Dave Newgass said:

Does Docebo have the ability to have a shopping cart type of feature where people can buy the course online and have immediate access?  (I hope that makes sense....)

Cheers,

Dave


I think the answer to you question is yes. We have not implemented this, but in my admin UI there is the possibility to configure this:

When you have created a course in Docebo, in the course settings you can check off that you want to sell it, and set the price:

Hope this helps. 

Sander Stekelenburg

Hi Everyone

I have a question regarding which LMS....

A customer of mine want to start an online linguistic e-learning platform. What is important is that it should be possible to play audio and video and that students should be able to record audio and video and play it back too.

Can anyone give me some advise please?

Thanks!

Melissa Kalbus

I feel like everyone uses something different and there is always something to complain about. My previous employer purchased Corner Stone On-Demand right before I left for my current job. Right now, we are using a homegrown, "make-shift" solution and I am doubtful it will take us more than 6-9 months.

Courtney Schranz

I have been using Articulate Online to deliver corporate training for my company province wide and we have had nothing but positive feedback and it is very easy to use, track and export reports.

We are not currently using the "log in" feature, instead we have participants sign a detailed guestbook with customized fields that track data for us.

All of that being said we have the $199/month Articulate Online plan, and it has been all that we need and more!

I love Artie

Regards,

Courtney

Kathryne Magnuson

We're using Intellum's Exceed LMS. We have about 500 employees using the LMS for internal training. I find it incredibly simple and easy to use. We rolled out a required course to our dispersed employee base and everyone was able to jump in and complete this course with zero pretraining on navigation or use. The reporting features are simple to manipulate and easy to roll out to our managers. It's not fancy, but it works very well for our purposes. 

Sandra Natale

I've used both Blackboard and Moodle.  Comparing the two on features and ease of use, Blackboard definitely gets my vote. The hosted version is rock-solid reliable and course creation and content deployment are fast, user-friendly and intuitive. I haven't used Moodle nearly as much, but from what I have seen, it seems far more labor intensive and the interface seems far less intuitive. Blackboard also seems to have more and better no-additional-cost training materials than Moodle (at least within the last few years) although that hasn't always been the case. The linear structure of both, however, without customization, seems more aligned to academic rather than professional training environments. Moodle is, however, far less expensive to use and thus may be the better choice for smaller or start up projects.

I've also had some experience with the Ecollege platform and it seems to have some very nice standard features (i.e., a synchronous online classroom capability that is VOIP and desktop sharing enabled) which seem to be available in other platforms like Blackboard but may come at additional cost depending on the license selected.

If anyone has experience with an LMS designed specifically for professional or association training and education (as opposed to academic course delivery) I'd be very interested to learn more about that.

James Starr

Craig Wiggins said:

James Starr said:

We use SkillSoft. If you threw your custom courses down the toilet and caught what came out the other end, you'd have something better than SkillSoft.


i have a feeling that you've just saved me a bunch of research (that I'm going to do anyway, but still).


With that being said, SkillSoft is the only LMS I've ever used besides Blackboard, but Blackboard is definitely geared more toward higher-ed use. There could be worse that I don't have any experience with.

We've had a lot of issues related to functionality with the product, but to SKillSoft's credit, they have gone above and beyond in most instances to work with us while issues were being addressed.

I'd say my biggest complaint is that SkillSoft is very Java intensive so your machine configuration has to be spot on to be able to flawlessly run custom content. Also, it's 2012, and I cannot believe SkillSoft has no support for ALL browsers. If you run a course that was made in Captivate using Google Chrome for example, lesson scores simply do not get transferred to the LMS. Luckily we do not have any LONG courses created in Captivate at the moment, but imagine a user who takes a 2-hour long module and takes the test to complete it, and the score never registers... 

Chris Willis

My company has gone with ShareKnowledge, from Competentum.  A company that made Kisperski software.  We went with it because it "bolts" onto Sharepoint.  It is not a cloud service based LMS, but has a good interface, and uses all of the old and newest SCORM formats.  Enrollment rules make it easy to pinpoint a title or person or department for training, and security features through sharepoint allow for shared AD databases.  It will integrate with AD or manually uploaded CSV files for employees if you choose to go that route, or you can upload the personnel manually if you don't have a bunch to input.

Scott Lindsey

Thank you all for your posts on this topic. I know that there is no perfect LMS solution. At my last job, we used Pathlore (bought by SumTotal just after we signed the contract) and it worked well for us for the most part.

I'm not trying to stir up a storm by asking this question, but for those of you who selected a new LMS within the last few years, what have your biggest pain points or frustrations been? What do you (or your learners) complain about the most?

Thanks,

Scott

Jeffrey Dalto

Ron Pagliarulo said:

We currently use Absorb by Blatant Media.  We have a pretty huge user base with over 16,000 users.

I have gone through two other LMS implementations, and was willing to drop them and change and so far Absorb seems to be our favorite.

I can tell you this though.  There isn't a perfect one.  You just want to find one that meets most of your needs, then be prepared there will be errors, and bugs.

The two common factors in all of our endeavors is the Articulate suite.  Articulate is awesome and there really isn't anything out there that we have found comparable, but part of the bugs we have to look at might not just be the LMS provider it may have to be with how a published Articulate course or quiz works within the LMS.

And then you have the ever changing, ever updating Adobe flash player that gets updated every week.   Sometimes we have courses that work perfectly, then Adobe comes along and does one of their updates, and a course goes haywire.

Be prepared.  There will be errors.  There will be complaints.  There will be bugs with all LMS providers.

Just be very clear on your outcomes and needs, and then go for it.

Hope that helps.


I work for a company that makes an LMS, and I am the person who trains new users. 

That said, I wanted to echo Ron's point here (I know Stefano did already too). It's impossible to make a "perfect" LMS for any number of reasons. If it's simple, it's not flexible enough; if you want a feature to work in "this" way, another user wants it to work "that" way.

My suggestion would be to get good advice like you're getting here, then figure out what your company really needs, and then finally get a good demo. Good luck!

Gordon Ledbetter

I have to agree, there is no perfect LMS. We dropped Taleo because it was not at all user friendly and "buggy" with its reporting feature. It was also more robust than we needed . I'm sure it works well when "robust" is desired. We went with Litmos which was very close to what we were looking for in an LMS. Most of all it's user friendly. We hired new people who picked it up in a matter of hours with very little help from Litmos. It has its shortmcomings but we can live with them.

Kathryne Magnuson

Josh Dix said:

Anyone here ever work w/ Intellum (aka Rollbook)?


Josh, we went live on Intellum's Rollbook last September and we've been very pleased. Ours is 100% corporate use across 40+ locations. We use it to host courses built in Storyline and Studio and some scheduling of Webinars through their Sessions tool. We also host all orientation courses online, effective January of this year.We really like it- easy to set up, navigate, report out of, and use. It's just simple to understand without feeling stripped down: it does what we need it to do. Their support is quick and accurate, and I've been nothing but pleased with our relationship to date. We support 800+ users on this system with very few problems.

PJ Babcock

My client is using SkillPort from SkillSoft and I have been absolutely impressed with the quality of both their LMS and courses.  I create courses in Storyline, upload and poof - they have all worked without a problem.  They have 24x7 customer/learner support and they are the best. There is even a custom courseware support group available if you are having issues with your particular custom course.