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
Stefano Posti

Hello Dave,

choosing an LMS is very important, and it involves so many aspects to consider... budget, utilisazion, specific needs...

take a look at comparative tables you may search for in the internet; docebo.org has excellent ones...

Personally, when I did a research and tested most of common and well-known LMS, both commercial and open-source, I literally fell in love with Absorb LMS by Blatant, UK... it is flash based, but really powerful. quite expensive, though... Sharepoint LMS (NOT the free Sharepoint elearning kit) was ok, too.

Joomla LMS, Atutor, Claroline,  let me down.

Docebo, Dokeos, Moodle, were my final choice... I ended up buying an hosted and customized version of moodle for my business, but at the moment the current version of docebo is far better than moodle 2...

Anyway, this community has talked a lot about LMS... just use the search box...

threads like this: http://community.articulate.com/forums/p/1715/9094.aspx#9094 or this: http://community.articulate.com/forums/p/6065/33864.aspx#33864 may truly help.

cheers

Stefano

Colin Eagles

We don't currently use an LMS - however, I'm keeping a keen eye on all of the discussions.  Many folks seem to like Moodle.  I've tried the trial of Articulate Online - it's super easy, provided that you're sticking to Articulate.  We use Captivate, too - so, I'm still looking around.

Dave Newgass said:

Does anybody else want to dip in on this one?  I am looking at how others are using Articulate to deliver their courses.

We place our content on a server within our intranet and find testing and tracking alternatives.  Fortunately, our training currently uses a blended approach; in our case, tracking users and quiz scores isn't necessary when coupled with a live trainer.

sridevi kannan

We are using AJ LMS which is a fully featured SCORM-compliant LMS that provides the infrastructure for enterprise training and management needs.It is the best LMS which easily allows you to build courses, import SCORM content, deploy online learning, manage users, communicate with users, track training results, and more.

Jen Perkins

My current employer is preparing to begin online courses using Moodle 2.0. The director chose Moodle because it's free. At the time of discussion, I asked that they wait for version 2 rather than install 1.9, as several features came out with version 2 (activity completion, for instance--a huge plus) that weren't available in earlier versions. Though I've worked with the front end of the system much more than the back end, I find Moodle a great LMS, especially if you don't have the dollars to fork out. I'm also beginning to work with Blackboard, though, and it appears to be a super option if you DO have some $. Seems it's improved a lot since I worked with it in grad school. I've been experimenting with it using the free CourseSites, and it's pretty sweet in terms of ease of use and options available.

Ron Pagliarulo

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.

Stefano Posti

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.

... sacred words, Ron. I do agree with everything you said...

Joe Deegan

We use Moodle 1.9x and have it working just the way we want after a lot of hard work.  We are holding off about another year or so before upgrading to Moodle 2 just because I don't have time to deal with the upgrade right now.  Moodle is great but not turn-key in most situations so unless you know the in's and out's of Moodle you'll definitely want to get help from a Moodle partner or independent consultant to get over the hurdles.  My biggest criticism is reporting like others have mentioned so we have had to develop our own custom reports.  That being said, what I like most about Moodle is that everything is customizable.  I'm no PHP developer but found most of the "Hacks" I needed in the Moodle forums.  Much like the Articulate community there are a lot of great moodlers in the forums at moodle.org ready to help.

Rita Hartman

We have used the same LMS for 14 plus years.  It is now owned by SumTotal and is no longer sold. The product is Pathlore.  We have the ability to customize as needed.  We use it both for our employees and our customer continuing education classes.  It has a few little things that bug us but overall we are very happy.  We have currently opted to not switch over to the SumTotal product as of yet.  It does not offer the same rich features as Pathlore and we just don't want to have less options.  We were looking to switch but then they extended the shelf life of Pathlore so we stayed with the product that has served us well for many years.  I was not here when they chose this originally so I can't tell you why it was chosen.

Raeann Veneziale

My company has used Cornerstone OnDemand for almost 6 years. Articulate works like a dream with this LMS, in fact I recommend using Articulate to all of our content authors.

That said, I have reviewed several other LMS's over the years, and there's lots of great stuff out there. Make sure you have your priorities in order and you know what you can't live without, then list the "nice to have's" as well as your "functionality wish list". There are many great companies out there, but to echo what Ron said, none of them are perfect. There isn't one LMS out there that will solve 100% or your problems (although if you find one please let me know!). Good luck!!

Alicia Pennington

I work for a healthcare organization, and we use NetLearning by Cengage.  We've used it since 2005.  We can use Articulate with it.  However, if we choose to use Quizmaker, the only thing that gets recorded in our LMS is Pass/Fail.  Why do we use NetLearning?  It was what was available in 2005 for healthcare organizations.   It was the LMS/e-learning first system our company ever used.  It's not bad - does have limitations, but they all do.

We're looking to move to Halogen systems or another LMS.  Why - our corporation wants to move some HR functions, such as performance review, to an electronic format.  We, Education, are looking for a better way to electronically "do" inital and ongoing competencies.  Our current electronic competency system leaves A LOT to be desired!  By combining our, HR and Education's, efforts, we will be able to do more with our LMS - such as education being automatically assinged based on an employee's job position or based on their performance review.  In reviewing LMS for this more, it is a give-and-take game.  Each system is not the same - what does your organization want to do with their LMS?  What do they NEED to do?  What governing / accreditaiton bodies might need reports from your LMS?  Take your time in evaluating the options. 

Best of luck!

Alicia

Leah Hemeon

We officially use SAP LSO for our LMS. I don't recommend it at all. It's big, expensive, and isn't user friendly AT ALL.

With that being said, I'm working on moving us over to Moodle 2.1 now. A small segment of our company doesn't have SAP access so we implemented Moodle to track their courses. We like it so much more than SAP that I'm making the business case to move the entire organization to it. We had a custom SCORM report built by a Moodle partner to give us better reporting. I also hear that version 2.2 (due out in early 2012) will have more robust SCORM 1.2 reporting. They're still aways off on SCORM 2004 compliance. We run Articulate and Captivate courses via Moodle and haven't found too many problems. I love the community and, after dealing with the costs associated with SAP, love the accessibility and expertise of Moodle partners.Outside of the SCORM support, we love being able to include things along with the course package such as discussion forums, or even just job aids outside of the course. This is something we don't have with SAP.

I agree with others who have posted about needing to evaluate your needs and pick a suitable LMS. Moodle may be open source and "free" but you need to have support inside your organization for the administration. As with any LMS, there's a learning curve. Otherwise, hire a Moodle partner to help you with that.

Elena Haidu

It all dependson you requirements and budget. Moodle was the first LMS our company ever used.It was a matter of price totally. I wasn’t there at that time, but it is the onlyplus factor to choose the one I heard about. The same factor became a reason tochange Moodle to JoomlaLMS. You get Moodle for free but have to pay when youneed to solve problems or customize it. It turned to be too expensive for us.

For exampleour teacher creates courses/quizzes with Articulate products. Articulate comesup with update and then you face that your new created courses go haywire whenpublished. It is all about compatibility with your LMS. If you use Moodle noone is really interested to update it ASAP. You will find a folk to make thiscustomization, but it costs. Here is where we had a problem with Moodle.

Now we havebeen using JoomlaLMS for a year and satisfied.Why did we choose it? It is all about cost once again. JoomlaLMS is a goldenmean between free open source LMSs and proprietary ones. It is based on free opensource CMS. JoomlaLMS code is open, license files are encoded only. So you getthe solution almost equal to open source and free to find any external folk tocustomize the system. You just have to pay them more than reasonable price oncea year to prolong your license and subscription to updates and support.

When youuse a proprietary LMS you can expect it to be updated quite quickly as the teamis motivated. You have to pay extra for special custom development if you needit to be done urgently. Any way you save time at least and money while they arenot interested to charge you too much and kill your loyalty. One-source supportand updates matters!

Stephen Cope

Stefano Posti said:

yes, right the same for me...

anyway, I'm really curious to see a TOTARA LMS Demo, which is a customized version of Moodle, suitable for enterprise environment... many necessary features, it really deserves a demo view. Like docebo, too....


Hi Stefano,

Totara LMS provide a demo site, so you can login and give it a try:

https://demo.totaralms.com/

Mariana Lopes

Hi!

Where I work, we use Moodle 2.0.

When we've chosen it, the reasons were it's free, and we supposed  it should be a good option, because if not it would'nt be so largely spread.

In fact, that is true, and almost whenever I get a problem/question I'm able to find an answer.

What I don't like is that it is not very easy to work with and sometimes has irritating ways of working (for example, I can't realize how to update SCORM content with the same file name).