How to Share E-Learning Courses with Learners

After gathering course content and assets, designing and developing your project in a course creation app, and gathering stakeholder approval, you’re finally putting the finishing touches on your e-learning course. But as you go to share your course with learners, you find you have yet another decision to make—except this one doesn’t seem as straightforward. You realize you need to think about how you’ll give learners access to your course.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the most common options so you can decide what’s best for you.

Tracking Systems

If you want to track information and create reports about who is taking your courses, the amount of time they spend, and their quiz scores—whether it’s to keep records of training participation or for compliance purposes—you’ll need to use some sort of tracking system. There are three main types available today. Let’s take a quick look at each of them.

All-in-One Training Systems: All-in-one training systems—like Rise.com, made by Articulate—are by far the easiest option for tracking. That’s because they allow you to create and share your course in one spot, instead of using separate apps. This simplifies the whole course creation process and gets courses into the hands of learners faster than ever. (Want to try out Rise.com for yourself? Start a free trial.)

Learning Management Systems (LMSs): LMSs are another common option for sharing courses that require tracking. Unlike all-in-one training systems, they usually don’t include authoring capabilities, so you’ll need to use a separate authoring app to create your course and then upload it to your LMS to then share it with learners. Learn more here: An Introduction to LMSs.

Learning Record Stores (LRSs): LRSs are a more recent addition to the tracking system portfolio. They allow you to track learner activity across multiple platforms—like e-learning courses, websites, or apps—and get a more complete picture of how and what your team members are learning. However, it’s important to note that not all LRSs allow you to host your courses, so sometimes using one requires that you also have an LMS. Learn more here: An Introduction to LRSs.

Intranet or Internet Websites

If you don’t need to control access to your course, keep track of learner progress, or record quiz scores, you can simply upload your course to your company’s intranet or internet website.

Not sure how to do that? Head over here for a step-by-step guide: How to Share an E-Learning Course on Your Intranet or Internet Website.

Video-Hosting Sites

If you’ve created a short explainer video or teaser to get people excited about your course, you might decide that the best way to share it with learners is via a video-hosting site, like YouTube.

Wrap-Up

While it might seem like there are lots of options to choose from, the systems your organization already uses, your training objectives, and your learners’ needs will often guide you to a natural choice. There isn’t a wrong or right answer. Rather, there’s an option that’s best for you. Have a question about sharing your course with learners that I didn’t cover? Post a comment below!

And once you’ve decided how to share your course with learners, check out the articles below for help choosing the correct publishing format:

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