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 two main types available today. Let’s take a quick look at each of them.

Learning Management Systems (LMSs). LMSs are the most common option for sharing courses that require tracking. In many cases, they don’t include robust authoring capabilities. So you need to create your courses with a separate authoring app and upload them to your LMS before you can share them with learners. Some LMSs, though, have integrations with specific authoring apps—such as Reach 360 and Articulate 360—which can make it easier to get courses into your LMS and ensure they communicate clearly with each other. Learn more here: An Introduction to LMSs.

Learning Record Stores (LRSs). LRSs 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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