I have been given a brief by my manager to “find an LMS”. I guess I have to pick up on context clues to fill in the gaps. I have checked and there are many many different solutions calling themselves LMS’s, it’s like a ball of mud.
I was a technical instructor for four years in a previous job and I have written a 3D training simulation in Unity (guy walks about and interacts with equipment and completes maintenance). I guess I have some background in learning, coding and teaching.
We are a small company, since COVID hit we now send equipment to Field engineers in other countries rather than sending our own people out and we need to be able to present company policies, technical training material, and safety information. We need to then track competency and certifications. We would be talking less than 100 people initially including internal and external employees.
I think that it would be better to be able to migrate content from one platform to another in case we scale or happen to choose the wrong product.
I am not interested in selling or commercialising the courses.
Security of the training material is important as it is confidential. I would prefer to have it hosted somewhere outside of our network so it doesn’t become an entry point for bad things.
I have no idea on budget, the freer the better. I am happy to learn to code up stuff but it also needs to be transferable in case I need to move on or I get hit by a bus.
-What questions should I be asking to define scope?
-Are there broad categories of LMS that I can split my search into?
-Which features should I be looking for?
If I get a sales pitch for a particular LMS then I will be suspicious. I would prefer to understand the space and make my own decision.
Cheers for any help.
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Honestly, I would just go with Articulate. Spend the money once per year to make your life easier. It can be passed along easier to a new person and can be exported easily to other services and lives outside your company. It has an easy enough learning curve and Devlin Peck has the training for free that you need to get started.
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I would check out Lessonly. It wasn’t quite robust enough for our business needs but I feel like it would be a great LMS for a smaller organization
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Hey Brown, Moodle sounds like what you need, it’s free, you can see a demo here, also you can log in and use it as if you were the admin, so, that’s useful to practice and move things around without risk of wrecking your own site. Moodle demo | Moodle.org check it out brah
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Five years with Moodle, and now, YouTestMe and Moodle are a thing – not bad, not great, just another chapter in our e-learning story. It’s all good! Especially when it means escaping the clutches of Moodle’s dumpster fire limitations.
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You must first understand your needs. What kind of training material do you want to deliver? How many users will be using the system? By answering these questions, we can define the scope and narrow down your search.
Now, when it comes to LMS categories, you can explore cloud-based or self-hosted options. Look for features like content migration, competency tracking, and user-friendly interfaces.
Don’t forget about security! You want your training material to be safe and accessible outside your network. As for the budget, we’ll keep an eye out for cost-effective solutions.
Remember, it’s important to evaluate multiple options and make an informed decision based on your requirements rather than relying solely on sales pitches. Good luck with your search!
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A lightweight LMS with native authoring tools and badging/certification capabilities would be a good choice. A new(ish) player to the space that is more affordable and getting good reviews is www.thinkific.com though they position themselves as more of ‘create courses you can sell’ though they have quizzing features too. There’s also Articulate’s Rise.com to consider too.
Agree, there are a million choices. I also looked at LearnUpon and my current Fave is ThoughtIndustries but yeah we are all still at the early stages here too.