Course and Catalog Management - Fundamentally

Course and Catalog Management - Fundamentally, a learning management system is the central system that supports all courses and learning content. Administrators can easily create and manage courses and course catalogs for personalized delivery to each user.

Content integration and interoperability - Learning management systems must support learning content packaged in accordance with interoperable standards such as SCORM, AICC, and xAPI (formerly known as Tin Can).

Content Marketplace - not all learning content is produced in-house. Allow your students access to "off-the-shelf" courses which are created by different global providers such as OpenSesame and LinkedIn Learning

Notifications - Notifications allow students to stay up-to-date with required trainings. LMS systems must support automatic and real-time notifications, indicating to students their progress, course completion, certifications, achievements, comments, and more.

White Label and Personalization - Immerse your students in a completely unique platform and maintain your brand consistency within your e-learning experience.

Gamification - increase your students' engagement by allowing them to earn points, badges, awards, etc. in all of your learning activities.

Integrations - keep your organization's data in sync with an LMS

Ecommerce - integrate your ecommerce platform like Shopify, me with payment portals like PayPal and Stripe.

ILT classroom - instructor-led - the purpose of a training management system is not to replace instructor-led learning with online learning - rather, what an LMS should do is support learning in the moment. what happens (eg via a mix of formal and informal learning methods) and provide a way to deliver, track and measure learning activities. As such, your LMS should support classroom-based and in-person learning initiatives (eg, class schedule management, performance and attendance monitoring, etc).

Reports - one of the most important functionalities of an LMS should include the ability to track the impact that your training programs are having on your business. Your LMS should allow you to obtain information and data through custom reports and dashboards that provide metrics on learning activities.
Pricing models of an LMS
License: Instead of paying per user, this LMS pricing plan involves a license fee. Typically an annual fee that must be renewed annually or an initial fee that grants unlimited access for life. However, as technology advances, you will likely have to purchase replacement software in the near future.

Subscription: A subscription fee generally grants you access to all the LMS features, or is based on a pay-per-user model. This pricing model implies a fee for each user or active user. In some cases, the LMS provider offers different price tiers. For example, the fee covers up to 25 active students. This is a great solution for smaller organizations that want to minimize online training costs, but still want to be able to scale the Learning Management System as their business expands.

Freemium - These LMS platforms are free for basic features, but there is a fee for more advanced features, such as plugins or updates. For example, a more comprehensive online learning assessment engine or advanced reports.

Follow up with an LMS

Data-driven companies understand that a key advantage of any software is providing metrics, allowing productivity and progress to be measured, as well as gaining insights on performance. Online training software is no exception.

An LMS can help you keep track of various learning activities. Formal learning metrics and reports include:

Course completion
Course registration dates
The last access by user
Total time spent on courses and learning plans
Active courses
Test and assessment results
Instructor-led classroom course sessions
E-commerce transaction data
Learning plans reports
User activity reports
Audit TRail reports
Gamification reports (eg badges and contests)
Certification reports
Reports of external training activities
Custom reports based on unique learning needs
Your LMS must also provide metrics on informal learning activities. With Docebo, for example, social learning activities can also be tracked based on activities in our Coach & Share app.

Some examples include:

Reports in peer review activities
Reports in activity by channel
The "I like" and "I don't like" in each answer
Top 4 experts based on the quality of their answers
Faster responses by experts
Answers marked as "best answer"
Content Contributors Rating (User Generated Content)
Shared content activity
Content views
Leveraging data and measuring learning

Your LMS can track all the metrics in the world, but it won't make a difference if no insights can be gleaned from this data and no action will improve your training programs.

One of the most practical applications of LMS metrics is understanding the skills and abilities of users. A student can complete an assessment analysis that will determine where they need the most skills and aptitudes, which are necessary to do their job better. Once the employer has filled in these knowledge gaps, this data can be used to customize a learning plan for the student, which will help increase their skills, aptitudes and ultimately, their job performance.

The metrics obtained from learning technology can also help draw the connection between how learning impacts business performance.

Regular reports showing learning metrics can help you understand the effectiveness of your e-learning courses and the level of engagement of your students. Future advances in technology for learning will allow these metrics to provide more valuable insights and increase business performance.

Types of LMS licenses

There are multiple types of LMS licenses, including:

Registration model - Calculates usage based on various user metrics including: how many users log into the LMS, how many sign up for a specific course, how many users purchase content or earn a certification. In general, this is a good model when starting an LMS journey, but it can become expensive as the organization scales its learning programs.

Active User (Usage): Defines learners through certain criteria, such as: when their accounts are created, when they log into the LMS, or when they interact with the prescribed learning content. Compared to the sign-in model, the active user model only requires LMS buyers to pay for the first interaction, no matter how many times a specific user logs into the system.

Product-based: allows the sale of learning content or curricula within the LMS.

Revenue Ratio - A registration model tailored for content sales, usually expressed in terms of the revenue percentage awarded to the LMS vendor. Unlimited: generally does not count users or usage. However, while some platforms will not charge user fees, others will offer an "unlimited" enterprise price once the buyer exceeds the user or income limit. s the percentage of revenue awarded to the LMS vendor.