Air Traffic Management

From the Eurocontrol IANS website:

“To support innovation in its training activities, EUROCONTROL is introducing a new LMS . The new system, which is accessible via the link below, is a flexible and user-friendly system. It provides an online training catalogue, e-learning delivery and classroom management under one umbrella. The new system also increases information security. The LMS has been in operation since the beginning of 2009.

All e-learning courses available from the Institute are already delivered through the new LMS . From the 2nd semester of 2009, all classroom courses will also be managed on this system…

…If you are an individual wishing to study e-learning modules then please consult our online training catalogue. If you are a recognised training provider or operational centre and wish to use the LMS for e-learning delivery please contact elearning.services@eurocontrol.int”

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In the previous part I described some of the important elements which should make up an LMS.  In this last part I will continue with the list, exploring scalability, support, content and community features.

Scalability

By scalability I mean room for growth. This is closely related to flexibility but takes the issue from a different angle. Scalability means that you should be able to adapt your LMS to your needs. If you start small, for example, then you should be able to scale down your LMS for it to do only what you need it to do. Some examples are the number of active users or the functionalities you would want to use.

Once you are ready to grow, you want to find that your LMS could scale up to your needs. More users could be accommodated or a new functionality could be enabled.

Support

Whichever model you chose, meaning either getting support from the vendor or having all the support in house, in any case, support will be necessary.

This support needs to be responsive, organised and efficient. It is important that whilst planning for an LMS you define who will support what. For example, users might need support on functionality and your technical staff would need support should a bug be identified or a functionality not work as it should. These two kinds of support are different from one another as the first is more general, and possibly could be delivered by your team, whilst the second is more specialised.

Importing content

A delivery platform [because in the end an LMS is a delivery platform] without content to deliver is as good as a car without fuel when you need to go for a ride.

Importing content should be an easy process. Especially for content answering to the SCORM or AICC standard. I have seen LMSs which require you to convert what is considered as being standard content to something specific to the LMS. This is a lengthy process and one which degrades your content, from something potentially useable across platforms to something only useful in your environment [and what happens when you decide to change over to a new system?]

So importing content needs to be as seamless as possible. Then the content needs to display properly and to handshake with the LMS to provide the right kind of tracking information you would be expecting.

Accommodating learning resources which are not WBTs

I think it is worth to add that your LMS should accommodate content which is not a standard WBT into your courses.

For example, should you want to include a pdf document in your course, or if you are also using virtual classrooms, a VC event, then you should be able to do it without any work-arounds. Some LMSs do not accommodate this, and in my opinion it is a pity, because online learning is not only made of WBTs.

Ideally these non WBT events should also be trackable so that you ad your instructors could track whether a particular user has at least open a resource.

Web 2.0, Informal learning and Communities

Finally in my list of things you would want to look for in your LMS, is something that has gained in importance in the past few years. As we know, learning is not only done through formal means, that is an instructor pushing information and the student learning it. We also know that there are many ways in which students can either learn from each other, or alone by doing research or reading other people’s work.

The technology now exists to accommodate a certain level of peer to peer working or informal learning to take place through your LMS. Tools such as wikis, where for example students could be tasked to jointly develop assignments, common file sharing areas, chatting, messaging, blogging tools are all items that could come useful once you start experimenting with this type of learning to complement your curriculum.

Depending on what your current strategy in the matter is, you might want to consider having these functionalities in your LMS or else check that they could be made available once you think you would need them.

This brings me to an end of my article on what to look for in an LMS. I am aware that a lot of similar articles exist on line. This is my contribution and it is based on my experience, trials and errors. I hope you have enjoyed it.

Should you have any comments or would like to participate in the conversation please submit a comment. I would be delighted to learn from you and to discuss with you.

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In the first part of this article we saw briefly what an LMS is and what are the questions you should be asking yourself before you decide which functionalities you would need it to include. In this second part we will look at some functionalities and features which should be a must in your shopping list:

1. Ease of use by all

The first and most important requirement for me is that the LMS needs to be easy to use, and logical for all categories of users, ranging from students to instructors to managers to technicians to administrators. However often the LMS is used, and whatever the category of user is, as you will see from the two examples below, ease of use is of utmost importance:

Normally and LMS is used in the following manner:

On a few to regular occasions by students which form the bulk of the users. So for them the LMS needs to be intuitive and easy to use, otherwise they will repeatedly ask questions to your help desk on how to use certain features and/or grow alienated from them.

Very often by administrators meaning the functionalities used need to be efficient and logical. Otherwise it would frustrate your personnel and would load them with more work than necessary.

2. Standards and published Application Programme Interfaces [APIs]

The second requirement is that the LMS can integrate with other systems by using pre set industry standards. If this is not the case, then you will get a system which you have problems interoperate with anything else. Here you would need to pay attention that the vendor does not sell you vendor specific standards [only working with other products from the same vendors] but industry specific ones.

The most famous standards in terms of LMSs are SCORM and AICC, but these are only a part of the pie and work as standards for interaction between content and the LMS. Other standards such as QTI, for example allows communication between the LMS and your assessment tool. Other standards would be necessary depending on how you want to use the LMS and what you want to integrate it with.

APIs allow you to integrate your LMS with other tools, such as for example your HR database or your Content Management System. Knowing that the LMs you have, has published APIs is in itself a guarantee that it was developed in such a way that it can accommodate integration with other ope national  tools.

3. Reporting

Another important feature that you will need is a good reporting functionality. The database in the LMS basically could track a lot of things. What you will need is a mechanism that can mine the data out of this database and present it to you and to your users [yourself, managers, instructors, etc. ] in a meaningful and useful manner.

Once your users will discover that your LMS is storing information, they will ask you to give it to them. It might start with the instructors who would want to know their students progress, but could then go to management who want to see the distribution of usability of the tool. You might also want to use the data to defend your business case, for example for scaling up. There are many reasons why a good reporting tool is useful. The best ones you will get are those which offer already a comprehensive set of canned reports that are clear to understand, but which also provides you with an easy tool which allows you to mine data, prepare reports that are clear and than that can be distributed to users.

4. Flexibility

Your LMS needs to be flexible as its use will evolve over time. This should not be confused with the notion that your LMS should be able to do everything from managing students and courses to delivering assessments to human resources and client management etc. I believe that a good LMS does what it should do best, learning management, and would then rely on other tools [through APIs] for example to do other things.

So flexibility means that the processes which govern the way the LMS works should be able to adapt flexibly to your needs as time goes by. The LMS should be configurable, meaning, that without having to customise it, you could define certain parameters that would allow you better fit the LMS functionalities to your processes and to the way you do things. Less configuration options might mean a rigid system to which you will have to make substantial efforts to adapt.

In this part we saw the following features: Ease of use, standars, reporting and flexibility.  In the next and final part we will see why scalability, support, the way of importing content and informal learning features are also of importance.

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This is the first part of an article in which I try to describe what to look for in an LMS [especially should you be thinking of buying one]

Since I am currently busy seeking for a Learning Management System [LMS] which fits my organisational needs, I have decided to write a post on what to look for if you think you are looking for an LMS.

The first question however is: What is an LMS?

In laymen terms, an LMS is nothing else than an application which organises and manages the training environment, the users [students, instructors, etc.] and the content. From an architectural level, it normally has an application which gives users functionality to address an extended database which contains all the information [the students, the courses, where the content could be found, training history, etc.]. Al this is available on the internet or intranet via a web-server.

So what should one look for when thinking of getting an LMS?

The first question to ask is whether this would be the company’s first LMS or a replacement to an existing one. The reason for this is that there is a maturity process that the organisation needs to go in terms of LMS usage. The more and organisation uses an LMS the more sophisticated its requirements become and therefore the functionalities that an LMS needs to have.

The second question to ask should be what will we use the LMS for?

An LMS can be used for a number of items, ranging from providing a platform through which personnel could do some on line learning to an integrated system through which certification, competence assessments, training records, classroom events, personnel’s training history, reporting, etc. are managed.

An organisation would need to decide on the extent of usage of the LMS, and depending on the answer would then look for an LMS which answers to those needs or that integrate with other tools which do that.

What are some over arching functionalities that would need to be kept in mind?

Having said that an LMS should be chosen in respect of the needs it is to fulfill, there are however a number of specifications that in my opinion should always be taken into account:

In the next part I will look at a number of features / functionalities that in my opinion need to be kept in mind.  Items such as Ease of use, standars and reporting will be described in the next part…

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