What is an LMS?

Your Ultimate Guide to Learning Management Systems

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What is a Learning Management System?

A learning management system (LMS) is an eLearning software that allows you to create, deliver, track, and report on training courses and L&D programs. It gives you a single, centralized platform to train, assess, and track the progress of learners in your organization.

In this guide, you will get to understand what an LMS is all about.

What Does LMS Stand For?

Learning

  • Serves as a single source for eLearning courses and training materials in your organization.
  • Provides a platform to simplify learning and enhance the expertise of your business.

Management

  • Allows you to manage your courses and learners effectively.
  • Helps analyze training results and offers insights to improve your course offerings.

System

  • Provides an integrated system to digitize the creation and delivery of training materials.
  • Offers learners access to your training content. Also helps you track and assess your learners’ performances.

What Is the Use of a Learning Management System?

LMS platforms help training institutions, government departments, and many other organizations to upskill employees and meet training objectives and compliance requirements.

Here are some of the most common uses of LMSs in corporate training.

employee training

Employee Training

Manage all the aspects of your employee training, right from creating courses to delivering training content and tracking courses and learners.

onboarding

Onboarding Training

An LMS allows you to provide a smooth and structured onboarding experience to your new hires. It gives your employees everything they need to hit the ground running and helps them align with your company culture.

continuous

Continuous Training and Development

An LMS connects your corporate priorities and skilling needs with your workforce's training goals and learning activities. Helps your employees identify potential career paths through personalized learning journeys.

department

Department Training

Each department/team in your organization will have different training needs. Using an LMS, you can deliver targeted department-specific training, without overloading your people with irrelevant training.

remote

Remote Training

With a mobile-enabled, cloud-hosted LMS, you can easily train your distributed, remote teams. Your people can log in to the LMS and access courses from anywhere, at any time, using any device.

compliance

Compliance Training

Every organization needs to align their operating procedures and work policies with their respective industry's legal and regulatory standards. An LMS allows you to offer your employees regular and up-to-date compliance training relevant to their job roles.

upskill

Upskilling and Reskilling

An LMS supports skills-based learning by using AI to generate personalized learning recommendations and learning paths that align with specific skills, learning preferences, and business requirements.

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What Are the Different Learning Modes Supported by an LMS?

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Self-Paced Learning

Allows learners to consume the training material at their own pace and on their own schedule. Absorbing the content does not require the immediate intervention of an instructor.

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Instructor-Led Training

Learners and instructors can interact and discuss the training material on the LMS, either individually or in a group setting. Instructors may deliver training in a lecture or classroom format, or even virtually, using video conferencing.

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Synchronous Learning (Live Training)

Synchronous learning refers to a learning event in which both learner(s) and instructor(s) are in the same place, at the same time, in order for learning to take place. Live online meetings and live interactions or discussions are examples of synchronous learning.

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Asynchronous Learning

This approach refers to instruction and learning that do not happen in the same place or at the same time. Examples include watching pre-recorded training lectures or demo videos.

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Blended Learning

Also known as hybrid learning, this approach combines online learning materials and online interaction opportunities with physical location-based classroom methods.

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Microlearning

This learning strategy focuses on breaking down complex concepts and topics into bitesize training modules that are easy and quick for learners to consume. Examples include short and snappy quizzes and one-stop scrolling pages.

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Social Learning

Social or collaborative learning breeds a culture of knowledge sharing and learning across the organization. An LMS facilitates social learning through features like direct messaging, forums, and virtual classrooms.

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Mobile Learning

Mobile learning gives learners access to their LMS whenever, wherever. M-learning enables learners to pursue their learning goals without compromising their daily work schedules.

Who Can
Use an LMS?

The two primary users of an LMS are administrators and learners.

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Administrators

LMS administrators are responsible for course creation, learner assignment, evaluation of assessments and quizzes, and monitoring learner progress. The admin interface consists of the tools to build and organize courses, run knowledge checks and assess them, and view reports. Employee Training

Learners

Learners are the end-users or recipients of the training offered in an LMS. The learner interface provides learners access to view the learning materials, submit quizzes and assignments, and track their own progress. Employee Training

Leading Industries That Use Learning Management Systems

LMS solutions are used by several small, medium, and large-sized organizations where various stakeholders need continuous training. Here are some of the industries that use online learning management systems widely:

Info Tech
Info Tech
Healthcare
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Manufacturing
Construction
Construction
Automotive
Automotive
Hospitality
Hospitality
Insurance
Insurance
Telecom
Telecom
Nonprofit
Nonprofit
Aviation
Aviation
Energy
Energy
Retail
Retail
Franchise 1
Franchise
Maritime
Maritime

What Are the Benefits of Using an LMS?

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What Are the Key LMS Features?

To deliver effective employee training, an LMS must include the following key features:

01

Course Management

A corporate training LMS allows your L&D course administrators to:

  • Create, edit, publish, and deliver courses
  • Schedule courses
  • Set up the course structure (flexibility to add any number of units)
  • Limit courses to closed groups
  • Allocate trainers
  • Track learning progress and assess knowledge levels
  • Provide course completion certificates

02

User Management

An LMS offers you the flexibility to define user roles and permissions based on the organizational hierarchy, create learning groups, manage learners and more.

  • Sanction user privileges for mentors (trainers) and mentees (learners) based on your organizational hierarchy
  • Map learners (employees) to their departments and reporting managers
  • Set up custom roles with custom permissions
  • Provide secure access control for users
  • User management features fully controlled and centrally managed by your organization

03

Assessments and Tests

A corporate LMS helps instructors/admins create tests and quizzes to assess the knowledge and skill levels of learners. Modern LMSs allow you to:

  • Conduct graded and guided quizzes
  • Randomize questions (shuffle the order of questions for each learner)
  • Add unit-level and post-lesson assessments to reinforce learning concepts

04

Tracking and Reporting

A corporate training LMS allows you to:

  • Track course attendance, unit-wise progress, and course completion rates
  • Report on learner performance, course acceptance, and more
  • Customizable dashboards to view the latest insights on employee training and performance

05

Personalization

Modern LMSs use AI to personalize learning for each learner. An AI-powered LMS can help:

  • Personalize course recommendations for each learner
  • Customize learning paths for each learner
  • Tailor learning feeds to match the interests, job roles, and skills of your learners

06

Mobile Support

A mobile-ready corporate LMS:

  • Makes your training courses accessible to all your employees whenever, wherever
  • Allows employees to complete learning from anywhere, at their own pace
  • Saves employees from breaking their work schedules
  • Makes it easy to train a large, distributed workforce

07

Third-Party Integrations

What are the different types of software integration supported by an LMS?

  • Integration with external learning content and delivery platforms (eg: Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, etc.). It gives your employees access to internal and external courses and learning materials in one place.
  • Integration with other business applications used by your organization (eg: CRM, ERP, accounting software, HRMS, etc.). It will help you access and manage all your data in one place, without switching applications.

08

AI-Powered Content Generation

An LMS with in-built AI course generator helps automate course creation, publishing, and delivery.

  • Allows you to get started by just specifying the course topic and a short description
  • Enables clear, structured planning of course outline and content, with vivid modules
  • Easy to review your training content at each phase of course generation
  • Reduces manual workload, saving your time to focus on enhancing the course

09

Gamification

An LMS that supports learning gamification allows you to:

  • Engage and incentivize learners with virtual incentives, badges, and points
  • Deliver gamification on mobile devices to attract and engage learners
  • Set up challenges (puzzles, mockup quizzes, short games, etc.) and rewards for learners at specific intervals
  • Promotes microlearning to boost learner engagement and attention

10

Security and Privacy

The primary focus of an LMS provider should be to keep your data safe. An LMS deals with important user and company information. So it should have a sound safety protocol in place to ensure your information is not stolen or misused.

11

Certification

An LMS allows you to issue custom-designed certificates to learners post course completion.

  • Rewarding employees with course certificates is a great way to motivate learners
  • Professional certificates help validate the legitimacy of the skills acquired by the learner
lms feature
02

User Management

03

Assessments and Tests

04

Tracking and Reporting

05

Personalization

06

Mobile Support

07

Third-Party Integrations

08

AI-Powered Content Generation

09

Gamification

10

Security and Privacy

11

Certification

01

Course Management

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What Are the Common LMS Pricing Models?

If you are planning to choose an LMS for your organization, you cannot ignore the financial aspect. Top LMS pricing models are listed here:

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Pay per learner

This plan is suitable for your organization when the number of learners is stable and your training requirements are obligatory.

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Pay per active user

If you need to conduct one-time training or add temporary users, or if you want to evenly spread training for multiple batches of learners throughout the year, it’s good to elect this plan.

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Pay as you go

If you are not sure whether there will be a consistent demand for learning, choose this option to pay only for what you use.

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Subscription/ license fee

This plan is suitable for large organizations with more users. The license or subscription fee is set periodically (for a year/ for six months, etc.) based on the included features.

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Free and open source LMS

This plan allows you to avoid vendor lock-in. However, you need to hire a team of IT professionals to customize and maintain the LMS. Though open source LMS access is free, you will have to spend more on setting up the LMS with features tailored to your needs.

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How Can You Choose the Right LMS?

Here are the initial steps to take up when considering a corporate training LMS:

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  • Understand your challenges and identify your needs
  • Know your target audience (LMS users—admins, learners, instructors)
  • Define your LMS requirements, including scalability, software integrations, mobile support, etc.
  • Shortlist and evaluate the LMS solutions in the market, including their pricing plans and features
  • Determine your budget and get stakeholder buy-in
  • Test the LMS, or ask for a use case or demonstration
  • Finalize the LMS that ticks all your checkboxes
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How Does Skill Lake Make a Real Difference to Your Training?

Here is what makes Skill Lake different from other learning management systems:

real
  • Scalable to any number of users
  • Customized learning paths
  • Options to custom-brand your LMS
  • Training for external users—customers, partners, employees
  • Dynamic and engaging learning feed for each learner
  • Powered by smart technologies—AI, AR, VR, and a lot more

With a modern LMS, you can train employees faster, deliver the knowledge and skills they need to perform their roles, and ultimately stay competitive and relevant in a fast-changing work world.

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Are you looking for a modern, powerful, and easy to use corporate training platform?

Try Skill Lake LMS now!
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