eLearning Guild Research: Mad About Your LMS?

If comments among eLearning practitioners are any gauge oftheir feelings, most of us use learning management systems, but many of us havemixed feelings about them.

In September 2012, The eLearning Guild put out a survey tofind out about the experiences, needs, and practices of respondents aroundtheir learning management systems and received over 700 responses. The mostcommon respondent roles were individual contributor and supervisor or manager. Thefull report, Evaluating and Selecting aLearning Management System, is available here.

LMS use by type and industry

As shown in Figure 1, survey data showed that over half ofsurvey respondents use a corporate LMS, over a third use an academic LMS, andjust over an eighth use an integrated LMS/LCMS (these categories are explainedin more depth in the report).

Figure 1: Type of LMS that survey respondents use

Survey results showed that academic LMS products are thesystem of choice for K-12 and higher education. This group accounts for 19% ofsurvey respondents, 78.8% of whom are using academic LMS products.

Likewise, corporate LMS products are especially prevalent ineight industries where more than 70% of respondents use them, includingfinancial/insurance/legal/real estate (82.5%), utilities (81.8%),transportation (77.8%), travel/hospitality/entertainment (76.9%), businessservices and consulting (72.7%), manufacturing (72.7%), healthcare/pharmaceuticals/biotech(72.3%), and telecom (72.2%). Corporate LMS products also have a strongfoothold among government agencies, including 59.6% of federal, state, andlocal government agencies.

Integrated LCMS/LMS products are the least used of the threetypes among respondents. They have significant usage in computer consulting(66.7%), aerospace (33.3%), and media publishing (25.0%), but it’s important torealize that the number of respondents in these industries was relatively low.

Satisfaction

Survey results showed that almost one-third of surveyrespondents were either dissatisfied orvery dissatisfied with the LMS product they are using (Figure 2). Althoughthis may seem startling, I wasn’t that surprised, considering the amount ofgriping I hear from practitioners about their LMSs. The report explains some ofthe major gripes about LMSs.

Figure 2: Satisfaction with LMS

Using an evaluation and selection process is important tosatisfaction

One of the most interesting findings from the study was thatsatisfactionwith LMSs appears to be related to effectiveness of LMS evaluation andselection efforts. We asked survey respondents whether they performedeach evaluation activity (1 through 6) in Table 1. Of the respondents whoperformed each evaluation activity, we show the percentage satisfied or verysatisfied with their LMS.

Table 1: Satisfaction levels of respondents who performed eachevaluation activity

This data indicates that, except for defining requirements,fewer than 45% of respondents used each of these best-practice evaluationactivities. But for those completed these evaluation activities, the majority ofrespondents are either satisfied or very satisfied with their LMS.

What Steve Foreman, the author of this research report, saysabout this result, “these [evaluation] activities help you (a) focus on LMSproducts that best support your organization’s needs and priorities; (b)progressively narrow your list of product candidates; and (c) ensure that theproduct you ultimately select will deliver the promised functionality.”Therefore, it’s no surprise that organizations that perform these activitiesend up happier with their LMSs than those that don’t.

And there’s more!

This research report is filled with a great deal ofinformation that will be valuable to many of our members. Author Foreman haseven written a Learning SolutionsMagazine companionarticle about these six steps in order to help organizations do a betterjob getting the LMS they need as a companion to the research report.

The LMS research report includes a great deal of detailedinformation on how to select LMSs from among different LMS product categories.It also includes information about different hosting models, core features,talent management features, content development and management features,eLearning interoperability features, informal learning and performance supportfeatures, social media features, mobility features, and the future role of theLMS. Because of the coming changes in tracking, the author has included anappendix on the Experience API (Tin Can) to help readers understand how thatwill change the future role of the LMS (Figure 3).

Figure3:Appendix—the Experience API