LMS Design & Administration

What is a LMS and do I really need one?  A Learning Management System manages your courses and student records.  With an LMS, you can quickly and easily assign courses to any number of users, then track and view their progress.

While you don’t necessarily need a LMS to deliver online training, it does make life easier for those implementing a training and development program for their organization/business and ensure an effective and consistent approach to recording learning activity.

What are the benefits of using a LMS?

Administration

A LMS should help you to manage and administer learning. It gives control over the student data that is added to the system, provide personal logins, and otherwise maintain information regarding courses and those who access them.

Shopping Cart and Catalog

Are you selling your courses or giving them away?  While business’ internal training programs for employees is generally at no cost to the student, a business selling their courses to clients needs the ability to easily sell and collect payments online.  A LMS should display a course catalog.

Access

Because the LMS is provided online, learners are able to have personal access at any time and from anywhere. This makes information available when the learner needs it, rather than when it is scheduled. It also means a learner can return to the learning at any time, which helps them upskill ‘on-the-job’, as and when needed.

Centralized Content

Having one point of contact for all learning and development activity means that your students/clients can easily establish where to go for anything ‘learning’ and means stakeholders know that all data is kept in the same place.

Consistency

Learning added to a LMS is consistent and means that everyone gets the same message, each and every time.

Compliance

Many businesses need to be able to prove that employees have engaged with learning activities around certain topics (financial services, health and safety etc.). or have completed required annual training hours. An LMS provides key information to support this data.  Assessments can include pass rates and Certificates of Completion awarded.

Student Progress

It’s extremely important to be able to view course progress, assessment pass rates and more. This information not only means you can prompt students regarding learning but also provides key evidence around student development.

Reduction in Costs

There are many costs associated with learning and an LMS can help reduce some of these. Areas that can be affected include:

Reduced employee time out of office

Travel expense – for students and trainers

The “Design Once, Deliver Many” approach saves by the:

~  reduction in design time,

~  reduction in consultant costs

~  reduction in trainer costs

~  reduction in venue costs

These are a few of the most obvious benefits and there are many additional elements that make a LMS a positive addition to any business that is serious about client/employee development.

How do I get a LMS?  What do I need to know?

You can use a third-party site to host your courses on their LMS or we can build one for you.  Third-party sites have their own pricing options and specifications for hosting your courses.  You play by their rules.  You have more control when hosting your own LMS.  The choice is yours depending on your needs and your budget.

At Computer Management Corp, we have administered a variety of LMS’ since 2002 and we now use LifterLMS – exclusively since 2014.  LifterLMS is a Word Press plugin that is robust, cost effective, and scalable.  Their core plugin is free (you read that right!) and they have a variety of add-on plugins (generally low cost) that allow you to include a variety of features as you need them.  Your LMS can grow as you grow.  Or you can purchase their Infinity Bundle for $1,200 per year and get all the bells and whistles.

One of our clients has been using LifterLMS since 2018.  They have serviced over 3,600 students (most enrolled in multiple courses) using the LifterLMS core (free) plug-in and one add-on plug-in.  That’s pretty cost effective!

You will need to have a Word Press site to host LifterLMS.  It is a Word Press plugin, after all.  However, not all Word Press sites can accommodate hosting an LMS.  For example, several of my website clients us a “Managed Word Press” hosting plan.  An LMS (any, not just LifterLMS) will not work on their sites.  I use GoDaddy as my host and my site is on a Linux server.  This is from LifterLMS’ documentation:

Why LifterLMS is different from regular WordPress websites

What works extremely well for a microsite or a blog may just be insufficient for your LifterLMS site and you may soon find yourself dealing with 500 errors, downtimes, slow loads and other weird issues. It is important to understand how dynamic websites that use LifterLMS are different from simple websites.

For more information, LifterLMS offers A Guide to Hosting Your LifterLMS Site and a Recommended List for Hosting Resources.

Finally, how can we help you?

We can install and set up LifterLMS which includes your course catalog, student registration, student dashboard, and a shopping cart.  As we add your courses to the catalog, we can include quizzes/assessments, course syllabus, student progress bar, resource links, custom certificates of completion, welcome and course completion emails, and more.  Everything is customized for your needs!

We can continue to administer your LMS including adding courses as you build out your catalog along with teaching YOU how to use your LMS and manage students.

Contact Mary P Parker
321-258-5313
MaryP@ComputerManagementCorp.com