CHAPTER 4

LCMS-LMS Features

An integrated LCMS-LMS is similar to a corporate LMS, but it has added capabilities for developing and managing learning content. Several LCMS products offer robust content development capabilities, but have none of the course delivery features found in an LMS. However, there are a growing number of LCMS-LMS products that allow you to develop courses and course materials in the same system that delivers the courses to end users.

An LCMS-LMS is targeted, primarily, at organizations that develop their own instructional programs. These products are frequently used by businesses that design and deliver their own employee training, professional organizations that develop and deliver courses to their members, or organizations whose business is selling courses to customers. They are typically not used by organizations that do mostly instructor-led training or those that develop courses using popular authoring tools, hire vendors to develop online courses using their own tools, or use off-the-shelf courseware.

Let’s say you work at a midsize business that sells products to business customers. Your products are a bit complicated, and you need to provide training to customers on how to use and maintain them. Your customers are in many time zones around the world, so instructor-led training is not an option. You can use an LCMS-LMS to deliver online, self-paced courses to your customers. Your product managers, subject matter experts, and instructional designers can collaborate to create the courses. Customers can then log in and access the training at a time of their choosing.

These systems usually offer features for user management, as well as course development and delivery.

User Management Features

The user management features of an LCMS-LMS include user account creation, authentication, user profiles, and roles and permissions. These features work in the same way as they do in corporate LMS products. The biggest difference is in the area of roles and permissions. The LCMS-related roles in an LCMS-LMS product are focused on course development, so the permissions are quite different. Table 4-1 lists the similarities and differences between the user management features of a corporate LMS and an LCMS-LMS.

Course Development Features

The course development features of an LCMS-LMS product are designed to support a team of people involved in creating courses. Some products only have simple course creation tools, while others are more advanced and may include:

• collaborative authoring tools
• a searchable content library with check-in and checkout capabilities
• content version control, global changes, and reusability
• layout templates and skins
• workflow and notifications
• content export to multiple formats.

Collaborative Authoring

Software applications that help instructional designers develop online courses are called authoring tools. There are many commercial authoring tools for individuals creating online courses. An LCMS differs from these tools in that it provides a collaborative authoring environment where a group of people can work together on developing an instructional program.

Searchable Content Library

If you’ve ever developed a course and then, later, had to update it, you probably know how challenging it can be to locate and distinguish all the original source files that you had used to create graphics, icons, diagrams, videos, audio, and other course elements. An LCMS makes this process much easier by providing a searchable repository of all source and output files. Items in the repository can be tagged and described for easy discovery and retrieval. Special tools may be provided for loading, editing, storing, and retrieving audio and video content.

The library metaphor is useful, too. You can check items out to work on them and check them in when you’re finished. This ensures that no one else is working on the item while you are.

Content Version Control

The LCMS-LMS library can store multiple historic versions of your content, allowing you to retrieve earlier versions so that unwanted changes can be reversed or deleted content restored.

Global Changes

Many LCMS-LMS products provide features that support global changes to content. For example, imagine the name of one of your company’s products is changed. The old product name appears in multiple courses, yet you have no master index of everywhere it appears. Without an LCMS, you would need to check all the courses where you suspect the product name is referenced, identify the pages where it appears, make the changes, and republish them. Odds are you might miss a few.

With an LCMS, you simply perform a global find and replace on the product name, which is changed instantly everywhere it appears in text form. If you have followed proven practices and tagged the product name to your images, videos, or audio where the product is mentioned, those media assets are identified so that you can change them. Once all the course elements have been changed, the LCMS can provide a list of all course materials that were updated, including online courses, instructor and student guides, and job aids. This enables you to republish and redeploy all affected courses and materials.

Layout Templates and Skins

LCMS products enable you to create reusable styles so that your content has a consistent look and feel. Styles can include logos, icons, color schemes or skins, page layouts, and standardized menu and navigation controls. These templates remove duplication of effort that occurs when each course developer must create their own skins, controls, and layouts. Templates ensure a consistent look and feel for all courses and course materials, improving the user experience by making it more standardized and predictable.

Reusability

LCMS-LMS products provide several features that support content reusability. Layouts and skins can be created once and used in multiple courses and materials. Because content is stored in a centralized, searchable repository, locating existing content elements such as images, media, and even entire modules and reusing them in multiple courses becomes easy.

Workflow and Notifications

LCMS products support collaboration through a configurable set of workflow and notification options. You can schedule content development tasks, handoffs, reviews, and approvals. Your schedule triggers an automatic email alert to the person or people responsible for the next step in the content development process.

For example, an instructional designer may develop a course outline. When the outline is completed, a course author receives an email stating that it’s ready. The author generates course pages from the outline. At the same time, a graphics artist is notified of images that must be created. When the graphics artist is done, the course author is notified that the images are ready to be placed into the course pages. Once the course is authored, the instructional designer is notified that the course is ready for review. After their review, the author is notified of revisions that need to be made. Next, a subject matter expert is notified that the course is ready for review.

Figure 4-1 illustrates an example of the type of learning program development workflow you can configure in an LCMS. Notice that some of the work is linear and some is done in parallel. Each handoff of work from one role to another is supported by email alerts. The entire process can be tracked by an administrator.

A dashboard shows where the course is in the development cycle, allowing a project manager to monitor its progress and intervene when delays occur. The process steps, people and roles, target dates, and sequence can be configured independently for each course development project.

Export Options

You can use the same LCMS-LMS content to generate a wide variety of course materials, including an online course, an instructor or learner guide, a job aid, documentation, or a website. This capability is especially useful for courses that you plan to offer in multiple delivery modes.

Figure 4-1. Example of Course Development Workflow

Course Delivery Features

Course delivery features generally include, at a minimum:

• a course catalog
• course self-enrollment
• web-based training delivery and tracking
• a personalized list of active courses for each user
• a personalized transcript of completed courses for each user
• email notifications
• reports.

Course Catalog

As with a corporate LMS, an LCMS-LMS supports a course catalog listing the learning programs available in the LMS. Courses may be listed by course title and code. When you select a course from the catalog, a page containing the course details is displayed, including the course description, credits, and other information, and a way to enroll in the course. You can search or browse the course catalog.

Course Self-Enrollment

LCMS-LMS products support self-service course enrollment. When you enroll in an online course, you gain immediate access to the course content. For an event-based course, you must select a specific date and location where the course is offered. It is important to note that some LCMS-LMS products are dedicated to the creation and delivery of online courses only, while other products also support event-based courses.

Web-Based Training Delivery and Tracking

LCMS-LMS products are able to host, launch, track, and report on self-paced online courses that have been developed using the product’s content development capabilities. Many LCMS-LMS products do not allow you to host online courses that are developed outside of its native content development tools.

Active Courses and Transcript

After users enroll, an LCMS-LMS allows them to view a list of active courses and launch web-based training programs, tests, surveys, and other online learning modules. It also provides a transcript listing all courses they have completed, the credits earned for each course, and a way to view or print a course completion certificate.

Email Notifications

In addition to email notifications that support course development workflow, an LCMS-LMS also provides notifications related to course delivery that confirm enrollment, and alert or remind learners of actions to take.

Reports

Like a corporate LMS, LCMS-LMS products typically provide reports on items like enrollments, completions, people, and courses that can be filtered by date range, course, or user.

Key Takeaways

This chapter described the features that are available in an integrated LCMS-LMS product and how it is similar to a corporate LMS, but with added capabilities for developing and managing learning content. The key takeaways are:

• An LCMS-LMS has collaborative course development tools and some course delivery features.
• LCMS-LMS products are mostly used by organizations that develop and deliver their own learning content.
• A snapshot of integrated LCMS-LMS features is shown in Table 4-2.

The next chapter introduces the various standards and specifications that are relevant to organizations that use any type of LMS.