Tips for Management of an LMS or LCMS

Best tips for management of an Learning Content Management System (LCMS)

• Have a centralized support hotline for learning management support. Depending on the usage,work out if it needs to be 24 x 7. Some companies may have training distributed globally from a central

point.

• Support team should educate the trainers and those that would like to make use of the

system. Critical to maintain.

• Build a relationship with the internal customers and help them overcome any frustrations.

• Look for ways to leverage the system through the organization and even outside.

• Allocate a project manager(s) to coordinate every step, role, and responsibility of the project.

• Recruit a company executive to “sponsor” your efforts, and who will go to bat for you.

• Identify liaisons throughout the company who will help communicate and train their fellow

co-workers on the new system.

• Listen to your users and make appropriate changes based on their feedback and suggestions.

• Get marketing involved (or create a campaign yourself), to push the idea of a new learning

system.

• Get training involved to schedule regular training sessions on the system.

• Make sure you have lots of available and relevant content for your users to use.

Note-This is an excerpt of an ebook 311 TIPS on the Management of an LMS or LCMS.

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Emerging Open Source LMS Markets

If you thought that “Open source learning management system (LMS) equals Moodle”, then think again. There are at least five credible open source substitutes to commercial LMS solutions, each of which we feel is good enough to recommend to our customers. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ system; each of them has strengths that suit certain organizations and weaknesses that make them less suited to others. In this paper we recommend the top open source LMSs, take a look at five key markets and propose the open source LMS best suited to each.

A changing market

Open source LMSs have evolved against a background of consolidation in the commercial LMS market which has seen:

• Global players (Oracle, Peoplesoft, SAP) entering the enterprise market
• A dwindling number of vendors dominating the enterprise market (Sumtotal Systems, Saba, Plateau) largely through merger and acquisition activity
• Many mid-market LMS vendors (such as Epic’s non-open source Arena LMS) specializing in small and medium sized business and niche markets.

As the LMS market evolves, it is facing up to some major challenges. The big ERP players have failed to achieve their forecast success, incumbent vendors have been criticized for responding slowly to changing customer requirements, and customer satisfaction is low.

Read the full story written by Mark Aberdour Technical Producer, Epic

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Learning Management System Industry Dying?

Is LMS industry dying? Where major players like SumTotal Systems, Cornerstone, Succesfactors and many others are going? Have their business reached maturity phase? Is there any enough demand for lms system by verticals across the globe? Or this field is too crowded with many players including open source lms players? Is this field a niche?

If you look at the search pattern of users on internet, Google Insights shows a decline search pattern for phrases like leaning management system.

However, this data I must admit shows the popularity for key phrases. And, it will be too early to answer all the above questions merely based on Google Insights.

If you really like to read what is happening overall in LMS industry, you need to access Bersin & Associates Report ‘Learning Management Systems 2009: Facts, Practical Analysis, Trends and Provider Profiles. The 345-page study is based on detailed briefings and product demonstrations provided by LMS vendors and an extensive quantitative survey of more than 525 LMS customers representing a broad cross-section of industries.

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