Elearning! Magazine

MAY-JUN 2011

Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.

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musthavesforyournextlms >> Talent Management System (TMS) – Evolved within or alongside the LMS, so it may include much of the same functionality as an LMS, but with additional HR-, peer- and per- formance-type functions. These functions include features like appli- cant tracking, 360-degree feedback, peer review and ratings, expert modalities. As part of its functionality, we usually expect that it can help us plan and track a learner's progress and activities, as well as help us manage the varied activities that surround the learning modalities such as registra- tion, classroom and instructor plan- ning, multiple catalogs, multiple cal- endars, certification tracking, and a host of other activities. Depending on the clients serviced, this system will take on additional feature sets that were driven by usage in either a spe- cific enterprise, industry or govern- ment environment. tionality is part of an LMS, the features are usually highlighted as authoring tools or rapid development tools. The LCMS has evolved as a standalone enti- ty, but many have developed features that can track and administer the learn- ing process for their type of supported content. And of course, many can inter- operate with an LMS or a TMS. A LOOK AT THE FINDINGS Elearning! Magazine Group (EMG) con- ducted a study across corporate and gov- ernment enterprise learning audiences. Top findings: >> 40% of the respondents planned to add, change or replace their current LMSs or TMSs Must-Have Features >> 41% of the current LMS/TMS owners planned to purchase a new system. Correspondingly, 39% of "non-owners" had plans to purchase a TMS/LMS. In total, as a group of buyers, 40% said that they planned to make this pur- The LCMS has evolved as a standalone entity, but many have developed features that can track and administer the learning process for their type of supported content. >> Learning Content Management System (LCMS) – Can be standalone or part of an LMS. Its primary purpose is to allow multiple authors to collaborate with one another in order to create, review, edit, manage, and store content for learning programs. When this func- directory/locator functions, succes- sion planning, workforce plan- ning/staffing functions (driven from employee profiles), social network- ing, compensation planning, and more. Sometimes these features have been implemented within an LMS, while in other cases they have evolved as separate modules or sys- tems. In many cases, they can inter- operate with an LMS. 36 May / June 2011 >> Of the current owners of a TMS/LMS, 45% use an enterprise-based LMS, 41% use a hosted or SaaS-based (soft- ware as a service) LMS, and 12% relied on open source LMS. chase within the next 24 months. >>What are the "must-have" features in their next LMS/TMS, we collected the following data points (See Table 1). All of these data proved to be somewhat telling. There was a stronger move to SaaS- based systems. Social networking tools made a strong appearance along with more of the talent management feature sets. LEARNING TRENDS AND ISSUES While trying to guess an enterprise's future learning needs and styles will be at best Course tracking/completions . . . . . . . . . 90% Testing & assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73% Integrated reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70% Course marketing/e-mail . . . . . . . . . . . . 53% Authoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50% Skills gap analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46% Performance management . . . . . . . . . . . 46% Rapid development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44% On-demand option. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43% Career development planning. . . . . . . . . 42% Applicant tracking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38% Social networking tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31% Succession planning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31% Compensation management. . . . . . . . . . 16% imprecise, there are some growing trends that we can use to extrapolate where edu- cation and training might be headed. To that end, we thought Elearning! could act as a "straw man" and suggest a list of 20 possible learning trends. How did we come up with the list? We used our unique perspective and our sea- soned editorial staff to look back a decade to see what had dominated the landscape. We then compared it to cur- rent practices to see if there was any movement — either up or down. We then projected that movement forward to come up with the initial list. You are invited to rigorously defend, challenge or add to the list on our Elearning! and Government Elearning! mag- azine blogs (http://blogs.2elearning.com/): The harder part of this exercise, assum- ing that you agree with one or more of these trends, will be to express the trend(s) as features and functionality within an RFP for an LMS/TMS/LCMS. Although space doesn't permit us to go into each trend, we thought we'd cover five examples of how to translate these trends into a list of features. We encourage you to use them as talking points when you get together with your LMS project Table 1: Government Elearning!

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