Learning Conversations

A lot of people, including me(!), disparage the LMS (Learning Management System) quite vociferously.

To be honest, the problem we have is often not the fault of the system, it's how it's used in conjunction with other systems.

LMS's are brilliant (well, sometimes...) at handling administrative tasks like booking resources, sending out joining instructions, and dealing with approvals and the money side of things.

They're also really good at automating measurement of achievement, eg. with a multiple-choice assessment or through a simulation.

What they're not so good at is being a place where you store knowledge objects - documents, HTML pages, videos etc - ie. stuff that learners will read, listen to or watch.

But that's how most LMS's are used... to store SCORM packages which are full of knowledge objects.

The trouble with using an LMS for that purpose is that learners generally have to:

1. login
2. find the course or programme they want
3. perhaps enrol on that course
4. and then work through the SCORM package to find the specific piece of knowledge they need

That's fine for a formal learning situation, with someone who's a novice. You'll want them to get an overview of the issues and ideas.

But, after that, learners will (hopefully) want to return to the materials, to refresh their knowledge, or to answer a question. It's learning at the point of need.

That's where our typical SCORM packages inside LMS's fall down.

Most people, when they want to find something out, do one of two things:

• Ask someone who they think will know the answer.
• Look for the answer, eg. in a manual, or, more often these days, via a search engine.

That's the problem. The LMS hides knowledge away from search engines (which can't dig into the SCORM packages). Even so, many organisations still don't have a decent search engine inside their firewalls.

Even if a learner knew which SCORM package was the right one to look at, many don't include any sort of search facility. This means that learners have to trawl through all the information until they find the bit they need.

So, what's the answer?

I would argue that there is one thing that would make a huge difference:

Make sure that all your knowledge objects are in an easily accessible and searchable content management system. These days it's not difficult or even expensive. But make sure the search engine doesn't just look at the metadata. It should search inside the documents/pages themselves (unless we're talking video or audio of course).

Then use your LMS for what it's good for, and link to the knowledge objects whenever they're needed in your simulations, exercises or assessments.

Ideally, the modern LMS would also contain a decent, user-searchable content management system. But as far as I'm aware, that's not true in most cases. Unless someone knows otherwise?

For more see:

The LMS must die
A corporate learning ecosystem
Three steps to increase the impact of your online learning content
SCORM Warning