Are your learners disenchanted with your corporate Learning Management System? If so, they’re not alone. The enterprise LMS has become a victim of its own success; the LMS in many large companies is packed full of courses – many outdated or no longer relevant. Its interface does little to help learners navigate to learning that is pertinent to reaching their personal learning goals (if learners are even aware of those goals in the first place). The system that was implemented to streamline training as an enterprise learning portal has in many cases itself become part of the learning overload problem.
Our clients are turning to SharePoint Learning Portals to overcome the usability issues with their corporate LMS. The SharePoint platform offers the ability to design a program or department-specific interface to guide learners down a tailored learning path. SharePoint offers social learning elements that can be seamlessly integrated in a way that makes sense to a given curriculum and learning audience. SharePoint is linked to a learner’s system ID, and has the ability to deliver learning content specific to that learner’s role, geographic region, or other custom criteria.
The two methods of course delivery seem at odds. The LMS is a secure repository for the enterprise to push learning content to its population, track their learning consumption, and report learner progress. In contrast, SharePoint offers a secure portal to help guide learners down a custom (or self-defined) learning path, pull resources from multiple sources (learning related or otherwise), and interact with other learners. The enterprise needs security and accountability; learners need context and guidance – and they want autonomy in selecting learning that is meaningful to them. Both sides benefit from connecting employees with each other through social media. Will the Learning Portal ultimately displace the enterprise LMS?
The way we were
To better understand an ideal solution to the enterprise learning delivery dilemma, it helps to remember the dynamics that brought us here in the first place. Early in the evolution of eLearning, it was common for various departmental silos of a large corporation to design and deliver learning separately using their own means of course delivery. For example, HR might own compliance and soft skills training (such as leadership), but sales had its own training organization and delivery model, and technical training could be owned and managed by a product group. Each department best understood the needs nuances of their respective learning audiences. They were well positioned to design, promote, and deliver programs targeted to meet those needs. Separately, they each offered a manageable number of courses.
But as eLearning offerings proliferated, feeding and supporting multiple learning organizations under one corporate roof created unnecessary overhead and waste through duplication of development, technology, and support. A single organization might have multiple departmental learning sites or even separate LMSs. Quality of content and learning approaches varied widely. It was difficult to enforce uniform brand standards or repurpose learning assets housed in separate repositories. Learners had to maintain multiple secure logins, and their learning paths and course completions were tracked and reported through different systems that didn’t communicate with each other.
Enter the enterprise LMS
A single enterprise LMS solves those problems, and does it well. As a single repository of courses and secure record of completions, the LMS can securely track a record of an individual employee’s learning journey within an organization for both compliance and employee development. It can also report aggregate data on course registrations and completions for program analysis and budget considerations. This is exactly the type of “Management” functionality the LMS was implemented to perform. In its next logical evolution, the enterprise LMS is moving beyond course completions and starting to take on new functionality stepping toward talent/performance management.
Any failure on the part of the LMS is not in its back-end functionality but in the one-size-fits-all way it interfaces with learners. Today’s time-strapped learners need the quickest route to learning success, in each of the various learning paths they may be pursuing simultaneously. At work, they want the same easy access to online media and social communications that they enjoy at home. Many LMS providers are trying to meet these needs by bolting on additional functionality, including social learning elements. But many of these efforts are proving clunky, at best.
… and now for something completely different
Coming around full circle, here is where the SharePoint Learning Portal really shines – not as a replacement for the enterprise LMS, but in enhancing its usability and functionality. Traditional online courses can continue to be securely housed and tracked in the LMS. However, the Learning Portal can not only deep link into LMS courses, but it’s free to guide learners to resources and learning opportunities not currently housed within the LMS. Its Social Learning elements can be used for learner discussions, and for connecting mentors and peers. The portal can facilitate cohort group learning and experiential assignments over time, with convenient linking to the learner’s calendar.
Consider a custom portal for each large learning initiative – onboarding, sales, and leadership are most common. A more disposable learning portal might guide learning through a large-scale change initiative. These same groups that used to be separate learning organizations in large companies can now regain the visibility and direction they need for their learners, while still preserving overall corporate standards and without separate back-end infrastructure.
Will SharePoint replace the corporate enterprise LMS? To paraphrase that oft-used quote by Mark Twain, rumors of the death of the LMS are premature. The corporate LMS is not dead – but it is evolving, as are SharePoint, Social Learning, and Learning Portals.
What would you like to see that your current LMS isn’t providing? Are you experimenting with Learning Portals? Let us know.
Chris Willis
Harrison Withers
atroccko
John Chapin
AliciaMarie Belchak
media1bill
MWykes
David Glow
September 14, 2010
In 7 years working with a Fortune 50 financial organization, I have seen the full circle, and had to participate in it’s every phase.
Phase 1: for regulatory purposes, put everything in the LMS so we can track it. Get it out of the department level portals and tools so it can be centrally administered and tracked.
Phase 2: now that the regulatory requirements are fulfilled, and we aren’t putting out fires because our deployments and reporting are paint-by-numbers prescribed and bullet proof, try to make it a bit easier to get through
Phase 3: the core is running well, but to make the training group shine- add more- much more- as much as we can to show how much we provide the organization
Phase 4: Erm… there is too much- can you create some custom sites so folks can weed through the required vs recommended training
Phase 5: OK- you did OK there, but can we build some of our own to be more nimble with work- or project-based learning needs? Why’d you ever take this stuff out of our hands in the first place?
Your insights are spot on- I’ve lived it. My current work is basically recreating or teaching others to create portals to “hide” the fact we have an LMS with several thousand learning assets in it, so they are both empowered and focused on meaningful learning for their role in the organization.