Amit Gautam | August 27th, 2009 | Learning Management, Learning Technology, eLearning
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Selecting an LMS is a challenging task and that’s just because it takes care of an important business function and needs to work well. The web today holds a great deal of information on how to select an LMS, LMS Selection tools, directories of leading LMS systems, sample RFIs, and a whole lot of other very useful and handy information. However it is equally important for the decision makers to know what NOT to do while (before and during) selecting an LMS as many of these things aren’t clearly highlighted elsewhere. More so, the don’ts leave a deeper impression!
- It is not an IT system purchase. First things first. Let us be strong about it. Do not make the LMS an IT system purchase only. You do not need to be any more IT-savvy than you already may be to evaluate or go about selecting the right LMS system for your organization. It is a piece of software and the IT part stops there. From the very first day when you start talking about the need for an LMS with management and internal staff do not involve IT, (unless you need some inputs from them); make sure you focus on the core objectives, perceived benefits, and desired outcomes from the system.
- Do not buy after just a sales demonstration. Go deeper. With respect to salesmen and the time they get to demonstrate a product for the first time, do not buy the system right after. If required, get one or two more demonstrations done; involve more people to ask more questions: to-be-administrators, user groups, the IT team (yes, they can give inputs and ask technical questions but only to an extent).
- Do not delegate ‘dig deeper’ to someone in your team unless he/she is qualified to map requirements to system functionality. There is no doubting your team’s capabilities but the critical evaluation must be done diligently and mustn’t be delegated to someone who may only look at it from a narrow perspective and present an opinion that may not be fully informed or accurate.
- Do not sign the order before a full trial access. While there is little doubt about the demonstrations by the sales team or your team’s evaluation; just as you wouldn’t buy a car without a test drive, you wouldn’t purchase an LMS without trial use either. Involve to-be-administrators and some users and do a full trial. This may take a few weeks depending on your team’s availability and planning, but if ignored can put your learning initiative in jeopardy.
- Do not leave the ‘thinking’ part to the LMS vendor. As one of the vendors ourselves, I have found that a few (ok, I’ll admit, more than a few) customers make assumptions that the vendor would take care of all such assumed items automatically and that they are obvious. However, this can lead to unacceptable situations which delay or hinder the implementation of the LMS. Go through the process of scoping and describing your requirements elaborately pertaining to modifying workflows, expectations from MIS reports (format, structure), automated email notifications (templates, protocols, etc.), the initial data set to be loaded, etc. This exercise takes time and effort but eventually saves time and hassles. While we agree a good LMS provider would know their job and create an implementation process which will enable them to manage such variable, this is not always the case. Ensure the vendor you select documents the scope and requirements before any sort of implementation starts.
These tips are from our own experience of selling, customizing and implementing LMS systems over the years.
If someone has additional don’ts to add to these, please comment.
August 28th, 2009 at 4:46 am
Do not assume that if the LMS is SCORM 1.2 compliant that it will be able to do all of SCORM 1.2. Most of the SCORM cmi structure is optional and as eLearning developers we have found that many LMSs do not support the full cmi model under 1.2 – One LMS did not support anything other than the small set of mandatory items. i.e. it did not track objectives or interactions data.
August 28th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Mike, that’s a useful one. It is very important not to ignore to verify the level of SCORM compliance the LMS provider is offering. This is verified by looking at the RTEN compliance indicator. e.g. SCORM 1.2 RTE3 compliance indicates a complete compliance with both the mandatory and optional elements of the SCORM CMI.
August 28th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
[...] a look at Five Things Not to Do While Selecting an LMS.
August 28th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Great post, Amit! Shared the link with aLearning readers as well. Just found your blog and look forward to reading more!
Ellen
August 29th, 2009 at 4:20 am
Ellen, thanks for the comment and sharing the post on your blog.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:36 am
How about downloading open source LMS and getting further help to customize according to needs?
Is it advisable?
October 14th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Hi Sankar,
Downloading open source LMS and getting it customized is a feasible option. However there are a few different factors than those I mentioned above that come in play here. If you are getting external help please make sure that the development company is not treating it as a purely software development and must have experience in customizing open source LMS or LMS development. The reason this is required is that a qualified and experienced vendor (in terms of LMS development) would be able to contribute immensely to the process of requirements specifications unless you have an internal team with a good mix of business and technical people to arrive at a sound specification of what you need from the LMS.
One way to go about this is to start using the open source LMS as-is without any changes and then collect feedback from users over a period of 3 months or more. This will not only save an immediate cost but also make the customization activity much more focused and productive eventually. It may also happen that after this feedback and your own experience with the LMS you may want to evaluate commercial LMS options because open source LMS may start demanding additional costs – internal IT people for maintenance and support, dependence on the development partner for support and enhancements, hosting and other IT activities around the LMS. So while obtaining the open source LMS may be free to start with, please keep evaluating the real cost of ownership frequently to ensure that you are not ending up with a more ‘expensive’ option.
So, if you really have to use an open source LMS my advise would be to use it as-is without any customizations. Collect all feedback and then fomulate a plan for customization.
Please feel free to approach me back for any additional help on this matter. I hope my response helped.
Amit
October 14th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Amit and other readers — I come from the world of non-profits and trade associations, where most organizations have staff sizes of a dozen or fewer people; they tend to outsource the heavy duty IT tasks. This makes open source (as far as I can see) prohibitively expensive because of the sorts of things you mention.
I like your suggestion, Amit, to start with the “out of the box” (such that it is) structure and working from there.
So here’s my question: when the customization elements have been identified, is it reasonable to expect IT vendors to be able to quote a fixed price for the work? Money is tight (yes, everywhere, but especially so when your finances are based on membership dues and program registration fees), so having a clear idea of the costs going in is essential to getting leadership buy-in.
Is it possible for an organization to estimate the amount of maintenance (in hours) an open source system might require, for ongoing budget projections?
Are there any reports of standards that an organization can consult for information like this?
Does anyone know of any small organizations using open source LMS?
I haven’t promoted open source as a possible solution to my small-staff clients because of these drawbacks. Any insight provided will help.
Thanks so much!
October 15th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Hi Ellen,
You have raised some very relevant and important questions here. Let me try to answer them one by one.
Yes, it is very reasonable to expect IT vendors to be able to provide you with a fixed price for the work once the customization elements have been identified. However the customization elements not only just need to be listed but also be defined clearly. In case of a lack of clarity the IT vendor may not be able to provide you with an accurate estimate.
There is no fixed formula for calculating maintenance requirements in terms of hours, etc. as the support requirements are subject to number of users, nature and amount of content on the LMS, usage trends, etc. However it may be wise to anticipate high support requirement around the time when new things happen on the LMS – new courses, new assessments, etc. Also, the system should ideally settle down after the initial few months of usage and the maintenance requirement goes down. Most of the maintenance time is actually user support time on queries rather than any real problems. As a vendor we actually sell pre-paid support hour packages to our customers as it helps customers keep a control on the spend. There are options on annual maintenance contracts or even incidents-based support arrangements.
I am not really aware of any reports of standards on this but will be on lookout for such.
There are a number of small organizations using open source LMS. Best would be to go to specific LMS forums and you will find a user group there to talk to.
I hope these responses helped. I think the most important thing to understand regarding open source LMS is that only the code is free of licenses but that doesnt imply that there are no other costs associated with implementing the LMS.
I will soon follow up my comments with a complete post around open source LMS and a few queries raised on this post compiling all such tips and insights.
Amit
February 9th, 2010 at 8:05 am
After sitting in several demos from LMS providers and doing a rush rush RFP our team is going back and investigating groups with integrated web conferencing. Any suggestions?
February 9th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Hi Jo,
Are you facing some challenges or do you feel something is amiss? I would be happy to offer you suggestions you could tell me what problems/challenges are you facing or foreseeing.
Is this all taking too long at your end? Or has it led to a confused myriad of choices in vendors?
Once I know more I’d be pleased to offer any help I can provide.
Cheers!
Amit Gautam
February 9th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Jo Marie — Two companies I’d suggest you contact:
Digitec Interactive (http://www.digitecinteractive.com) — ask for Dick Hofmann. Last I heard they were incorporating Webinar archiving capability into their KnowledgeDirect Web LMS.
LearnGauge (http://www.learngauge.com) — ask for Chad Gent. They have a couple of different LMSes and might be able to address your need.
I’ve been researching various LMS providers for an ongoing series of blog posts, and recommend that you identify the types of elearning you plan to make available via your LMS.
For example, Blackboard and iCohere are two companies that specialize (if you will) in systems that make instructor-led programs available. Haven’t seen Blackboard, but iCohere’s will store archived/recorded Web conferences, though I don’t know about live sessions launching from it.
KnowledgeDirect Web and LearnGauge’s LMS are built more for asynchronous, stand-alone elearning.
I have been experimenting with another system and it appears that though the structure is designed for instructor-led courses (more of a course management system than an LMS), it seemed to have loaded a link to a stand-alone asynch course A-OK. No scoring from the asynch course was built to be saved, so that hasn’t been tested. Let me know off-discussion if you’d like info on this option.
Eager to see what others are recommending and have experienced!
Thanks!
February 9th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Jo, I am not sure what stage you are at in evaluating the LMSs. UpsideLMS also offers integrated web conferencing along with a host of extensive enterprise LMS features. If you would like to have a look I can get a demo arranged for you. We offer it in both hosted as well as behind the firewall.
Did you mean to seek suggestions on different LMS vendors offering web conferencing features?
Amit