Now, more than ever, Training Companies are accepting eLearning with open arms. Now, more than ever, Learning Management Systems are undergoing a massive transformation.

From the days when Classroom/ Human Mediated Training was the norm for Training Companies, to today when different modes of training delivery are, slowly but surely, making their presence felt, the Learning Management System has evolved (and continues to evolve) with each step in time. ‘LMS for Training Companies – Then & Now‘ is an eBook which will take you through this journey of the LMS.

The Wiki is one of the most under-utilized and underestimated feature of an LMS. That’s because, most of us haven’t gotten around to realizing what the Wiki is capable of, and hence the potential of the Wiki feature is unharnessed. This post is an endeavor to explore the various uses of the LMS Wiki.

Customer Complaints, how to avoid the traps makes for an interesting read; especially so because it looks at the LMS sales process purely from a customer’s perspective. The issues highlighted are quite pertinent and yes, I think, there is a high probability that an organization looking for an LMS (new or changing) would have encountered one or more of these traps. Some may actually have fallen into these traps unknowingly.

For us this New Year has been more than just resolutions. After a successful 2010, we are all geared up for 2011 with more events and more plans. And hence more opportunities to help you in managing your learning better!

We are kick starting the year with a Brandon Hall Research webinar on ‘How to Select the Right LMS for Your Small/Medium Business’. Scheduled on January 19^th, 2011, this would be the first of many webinars that we have planned for 2011. This FREE webinar will be sponsored by Upside Learning and will address the critical problems and questions faced by most Small- and Medium- Businesses (SMBs) while selecting an LMS.

The recession of 2008 changed more than just the world economy. It changed the way Training Companies functioned. Post the economic downturn, Training Companies the world over were revamping the way they operated and the services they offered to their customers. An important change was evidently the inclusion of eLearning (or online training) as part of their core offering for existing and new customers. Such an offering was not purely driven by a cost-saving strategy on the customer’s part, but was also due to the growing acceptance of eLearning as an effective way of delivering training.

The LMS market has evolved significantly over the last decade or so. And there probably are more than 250 LMS systems in circulation around the world. While the large LMS systems are simply out-of-reach of a majority of businesses, most of the small LMS systems don’t necessarily have all the necessary features your business needs for efficient and effective learning management – be it for internal staff or for your customers. To top it all, varied and complicated pricing models make it nothing short of a herculean task to identify and select the right LMS – one that has the necessary and also forward-looking features, is available as a SaaS and is priced with you in mind.

After the recent recognition of Upside Learning as one of the top 20 Learning portal companies in the world by trainingindustry.com, Sébastien FRAYSSE of lms-selection.com interviewed us and put it up here on his blog with the title LMS Vendor interview: Upside Learning.

In his post Sébastien highlights what is part of our core philosophy – innovation – “Upside Learning is a very innovative vendor”.

This year has been truly remarkable for UpsideLMS.

First, there were the 3 awards from Brandon Hall Awards for Excellence in Learning Technology, then it was Brandon Hall, chairman of Brandon Hall Research, naming UpsideLMS amongst the ‘Five Emerging Learning Management Systems (LMSs) to Watch’ in Chief Learning Officer (CLO) Magazine, and now its TrainingIndustry.com featuring Upside Learning in its inaugural ‘Top 20 Learning Portal Companies List’. We are on a roll and how!

In continuation to our series of monthly roundup posts, here is a collection of our top 10 posts for July, each accompanied by a quick brief.

About almost an entire year ago (just  five days short to be precise) I put up a post on Learning Management: What does a Training Company need an LMS for?.  A year on and I was trying to review if things have changed significantly in for what a training company (or even an SMB) would need from an LMS in today’s scenario.

In continuation to our series of monthly roundup posts, here is a collection of our top 10 posts for June, each accompanied by a quick brief.

The good news first: the market is upbeat about LMS technology; in the recent past I have seen an increasing number of enquiries on LMS – which is good.

The ‘not so bad’ news, something which made me think a little – in many RFPs I still find eLearning is a very small part of the requirements. In fact a couple of RFPs from very large organizations were similar in defining what they need from an LMS. I noticed that more than half of the requirements catered to managing classroom training. There was a low-key section on eLearning mentioning SCORM compliance in the RFP and that was about it!