Learning Management Systems to improve your education business
What is an LMS? How do they work and how can they benefit your education business?
What is an LMS?
A LMS is a learning management system. It is basically software that allows an educational business to
- Offer courses
- Store the courses ready for your students
- Manage the courses
- Track how students are doing
- Track the course materials
You might also use an LMS to –
- Set goals
- Communicate with students
- Review analytics
- Identify gaps in skills
- See what students require additional support on their training
You may have also heard the term LCMS. This is not the same as an LMS.
An LMS is used to manage training materials, such as –
- Course notes
- Ebooks
- Multichoice questionnaires
- Videos
An LCMS is a Learning Management Content System.
This can be used to create the learning materials themselves. Some education providers will have an LMS and LCMS, but an LCMS is only really needed if a course provider is planning to produce many, many different courses quickly.
How does an LMS work?
To use an LMS, you need three basic roles –
- The administrator
- The teacher
- The student
You may have other roles if you wish, but at the bare minimum, you require an administrator, teacher and student.
These three roles are the three main roles in the e-learning ecosystem.
The Administrator carries out tasks such as –
- Adding the courses
- Ensuring the relevant settings are used in the admin dashboard
- Reviewing open, dormant and closed courses
- Reviewing student progress
- Monitoring the performance of tutors
Some examples of the administrator’s tasks include –
- Adding a new course.
- Setting up timings. For example, if the student has twelve months to complete a course, they will need to enter the time frame. Or if a student has an online exam, they may set up a time limit for the student to complete the examination.
- Assigning roles. For example, if a new student starts a course, the administrator will allocate the course to the student. If the student submits work or asks a question, the administrator will also allocate the marking or answering of the query to a specific teacher.
- Checking that a student has access to their course.
- Checking how a student is progressing as they work through the course.
- Checking a tutor is marking assignments within a set time agreed in their contract.
- Making sure that the courses are functioning by doing random, regular checks on the LMS.
- The administrator will also potentially have access to analytics, such as enrolments, revenue, costs etc.
- The administrator has, therefore, an overall view of what is going on in terms of the courses offered and how students and teachers are doing.
The Teacher will carry out tasks such as –
- Managing their courses
- Marking assignments
- Answering student queries.
Depending on the educational business’s decisions, they may also have access to course analytics.
Some LMS also offer forums and other student engagement activities for the tutor to monitor.
The Learner’s Role is, obviously, to complete their course and training. Using the LMS, they can see –
- The course they have been enrolled in.
- Any assignments they have to complete.
- Due dates if they are given.
- The student can view their overall progress and grades.
- They may also have other options, such as how to contact their tutor, arrange an exam, request a certificate.
How can an LMS benefit your education business?
There are many benefits to having an LMS in your education business, or if you are a large business with lots of staff to train.
- An LMS makes organisation and reviewing the progress of students easier -
- An LMS makes it easier for the educational business to organise their e-learning and training.
- An LMS also makes it easier for the students themselves to see what they need to do and how they are doing in their course.
- An LMS allows you to keep all of your courses and training opportunities for your staff in one place. It can be hard to keep control of everything when you have multiple students studying different courses. But the LMS allows you to easily take control of the courses and training on offer to each individual. You simply allocate a course to the student, then their username and password to access the course. It is as simple as that.
- An LMS allows you to keep track of how students are progressing through the course. You can see exactly what assignments they have done, questions they have asked and what scores they are getting.
- Not all students work at the same pace, so the LMS allows you to see how students are doing, but also how they are progressing through the course. This can help you to identify if a student needs help.
- Have an LMS can increase engagement with students and potentially increase your enrolment rates.
An LMS can save time and money –
- Organising and managing training can be costly and time consuming. An LMS can make it simpler and more efficient. A few minutes setting up a student on an LMS compared to a longer time sending out courses, manually setting up access to courses etc.
- All of your courses are in the same place and easily accessible by the administrator who can allow access to students and teachers.
- Students can learn when they want with an LMS. This means that a teacher and administrator does not need to be available at a set time and place. The student simply dips into the course when they want to.
An LMS can help to improve the student’s experience –
- As we just said, the student can study when and where they want to.
- They can see all of their course materials in one place.
- They know how they are doing overall on the course.
- This means that they are more likely to engage on the course as they can see just what they have to do to get to the finishing line.
An LMS also improves communication as the student knows exactly how to access a question, often simply by clicking a button in the LMS. They can also easily see their grades, what assignments they have submitted, what has been marked and what needs marking. It is that simple.
An LMS therefore helps the education provider to organise and deliver courses effectively and gives students and teachers a more enjoyable and efficient educational experience.
It also has other advantages, by offering white label branding.
White Label Branding
- Many LMS allow you to use your own branding on white label products, so that you can resell courses. For example, ACS Distance Education offer white label courses for educational organisations to resell. So you can use your own colours, logos, fonts etc to label and brand the courses on your LMS.
- White labelling means that you also have access to the course content without having to create it yourself. At ACS, we currently have over 700 courses and 150 eBooks available for white labelling. This is a fast and efficient way to increase the courses and training materials you currently on offer.
- The courses are already written, produced and ready for you to use expand your business.
- AND our courses are written by experts. They are experts in their fields, but they are also experts in writing for e-learning.
This means that you –
- Have access to hundreds of courses and eBooks to rapidly expand your stable of courses.
- The courses are written by experts.
- You can spend more time marketing courses, taking enrolments and supporting your students.
If you are interested in rapidly expanding the training materials that you currently offer, or are looking to start your own educational business, get in touch with us for a personalised service.
We want to make sure that our courses and provision is suitable for you.
We want to make sure that you are the right fit for us, so we will take the time to get to you know you to make sure that we are right for each other.
Start a new business partnership today with ACS – the education provider that cares.