What is LMS?
LMS is short for Learning Management System.
It is a management system used to deliver educational courses and/or training programs to your customer base. It is a software program that can help you easily organize the courses you plan to deliver by helping in creation, change, assigning, grading, etc.
For example, MS Office Word helps you write various documents, Gmail helps you receive, send and manage your emails, Adobe Illustrator helps you design and deliver various kinds of elements. In a similar manner, LMS is a software program that not only helps you create but also manage and deliver eLearning courses.
Features of a Learning Management System
A Learning Management System is a web-based platform for delivering, tracking and managing online training. The main features of a Learning Management System include course management, learners enrollment, activity reporting, messaging, conducting assessments, certification etc.
Here is an exploration of the role of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and how a Learning Management System benefits any school.
A Learning Management System provides technology for the delivery of eLearning material that can be utilized to share course content, activate technology based learning tools, facilitate interaction and feedback, and provide a means for delivery of assessment and assignment submission. So, a Learning Management System (LMS) can provide the following features:
Course Management:
Build a curriculum using different kinds of engaging and insightful course material. This is an essential feature of any LMS. Course material may include videos, material for reading, presentations, evaluations, polls, etc. Learning Management Systems can offer courses managed by administrators or instructors as well as catalogs of courses that include courses that are open for learners to self-register.
Managing Learners:
Registering learners to the LMS. Enrolling learners to the relevant courses. Depending on the Learning Management System, registration and enrollment activities can be performed one at a time or in bulk using CSV import features.
Reporting And Analytics:
It is of utmost importance to monitor the online training initiatives to determine if they are on target or not. The same rule also applies to learner performance. Are learners engaging with the online training material? Is it providing learners with all the information they need to achieve their learning objectives? These are questions that can be answered with a robust reporting system built into the LMS. Learning Management Systems also feature analytics that allow you to monitor online training on individual and group level.
Messaging and Notifications:
You want your learners to be updated about everything related to their Course. Many Learning Management Systems offer a built is communication feature that allows you to send reminders and notifications to learners on upcoming training events, deadlines, exams, course completions, etc. You can also use the medium to promote other eLearning courses available on your eLearning platform.
Assignments and Exams:
At every stage of the course, you would like to assess the Learner and their progress. A learning management system allows you to create assignments that are based on multiple choice question answers. This can help you gauge the level of understanding of the subject. An LMS can also help conduct a time bound exam which consists of a fixed number of questions randomly selected from a question bank.
Certification:
Depending on the LMS, a certificate can be automatically issued based on the criteria setup for the online exam.
You can learn about each of these features in Paatham by viewing the feature Base section.
Paatham - The Learning App and School Management System