Did you know that 48% of surveyed organizations wish to find a new learning management system (LMS)? There are several options on the market that have different characteristics, which may be better for one company or another. Knowing how to be good at selecting an LMS will help you reduce costs, time, and stress.
On the other hand, if your LMS is a bad fit, it could prove to be a costly mistake that sets you back months in missed learning opportunities. In this article, we will explain what are 5 things to avoid when choosing an LMS.
Be clear about the features that your LMS should have
One of the biggest mistakes that companies make when choosing a new LMS is not knowing how to identify the features that it must have for your needs. Due to the great number of offers and possibilities of LMS in the market, it is complicated for the companies to find the characteristics they are looking for in an LMS.
If you choose an LMS that not align with the learning objectives you have, it will slow down the learning process and create more obstacles.
Therefore, it is essential that you know what are the needs that students currently have. For this, you can carry out an analysis plan to find out what aspects of knowledge acquisition are missing.
Examples
The following are possible examples of fundamental features needed in an LMS, taking as an example the Graspway platform:
| Needs | Graspway Features |
| Increased interaction with students for a complete experience. | – Integrated chat – Integrated videoconferencing |
| The platform must be easy to use and people must have a very strong intuition of how to use it to reduce the learning curve and have more experience. | – Familiar tools to reduce learning curve & control experience: WordPress, Elementor, WooCommerce. – Open source: OpenedX |
| Know how the experience and learning curve of students evolves. Upskilling and knowledge is unsupported. | – Data module to understand how alumni move through the courses – learning path builder – Mobile-friendly learning |
| Have the possibility to provide students with proof that they have acquired the knowledge No formalized training | Graspway offers certificates |
| The appropriate price for what is being offered | Very competitive price compared to the competition. Considering the price/quality ratio. |
With this in mind, instead of looking for a plethora of features in an LMS and getting confused. You should focus on what your training needs the most at the moment. Once you have done this you can minimize your choices among LMS providers and selecting an LMS that is suitable to your expectations.
We recommend to look up this article for the principal keys to choosing an LMS platform.
Not keeping business scalability in mind
One of the purposes of selecting an LMS in the market is that it is present with us in the long term. For many reasons this makes sense as there is greater engagement with the platforms as they are used more and more over time.
Therefore, the LMS platform selected should grow with the company. Considering the size of your organization today and its expected growth in a few years are things to look at.
For example, some providers charge per user. This may be ideal for small businesses at the moment, but if you expect your business to grow in the future it may be better to opt for a license.
Also, some features may not be useful right now, but as your business grows it may be better to have them now. An example of this is Graspway which is a very scalable platform where you can have a few students now and in the future have thousands. This is because it is a cloud-based service so there are no limits to growth.
Creating an Unrealistic LMS Budget
Many companies make the mistake of budgeting for the cost of an LMS ONLY by taking into account the cost of acquiring the platform. But, this is far from reality. There are several fees associated with platform maintenance.
For example, setting up the system, monthly or yearly maintenance, upgrades and updates, and customization. These are some of the additional costs that you should take into account.
Therefore, it is essential that your provider is transparent and can give you complete information on the total costs of the Learning Management Systems. Based on this estimate, you can know how much money you can invest in a platform and selecting an LMS that has a good quality-price ratio and fulfills your expectations.
Other factors you should consider when evaluating vendor prices include:
- Is there content or course upload limit?
- How many administrators are allowed?
- What length of the contract is available?
- What is the cancellation policy?
Not testing the functionality in full before buying
Many suppliers will want to sell you their product as the most unique and best on the market. They may have good arguments in their pitch. But, it is important that you do not let yourself be guided by what they tell you and be more curious and demanding when deciding to go for one platform or another.
The best way you can see this is to use the benefits that some companies offer in using their Demos or Free Trials. All of these activities are in place to help potential customers explore the product features and make a grounded decision.
We recommend that several people in your company such as IT, human resources, and sales use the tool to collect their experiences, suggestions, and feedback about the LMS.
On the Open Edx website, you can find LMS options that offer free trials to those who sign up. This can help you a lot in your search to find the best LMS for your company!
Forgetting about reports and analytics
Finally, to have a complete platform, it is not only necessary that the courses are offered with the best features on a suitable platform. You need to be able to get a good analysis of the progress and performance of learners.
Reporting and analytics tools are the must-haves in a learning platform.
In fact, 82% of organisations consider reporting and analytics to be an important platform feature to improve their digital learning. However, only 14% of them measure the impact of digital learning effectively.
In general, most LMS platforms have reporting tools. These tools will help you to know if the knowledge transferred is aligned with the learning objectives you have. Therefore, you should choose an LMS that offers the ability to generate comprehensive reports that are easy to read and that are already embedded in the platform.
Final Thoughts
These are some common mistakes that should be avoided when comparing LMS platforms for the selection of the best platform which suits the need of the organization. As we mentioned at the beginning, the most important thing is that you are clear about your training needs before searching the market for options.
When choosing a new learning management system, consider its characteristics and the price and costs associated with its implementation. For this point, we suggest you to play with each platform through their free trials, this will give you a very good idea of what the LMS will be like.
Good luck in your search!
