LMS Low-Cost Webinars Hosted eCommerce Subscriptions

I was talking with a startup that has an existing audience and now want to provide a monthly subscription for access to training to this audience. They will only convert a portion of the audience to the new service. The learners will get access to webinars, recorded webinars, videos, and other online content that they will author separately.

They don't really have a tech team, so going with a hosted solution that would live at a subdomain would be best, i.e., subscribers would go to: learn.company.com in order to sign up, pay, and get access to webinars, content, etc.

They are early stage, so low-cost would be good. And it would be nice if it was a Rapid LMS.

I'm a little concerned how well LMS solutions will handle the webinar integration and the subscriptions.

What would you recommend they research as possible options?

Here are some resources that I found that may help:

• LMS eCommerce Solution
• Product Review: Litmos LMS
• LMS For SMBs And Training Companies – A Year On, Is It Still The Same?
• A Defense of the LMS (and a case for the future of Social Learning)
• LMS Spotlight: Litmos
• Wait. What? I can buy an LMS with a credit card?
• Why Do We Have an LMS?
• Why are So Many LMS Buyers Dissatisfied?
• What’s hurting the LMS market
• 2010 LMS Products of the Year
• LMS Satisfaction Features and Barriers
• Low Cost LMS - Help Needed
• Why it’s hard to find an LMS
• LMS Spotlight: Topyx
• LMS vendors: R u hearing us?
• Training Companies and LMS
• More LMS Options for Associations on a Budget

And some of the resulting choices based on these resources:

• Coggno
• LearnHub
• Litmos
• Odijoo
• Learn.com Personal Edition
• Articulate Online
• CourseMill
• CourseMax
• Xerceo TrainingAtom
• Geo On-Demand
• Upside Learning Upside LMS
• Ultralearn
• TOPYX
• Sclipo
• CoursePark
• JoomlaLMS
• Intellum
• Ziiva
• Training Partner
• Syberworks
• Enlightus
• Rainmaker
• SimplyDigi
• Classrunner
• Hosted Moodle
• Totara
• LM LESS
• Feathercap LMS
• Cornerstone OnDemand
• SimplyDigi
• EDU 2.0
  

More:

• Absorb LMS (Blatant Media e-Learning)
• Acadia HCS (Acadia HCS)
• Allen Communication Learning Portal
• Avilar WebMentor
• Course-Source (Course-Source Limited)
• CourseMill LMS (Trivantis)
• DOTS (WebRaven)
• ED Training Platform (Strategia)
• Generation 21 Enterprise
• InforSource (InfoSource)
• Inquisiq EX (ICS Learning Group Inc.)
• IntraLearn XE (IntraLearn Software)
• Isoph Blue (Learn Something)
• Kallidus LMS (e2train)
• LearnerWeb (MaxIT)
• LearningServer IntraLearn
• LearnShare LMS (Learnshare)
• LMS Live (Wizdom Systems)
• MindFlash E-Learning System
• NetDimensions EKP Bronze
• OnPoint Learning & Performance Suite
• On-Tracker LMS (Interactive Solutions)
• OutStart Evolution LMS (OutStart)
• SSElearn Portal (SSE)
• Syntrio Enterprise (Syntrio)
• TeraLearn LMS (Teralearn.com)
• The Learning Manager (Worldwide Interactive)
• Tracker.Net (Platte Canyon)
• TrainingPartner (Geometrix)
• TrainingMine (Frontline Data Solutions)
• Upside LMS (Upside Learning Solutions)
• Virtual Training Assistant (RISC)

And if you want a MUCH longer list, go download the 475+ LMS names from here: LMS and Learning Platforms

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eLearning Learning Launches New Features

Over on eLearning Learning, we've just launched a new version with some great new features.

In case you don't know about eLearning Learning, it brings together content from leading experts and companies like the Adobe Captivate Blog, Clark Quinn, Clive Shepherd, Jay Cross, Karl Kapp, and really too many to list. You can find a long list of the Featured sources on the right side. There is a lot more content that comes in as well beyond the Featured sources.

The home page itself will show you the latest and best content at any time. For example as I'm writing this, I see a couple of great posts right up top:

• PowerPoint 2010: Animating a Venn Diagram
• 4Cs: Communication, Collaboration, Critical thinking and Creativity
• Five days to better e-learning

Best is decided by the system based on social signals - that's clicks, views, twitter, delicious, and other kinds of inputs that tell us what people are doing with the content. And we try really hard to make sure that great content from lesser known sources still makes it to the top.

Each day, week, month and year, the site generates a "Best Of" Edition. You can change the Edition at any time. That allows you to see some really great stuff looking a little more broadly than what you typically see on the home page. For example, if I look at July's Top eLearning Posts, I find (among others):

• eLearning and Fun: Two Words Not Normally Seen Together
• 6 Alternatives To Bullet Lists
• Flash in eLearning - Seven Traps to Avoid
• Evaluating Social Learning

The site is categorized in various topics such as concepts like Instructional Design, Mobile, Social Learning; tools like Twitter, LMS, Flash, PowerPoint, Captivate; Companies like Rapid Intake, Saba; types like Examples and many more. For instance you could click on Mobile Samples and find a great post Mobile Learning Samples for mLearning Developers; or via Instructional Design for Rapid eLearning you can find Instructional Designer Competencies, Top 25 Rapid eLearning Blog Posts, Over 75 Free Rapid E-Learning Resources and many other great resources.

The intent of eLearning Learning is to bring together and make it easy to find great content. You will only see a snippet of each piece. When you click the link, you will be directed back to the source. In other words, we bring the content together, but we don't own the content. We want you still to comment and interact with the content back on the original site.

Visiting the site is probably one of the better ways to get to the content, but you can also subscribe to it by entering your email address and then choosing whether you want a Daily Edition or Weekly/Monthly/Annual Edition to be sent to you. If you've not already subscribed, then go over and do it now. It's worth the 30 seconds it takes.

There are some pretty interesting new features coming soon for eLearning Learning. We look forward to continuing to improve the site. If you have thoughts, or comments, please feel free to contact me: Tony Karrer via email at: akarrer@techempower.com.

Last, but certainly not least, this site is generously sponsored and made possible by Rapid Intake. Without them, we could not afford to keep the lights on. Please support them so we can continue to make this site better and better.

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Emerging Asynchronous Conversation Models

I had an interesting conversation with Patrick Randolph from TalkWheel about different kinds of asynchronous conversation models that are emerging and how they might fit into broader eLearning Initiatives.  Particularly we focused on the implications of TalkWheel, Quora and Namesake.  Below I've captured aspects of our conversation (interestingly enough done via email - how old school).  This post represents thinking from both of us that I've edited heavily to make it more easily consumed here in the blog. 

There's obvious value in bringing the classroom collaboration dynamic to online learning.  We see some of this dynamic when we run webinars and have chat.  We also see it in twitter (see  Twitter for Learning).  The main issue with these is that the primary value is in the real-time nature.  While Twitter is asynchronous, it's not easily used as other kinds of tools for discussion.

The standard model for asynchronous conversations is discussion forum software like vBulletin.  I've talked before about the significant value that can be obtained as part of Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank and how that translates in a Success Formula for Discussion Forums in Financial Services.  I also looked at Making Intranet Discussion Groups Effective.

However, I've struggled with the problem of destinations vs. social networks and the spread of conversation (see Forums vs. Social Networks).  Because of that I've been watching closely what's happening with various tools that have different ways of supporting asynchronous conversation models.  There are some new tools emerging that have a different take.

Talkwheel  is made to handle real-time group conversations and asynchronous ones.  It can act as an instant messaging service a bit like Yammer, HipChat for companies and other groups, but the layout is designed to make these discussions easier to see, archive, and work asynchronously.  Because of the ability to attach documents, it can act like a collaboration platform.  Each comment made within a thread appears as a tiny circle next to the name of the person who made the comment, and is linked by arrow to the person to whom the comment was made. The comments are also stacked and color-coded on the right side of the screen for reference.  This organization makes the conversation seem more like a roundtable discussion. 

Patrick tells us:

Talkwheel’s design makes class conversations easier to follow, more interactive, and more effectively organized. It eliminates the problem of navigating multithreaded conversations, enables real-time group conversation, and makes referencing asynchronous conversations much easier. Talkwheel’s dashboard organization allows teachers to organize all their classes and projects in one centralized location, while Talkwheel's analytics helps teachers and administrators quantitatively monitor their students’ progress throughout the year. Talkwheel’s collaboration platform is a new way of bringing students together in a way that is conducive to the group needs of online learning. In addition to e-learning, Talkwheel helps enterprises improve productivity and communication both internally and externally and allows users to organize their social and professional networks in an effective manner. It can be tried for free at Talkwheel.com.

Quora is a Q&A site nicely integrated with Facebook that has done a good job providing a means to ask questions and get answers.   Each Quora answer is rated by users until the most popular answer is found.  You can see a question below that had 16 answers provided by some pretty good folks and the top answer had 586 votes.

The answers are then used to provide valuable information to Quora users and the rest of the web. Quora has been able to form quite an elite network of VCs, entrepreneurs, and other experts to answer questions.  They've also created topic pages such as: Learning Management System.  It collects questions answer answers on that particular topic - you'll notice that there's not much expertise flowing around eLearning topics.

Finally, Namesake, is a tool for real-time and asynchronous conversations.  It's a bit like Quora but more focused on conversation as compared to Q&A and it allows real-time conversation a bit like twitter.  You can see an example of a conversation around phones below.

Like Quora, the goal is to build a network of user selected experts to provide valuable information to users. Within Namesake, any user can create topics of conversation for real-time chat and can follow conversations. Unlike Quora, Namesake is designed for real-time chats very similarly to the AIM Chat Rooms of old. New comments are stacked on top of the most recent one, updates are done in real-time, and chats are organized by high-level subject.

TalkWheel has taken a very different approach to its conversation model and is definitely aimed at smaller groups.  I think that each conversation model has it's place and TalkWheel is more competitive with forum software but a much different visual model.  Quora and Namesake are more trying to address the conversation from social networks issue.

All of these point to new types of conversation models that are emerging in tools.

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I Feel the Need - The Need for Speed

This month's #LCBQ is: How do you address the "I want it now!" demand from stakeholders? There are some great responses that can be found by visiting the link above.

Corny 1986 line. :)

Content Needs

This is a very crude self-assessment, but I believe it makes an important point.

If you are reading this, you are a knowledge worker. Consider the content (knowledge, information, learning) you personally need to get your job done. Draw a circle in each quadrant based on the amount (percentage) of the content that you need that's:

• Slow changing vs. fast changing. Will the content remain roughly the same for two years? Or will it really be out of date in two years?
• Large audience vs. small audience. Is the content I need applicable to a relatively large audience or do I have fairly particular needs?

I did a crude version of this for myself and came up with the following:

Definitely the vast majority of the time, I'm needing information that is relatively fast moving and is specific to the particular situations I face. In fact, often the information does really exist. Actually most of us that are Concept Workers will find that we play in that upper right quadrant most of the time.

That said, there are some exceptions that I could think of. For example, I consume a fair bit of content that's around technology. There's a fair amount of it that has a pretty large applicable audience. Of course, most of it is pretty old news in two years time. There is some information around core technologies that will last longer. I also should point out that the information is more specialized all the time, meaning ever smaller audiences. So, that kind of information makes for Fast but Larger audiences.

And when you consider the trends for most concept workers (knowledge workers), we clearly are heading towards faster moving content aimed at smaller audiences.

Workplace Learning's Challenge

Now let's put on the hat of someone in workplace learning. What's our ideal kind of content?

Workplace Learning's ideal content: Slow changing and large audience

How big is that circle? How is that circle doing for most knowledge workers?

This isn't something new, it's just becoming more and more clear. I've discussed it in Disruptive Changes in Learning, Innovators' Dilemma in Learning/eLearning, Business of Learning, and Learning Performance Business Talent Focus.

The reality is that we need to find ways to insert ourselves into the faster moving content and be able to change the dynamics to reach smaller audiences. These relate to speed. One of the nice things about the responses to this month's LCBQ is that they relate directly to speed even though they were not necessarily aimed at the bigger picture above.

Responding to the Need for Speed

I like where Glenn Hansen started his answer:

1. Don’t assume that training is the answer.
2. Even if some kind of training is reasonable, don’t assume the stakeholder in question has identified the right solution.

And liked Glenn's point about what's required:

Work up your material to the point where it conveys the skills and knowledge needed and where it is professionally presented and fit for purpose. Don’t chase perfection, because it’s more likely your information will be out of date by the time you have it ready.

This is echoed quite a bit by the collection of Agile eLearning - 27 Great Articles that I pulled together previously.

In terms of specific suggestions there are some real nuggets in several of the responses.

Clive has some very good suggestions on speeding things up in The Big Question: How do you respond to the ‘I want it now’ demand?.

Open Sesame's response similarly has some good ideas for rapid solutions.

Jeff Goldman also has several suggestions for speeding the process or approach in his post: A Priest, A Rabbi and an Instructional Designer Are in a Bar and Identify a Training Need: A response to the #LCBQ." However, his punch-line struck me as defending slower processes:

Oh, the priest, rabbi and instructional designer identified a training need, collaborated on designing an effective learning program which was not implemented until it was damn well ready to be implemented.

It's fairly contrary to the rest of his more reasoned approach. And if the stakeholder hears slow moving training solutions as the response that won't be ready until it's "damn well ready." Well ... good luck with that.

I also feel a bit the same way about Tom Gram's response that included:

The best strategy is a preventative one.

He's correctly arguing that you should try to cut off some of the problem at the pass, but the reality is that you should get yourself ready to be fast, agile or however, you want to describe it.

So let me ask you ... do you feel the need? The need for speed?

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Agile eLearning - 27 Great Articles

The first couple of responses to this month's LCBQ Addressing I Want it Now #LCBQ have come in and Kasper Spiro's caught my eye: On demand: agile e-Learning development #LCBQ.  Like Kasper, I'm very familiar with Agile in software development.  I was not as familiar with it in terms of eLearning development.

So, I wanted to pull together some reading and resources around Agile eLearning, Agile ADDIE, etc.

I found some amazing resources using eLearning Learning and via search:

1. What Agile Means to Me- ID Reflections
2. ADDIE isn't Dead; it's just more Agile- Integrated Learnings
3. The Agile Elearning Design Manual - Of Project Spaces & Project Managers- The Learning Generalist
4. Agile instructional design- Jay Cross's Informal Learning
5. Agility and Autonomy- Learning and Working on the Web
6. Designing for Agile Learning- Big Dog, Little Dog
7. No time for design?- Making Change
8. Agile, Lego and Training: The common factors.- ID Reflections
9. Agile e-learning- Clive on Learning
10. The Agile Elearning Design Manual - Agile Re-explained- The Learning Generalist
11. I lost my agile virginity- Challenge to Learn
12. Tackling Wicked Problems Using an Iterative Approach- ID Reflections
13. Get Real: Mission Critical E-learning- Lars is Learning
14. The Agile Elearning Design Manual - Why Synchronous Learning makes so much sense today- The Learning Generalist
15. ADDIE isn't dead; how can it be?- Integrated Learnings
16. The Agile Elearning Design Manual: Problems with existing approaches- The Learning Generalist
17. The Agile Elearning Design Manual - Iterations huh?- The Learning Generalist
18. Agility through collaboration- Learning and Working on the Web
19. The Periodic Table of Agile Learning- Big Dog, Little Dog
20. Harold Jarche » Instructional Design Needs More Agility- Learning and Working on the Web
21. Orientation in Agile Learning Design- Big Dog, Little Dog
22. Towards an alternative e-learning- Onlignment
23. Agile Design: An Ethos for Creating Learning Platforms- Big Dog, Little Dog
24. Planning in Agile Learning Design- Big Dog, Little Dog
25. Selection in Agile Learning Design- Big Dog, Little Dog
26. Iterations in Agile Learning Design- Big Dog, Little Dog
27. Agile Learning Design: Tools for Learners- Big Dog, Little Dog

Bonus Items Recommended by my Tweets

1. Agility through collaboration
2. Is ADDIE dead?
3. Agile Instructional Design

I'm still studying all of this to see whether I really buy that Agile methods will work.   Lots of my experience tells me that while we intended to be Agile, put something out and then update it.  It's the updating part that doesn't happen.  If Agile turns into rapid elearning, then we are back to Rapid eLearning Tools Debate.

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Continuing Education and Learning Management Systems

One of our colleagues came to me with a particular challenge, and I'm not sure I have a good answer, nor do I know specifically how to go about finding an answer. I'm hoping that readers can weigh in on both aspects: (1) specific thoughts or suggestions on LMS products that might fit and (2) how do you get answers to questions like this?

Continuing Education Requirements

Requirement #1: The LMS needs the ability to apply multiple types of continuing education credits to a single course, have the user select multiple types of credits to obtain and print certificates with the appropriate wording for the desired credit(s).

Use Case: Becky Bonds is an RN with the responsibility for coding the plan of care in her office. She has acquired HCS-D credentials and must complete continuing education to maintain the certification as well as nursing continuing education for her RN license. The LMS offers courses with both nursing and HCS-D credits. Before completing the course she indicates that she wants to obtain both the nursing credits and the HCS-D credits available on the Assessing and Coding Wounds course. After completion she is notified that she has passed the test and has access to 1 hour of credit for each type. She then prints her certificates.

Requirement #2: The LMS needs the ability to enter expiration dates and approval codes into the credit records and assign owners to the record. The fields for the dates and codes must be printable on the certificate and the date must be able to trigger an expiration message to the credit owner.

Use Case: The Assessing and Coding Wounds course was approved for HSC-D credits on April 22, 2010 with an approval code of BMSC-LHC1234 and an expiration date of April 22, 2011. Jennifer is the credit owner for the HCS-D credit and receives a reminder 90 days prior to the expiration date to reapply for another year. She sends off the request to the BMSC and receives the approval for another year with the approval code of BMSC-LHC2345. A new credit is created for the new approval period and applied to the course when the period starts. The old credit is retained with previous completions.

Requirement #3: The LMS needs the ability to create customized, course specific evaluation/survey assessments that are required to obtain a completed status for the course.

Use Case: Evaluations are required for the ability to offer nursing continuing education through the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Each course with CE nursing credits must have completed, summarizable evaluations for review by the ANCC.

Typical Gap Found

The biggest gap is in the number of credits most LMS products allow on a course. Most of the ones we’ve looked at allow for one credit per course. We need to be able to put multiple credits of varying values on each course. And each of those credits must be tied to an approval code and expiration date. When the credit expires (usually after 1 or 2 years) we need to be able to update the credit. The value usually stays the same, but the approval code changes. However, we need to retain the older credit so that people who took it while it was in force still have access to the approval code for certificates.

The value and approval code (and sometimes the date range for the validity) must be available to print on certificates. We like to be able to have the user print individual certificates based on their need. So they can either pick the certificate by discipline/CE board or it is automatically assigned based on something in their person record. Rather than having one certificate with multiple statements on it for however many credits the course has. Each board has a different statement they like you to put on the certificate.

The other issue centers around offering course materials to field facilitators for them to present locally. But, we have to approve the facilitator before they can access the materials by reviewing a biographical data form (something like a resume) and a conflict of interest signature. It’s basically a workflow where a person in the field requests permission to teach a topic, an admin has to review their credentials against the course requirements and either approve or deny their access. There is other stuff around it too, but most LMS’s have restricted approval processes that go all one way or another (manager approval OR admin approval), not one where I can choose the approval workflow on a course – by – course basis.

Solutions?

Any suggestions on specific LMS products that should be evaluated?

Does customization make sense?

Have you had a similar issue and found a way around it?

Getting Questions Answered

This is probably not the right venue to ask this kind of question, but I couldn't think of any other good way/place to get this question addressed.

In my LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers, I point out several ways that you can search for experts who might help you. But I did a quick search for things like LMS and continuing education and didn't really come up with people who I thought would be able to help.

If you have this kind of question, how would you go about getting help?

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LMS eCommerce Solution

I just got off the phone with someone who has a fairly common need that I've heard before.  The needs are very similar to those in Rapid LMS and  LMS Solution for Simple Partner Compliance Training. 

In this case, they are looking to provide their content as eLearning and sell it to individuals and organizations.  Key aspects:

• Individual eCommerce - someone can go on and buy the course just for themselves
• Group eCommerce - someone can go on and buy a block of courses that can be taken by people in their organization
• Pricing will need to be variable
• Group reporting - the person who bought for the organization should be able to see who's taken, completed, etc.
• Users will self-select their role which will take them to the appropriate version of a SCORM course
• Test at the end, pass or retake
• Provides certificate for the individual that they can print

This all seems like pretty simple stuff right?

What system would you use?

Would you consider a marketplace solution for this?  Do any marketplaces provide the group eCommerce capabilities?  What are the tradeoffs of putting it up on a marketplace?

I'd like to hear your suggestions and it would definitely be helpful to the person trying to solve this problem.

Related posts:

• LMS Selection Process
• Low Cost LMS

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