Most businesses on the world market create annual strategies on how to grow and scale. One of the strategic goals they set is employee education. According to Financesonline, 68% of employees would like to learn at work, and 58% would prefer learning at their own pace. 49% of employees claimed that they’d learn if there was a need.
How can a business owner ensure all employee learning wishes are being met at once? Simple as that – create an LMS. According to the same source, learning management systems are being used by 30% of tech companies globally. Also, 65% of users are the core company teams. And 35% of managers find LMS one of the best means to learn something new.
So, what does an LMS give you? You meet the employees’ needs and become 72% more competitive. While 40% of companies stay in a good market-leading position, 9% of businesses experience real growth and transformation. Not to mention extra profit and productivity.
Creating an LMS will increase the revenue per employee by 218%. And, with the expected value of the global learning management system market to about $1 trillion by 2027, it is hard not to recommend learning management system development.
How to develop a learning management system? What does it take and what has to be included in the process? Let’s discuss it with Inoxoft – a trusted LMS development company.
Read more: cost of learning management system
What Is a Learning Management System in a Nutshell
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The term “Learning Management System” is not new today. TechTarget defines LMS as
a software application or web-based technology used to plan, implement and assess a specific learning process.
There are different learning management systems on the market. They are applicable almost anywhere. You can witness both corporate and academic LMS software examples. These are equally in demand. But, if take the global market into account,
An outstanding number of 83% of Gen Z learners worldwide prefer digital learning and acquiring new skills to perform better in life and at work. And, an amazing 73% of learners study online whatever they are currently interested in – a report finds out.
LMS software development has also drawn the attention of big players such as
- JP Morgan Chase, allocating $600 million to upskill employees
- Amazon, investing more than $700 million to reskill employees
- PwC, spending $3 billion to upskill 275,000 employees
What Makes a Good LMS System?
With the ongoing market expansion of great LMS, it would be wise to know how to filter them. So, what should you look out for in a learning management system?
- Features
- Mobile functionality
- Real-time reporting features
- Ease of use
- Flexibility
- Cost-effectiveness
- Regular updates
- Third-party integrations
- Support 24/7
- Live demo
Let’s speak about the first factor – the features, in detail.
8 Essential Features of Learning Management System
Video conferencing
Video conferencing is the technology of today. So, it has to be a part of your enterprise LMS. But, what is it exactly?
Video conferencing is an online meeting technology that allows users to see each other face-to-face via a screen and talk over important things being in different locations at once. – Investopedia
Being extra convenient, video meetings are time-saving and cost-effective. They save you a lot of time on traveling and spending. Especially, when you need to meet with the stakeholders a couple of times per day.
Social boards and forums
Discussion forums are the communication boards, where users can chat via messaging each other and answering questions. So, when a user decides to ask something, he/she posts a message online for everyone in the forum to read anytime. For user convenience, each message becomes threaded making it convenient to run through questions and open up various answers.
Onboarding and compliance
That’s more of an HR-related process. But it helps ease up the process of onboarding by introducing everything to the employee via an LMS. So, while introducing the new person to the company it would be quite convenient to talk about the company’s culture. And, why don’t you open up a ready-made presentation? What if there are several presentations or onboarding and compliance training to pass for a couple of days? Then you can schedule this training for an employee via the LMS. Make it a learning module. Add gamification.
Data tracking
Via an LMS it is possible to track internal, custom, and scheduled reporting. Also, you can go through course evaluation details. Or, third-party reporting tools. Just think, so many documents are gathered into one system. And, it will show you the data you need at any moment during your work. Just generate a report.
Reports and analytics
Via the feature of reporting and analytics, it is possible to track who is using your LMS (e.g. students, employees, etc.) Also, you can easily find out how they are using it. Administrators run reporting (individual, course-related, system-wide) and users might or might not see some of them.
Course creation
A good LMS allows the creation of courses using its features. And, you, as a course administrator, can make this course as unique and creative as you only wish to. This is a great feature if you have employees to train. It takes several steps and will include only what you need employees to listen to, and read, and a questionnaire they can pass after each course section.
Skills testing
First of all, it is important to decide how would you like to test your employees’ skills. Then, which skills to test. Afterward, it will be easy to set up the right questionnaires and receive employee skills reports. It is truly convenient for enterprises that have more than a hundred employees. And, with the equally conducted training courses, you will know who has learned the material and who needs to cover additional training.
Gamification
In an LMS it is another, yet a quite brilliant, way to ensure learners will be excited to study. For instance, gamification allows making courses and training in a form of a game, which people can pass on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It depends on the course.
Creating an LMS in 7 steps
Every software development provider has his/her perfectly refined method to create a learning management system. Let’s consider the most needed steps and discuss them.
1. Project planning
This is the basic stage of your future LMS development. Here, you think through some crucial factors of the project plan:
- What do you need an LMS for?
- What is the goal you want to achieve/problem to solve?
- What are your resources (time, budget, tools)?
- Who is going to build an LMS for you?
- What monetization model do you want to have?*
*Freemium vs Free trial monetization model
2. LMS features to include
Build your own LMS including the most needed features. The following table represents the core functionality features that should be present in an LMS by all means.
3. Responsive design
If you want your users to be aesthetically pleased with the design and have a seamless user experience, think through the platform’s design beforehand. For example, the color scheme, block design, work on all browsers (if it is going to be a website), and screen size fitting (if it’s going to be cross-platform). Create an intuitive design as it has to be user-friendly for teachers, admins, and students.
4. Make specifications
It is a reliable document containing all the information about the developed product. For instance, requirements, goals, needs, ideas, values, features and technologies, etc. All of these features should be described in detail. After you have such a document, you can find your LMS developers.
5. Develop an LMS
With everything pre-planned and defined it is easy to deploy your platform. Here, everything starts from UI/UX mockups. This goes parallelly with testing. After there are screens, you transfer the development into the production stage. Build an LMS website up to your expectations and enjoy being on top among your competitors.
6. Marketing campaign
To make your customizable LMS popular and recognizable on the market, it would be wise to prepare your target audience for its release. Promote your brand on social networks, make a video ad, and write some descriptive texts that will catch the attention of the focus group. Tell about the benefits of a custom LMS. Convince users they might need your solution to have the best learning experience. Buy Google ads, Facebook ads, etc. The more people will see your solution the better. And don’t stop there. Always promote your product.
7. Feedback and support
After your LMS has been launched, keep n eye on it. Gather feedback, provide user support, and enhance your platform. Provide users with the features they ask for, and listen to what they think is great about the app and what is not. Keep a regular update schedule. Don’t just stand here – go for improvements.
How Long Does It Take to Build an LMS?
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Every project has its specificities. So, to understand what might influence project development time and costs, consider the following aspects:
- Project complexity
- LMS features
- Functionality
- Project requirements
- Availability of the team
There are other things to take into account. So, we recommend using our Inoxoft app cost calculator that will show you the approximate app estimate. And, we recommend you catch up with us for a 30-minute free consultation to get the proposal with the timeline and what is going to be included. We design educational apps professionally and can meet any set deadlines if you have set the requirements and your time frames are realistic.
Custom LMS software development benefits and market-ready solution drawbacks
Benefits
If you decide to deploy a custom LMS, you should know about all the possible benefits of custom development from scratch. For example,
- You adjust the learning course to your liking and preferences, which is an opportunity for full customization
- You are able to easily integrate your LMS with any other internal platforms or systems
- You relate all the user roles, levels, and responsibilities to the ones present in your company’s culture, and create some if there is a need
- You have an opportunity to store and keep your employee (user data) information in one place, a system you own
- You have a privilege to match the UI with your current company’s interface for both employees and clients
- You train the LMS admins up to an extent based on the features you have created and you use non-stop at your organization
Drawbacks
According to Talented Learning, there were more than 800 LMS competitors on the market just three years ago. Now, this number is a lot higher. But, a ready-made system cannot be customized at 100%. So, let’s speak about the potential disadvantages that you might deal with after buying an off-the-self LMS:
- You can stumble at the shallow functionality that will tie your actions and limit your possibilities
- Your employees might report unfriendly UI and illogical UX that will be a blocker in using the system
- There might be technical problems with integration, etc., and no support available as needed
- You will have to use a browser to access the LMS as there might be no mobile-friendly version
- The cost of the LMS for an enterprise will be ineffective due to its small part being used in an organization
- The system might be incompatible with some of your corporate platforms and you will not be able to integrate it or use it to its full potential
Where to Look for Your Ideal LMS Idea?
The best LMS idea that can come to your head is the one that will meet your business needs. So, you need to have a target audience. For instance, at Inoxoft our target audience are our employees. Personal growth is one of our op concerns and we try to give our teams as many possibilities to learn as possible. To meet their demands and fulfill their goals, we tend to make a regular survey and get some insights from the first person. And this strategy helps. There are great ideas on how we can improve the ongoing learning processes and what has to be done in the future to support employee skill advancements and learning.
But, if you have no target audience to ask for an opinion, then consider making a deep research on the
- educational sector
- classroom progress
- university class needs
- market trends
- direct competitors
- innovative technology in eLearning
To get all the stakeholders involved and satisfied, you need to have a good business analyst on your team. You can always contact Inoxoft for that matter. We have a skilled BA on the team with solid experience. Also, if you have no clue where to start, we provide a Discovery Phase service. There’s no need to worry, with Inoxoft you opt for success!
Consider Inoxoft Your Trusted Partner in LMS Software Development
Inoxoft is a school management app development agency that knows how to develop an educational app. For more than seven years our team focuses on the Education industry and tracks all the latest trends. Edtech is developing with the speed of light. The applications that are being built today have to meet all the user goals and needs.
So, how to make an LMS that would satisfy modern society? Our team is super experienced in understanding what users might like. And, what clients’ requirements are. We will automate your educational processes, and build an LMS system that will motivate your employees to grow professionally. Our skilled engineers will take your wildest LMS ideas and put them into production.
Decide on what LMS solution you want. We can deploy apps for learners, corporate LMS, a distance learning system and so much more. Contact us to receive a consultation on how to develop LMS. Evolve, advance, and grow from your educational solution from scratch.
Final Thoughts
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This article is about how to create a learning management system that will meet your business needs. It will give you a clear understanding of what an LMS is, how to create one, and how to use it in your business.
Building a custom LMS solution is quite a challenge. But with the right attitude and determination, it is possible to become on top of your competitors. The most important factor is to meet your business needs. So, define all the core aspects of your LMS and transmit them correctly to the deployment team.
