Learning Management Systems
Chances are you have already experienced a Learning Management System, or LMS for short. The platform you are in now, Curatr, is more or less a Learning Management System. The organisation that developed this platform refers to Curatr as a Social Learning Platform.
You may recall from one of our first learning activities in the first level, Katrina talks about how these terms can sometimes be used for marketing purposes, so it’s easy to get confused as to what acronym means what. I’ve included a link directly to Katrina’s video on the Adobe Website below as it is worth revisiting now as we dive a bit deeper.
In short, LMSs utilise an underlying technology protocol called SCORM, which allows our eLearning Modules to communicate interaction data to the LMS so we can report on those interactions. Things like how many attempts a learner made to answer a question, what responses they selected in those attempts, how long it took a learner to complete the various activities in a learning module. Being able to analyse this data allows us to focus on problem areas either with individuals or the actual information.
LMSs are also commonly called Training Platforms, Training Management Platforms, Online Training Platforms or Enterprise Training Management System.
It can be difficult to tell whether a specific platform is principally a learning management system (LMS), or a learning content management system (LCMS), or something else entirely. An LMS can easily have learning record store (LRS) features, and vice versa.