As organizations move from a fragmented information culture, they need an enterprise learning management system (LMS) that will consolidate all learning initiatives and scale to meet the needs of large, widely dispersed learner communities. When selecting the application for LMS consolidation, scalability (the degree to which the LMS can handle an increase in the volume of instruction and the size of the student body and still function properly) becomes an essential consideration.
LMS consolidation can accomplish three important objectives: 数据挖掘研究院
- Transition to other lower cost modes of learning (Web-based, blended learning);
- Reduce administrative costs; and
- Help demonstrate ROI.
By bringing training populations together under the best LMS for delivering training in all modes, more training can be brought online than before the consolidation. Shared corporate learning objectives (compliance issues, workplace safety, diversity training, etc.) can now be delivered to all staff in the lowest cost format, whether that format is a Web-based module, instructor-led, CD-based or virtual classroom. In some cases, maximum effectiveness and savings can be achieved by blending different modes together in a series. An LMS consolidation also provides a centralized location to share and manage external resources, such as informational Web sites, that can provide supplemental information.
A consolidated LMS can reduce administrative costs by centralizing learning management and eliminating duplicate processes and redundant effort. In addition, a single system can ensure that training best practices are shared and embedded in streamlined processes. With a consolidated LMS, it is easier to bridge skill gaps across departments or the organizational units. If different geographical regions or business units are managed under the same system, it would be more difficult to see at an organizational level, how the company is doing regarding customer service training, for example.
Scalability
As shown by the illustration in Figure 1, scalability becomes an important factor that can resolve the tension between addressing the needs of different learning populations and keeping under a tight training budget.
One response to a tight corporate training budget is consolidation of LMSs to reduce licensing, hosting, maintenance, and support costs, as well as streamline training processes in the organization. System consolidation brings different learning groups together - groups with different training needs. The LMS to which users are consolidated must have functional scalability so that the needs of the different learning groups are met as was the case with multiple LMSs, when each group's needs were met by a different, dedicated LMS. 数据挖掘研究院
What makes an LMS functionally scalable? When selecting an LMS for a company-wide enterprise implementation, an organization must consider both functional and performance of scalability. Performance scalability is measured by response times given a number of concurrent users and a given hardware configuration. Evaluating functional scalability requires a more subjective approach that measures the effort, time and cost to administer learning for an additional number of users or a new group of users. 数据挖掘研究院
Functional Scalability
To the extent that a consolidated LMS can handle a larger number of disparate learner populations without increasing administrative costs, the LMS can be considered functionally scalable. For example, if a manager would like to identify the training needs of a large number of staff at several different corporate locations, is there an interface or function in the LMS that allows the manager to accomplish this easily? An LMS that allows that manager to group or organize the staff in many different ways in a single view to see skill or competency gaps that exist at an organizational level is much more scalable than one that requires the manager to access several different views and run several different reports to put together a department-level training plan. 数据挖掘研究院
As the user population increases, limitations in software design begin to surface. Scrolling through a few pages of a user profile listing didn't seem so bad when there are a thousand similar users. When the number increases on the heels of an enterprise-wide LMS consolidation to 20,000 users that vary in their training and learning needs, then the limited scalability of the LMS to cope with this change increases administrative costs and effort. Even if response times for performing an action are still reasonable, the number of actions the administrator or manager must perform to accomplish a training objective has increased. 数据挖掘研究院
Maintaining data feeds from enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, human resource information systems (HRIS) and different reporting tools to three or four different LMSs can require dozens of data feeds. By untangling the many-to-many data feed relationships among systems, an LMS consolidation can greatly reduce the overhead and system administration associated with these data feeds. If the consolidation can eliminate manual data feeds, from third-party vendors for example, substantial administrative costs can be eliminated.
