In an ideal world, a Learning Management System is the memory that never fails - the safe place that processes, compares, extrapolates, registers all kinds of records and data, providing users with the documents and resources they need in the blink of an eye. In real life, however, an LMS can confuse, confound, depress and delay its users. So what makes an effective LMS? Why the mad rush to climb on board the LMS bandwagon? What can I actually get out of an LMS? We spoke to Ignacy Sosnowski the Customer Success Manager at Evionica to find out his thoughts.
Most research says that above all, an LMS must have "ease-of-use". How easy is it for people to use an LMS like yours?
It's really easy. Each customer is given their own platform to use. Each platform comes with four basic components: Users, Groups, Courses and Reports.
Let's say a flight school purchases an e-learning course. The most important thing you can do is to make sure they feel confident with actually using their course and platform to their full potential. That's why we provide an onboarding course for administrators and instructors, to show them how to operate the LMS with total confidence. They can access this information whenever they want and find all of the answers on how to use and manage the LMS in the onboarding pack.
When they know how to use the four basic components, our customers know exactly how to use the platform.
So what assistance do you give to flight schools as part of their onboarding?
Flight schools want reliable information and to feel confident in using whatever systems they have in place. That's why the information we give them must be both comprehensive but at the same time, reliable and accessible whenever they need it and on whatever device they use. It shows them:
✅how to add users to the LMS, meaning the flight schools' students. This of course includes the users' details
✅how to assign courses to each user
✅how to organise users into groups
✅how to check the reports for each user and each group
What about people like me? I'm not a fan of this bot-driven world where all our questions get unanswered by a machine. Is there any actual human assistance?
Yes, of course. The onboarding isn't a case of "go away, read this, and good luck!". If a customer feels there are some things they would like to know that they feel aren't covered or not clearly explained, we can organise a Q&A session with a human - not a bot - where all of their questions get answered.
What about navigating around the LMS? How easy is that from a student's perspective?
From a student's perspective, I would say it is very, very easy. Let's say I'm a student. When I log in, I immediately see all the courses assigned to me. I can decide how I want to view these courses, as a list, as icons, and so on. Next, when I click on one of the courses, I will see the progress I have made so far. It doesn't matter if one day I complete a course on my mobile and the next day I use my laptop - every single time I complete a course, the progress will be saved in one safe place.
Can you go back to look at the tests you've done and see where you went wrong?
Of course. You can check all the tests that you've done on your course, the answers you got right and the answers you got wrong. As a student, it gives you all the critical information - what you are doing well, and what you still need to work on. That helps you make real progress and learn from your past mistakes. You can revisit every part of your course if you feel you would like to go over things again.
Relevant questions with a modern connection - stay connected on our LMS!
What about from the instructor's perspective? I used to work as a teacher and I loved it when people asked questions. Surely an LMS removes that kind of interaction.
Not at all. Instructors can also see exactly where their students are doing well and where they're doing things wrong. This informs the instructor on what their students really need to work on. Also, students can ask their instructors questions through the LMS, by using direct messages. It doesn't remove the student-instructor interaction, it actually improves it. It gives the student the confidence to ask their instructor questions and gives the instructor the information they need - where their students might need more assistance. In other words, it gives instructors qualitative data that they might not get otherwise.
Are there any tools that can be used to motivate learners while they do their courses?
That's a good question. Of course, a lot depends on the actual courses - we know that interactive activities are an excellent way to get students involved, but we also make sure to adopt a modern approach through our use of gamification as a way to motivate learners. As a learner completes modules, exercises, and tests, they can earn badges, climb leaderboards and so on. That gives the learner encouragement and motivation - knowing that they are making real progress. Also, as a learner completes certain courses, they gain certificates. These certificates act as an excellent way to motivate learners as they can celebrate the successful completion of a course. The learner can view all of the certificates they have acquired. They can download the certificates as a PDF, print them out, hang them on their walls, show them to their friends and relatives - basically, they can show them off if they want!
Put yourself in the position of a person in charge of an actual flight school. What kind of reporting tools would you be looking for in an LMS?
I'd be looking for reporting tools that I can both view on the actual LMS platform, or download for safekeeping in an Excel file. I would also expect to see how each user is progressing and identify any problem areas. Thankfully, our LMS gives the flight school owners all these tools and a lot more. They can see progress not only of the individual users, but also in groups. They can use pie charts, line graphs, and so on to make easy comparisons between learners and groups. As I mentioned, you can extract the necessary data whichever way you choose.
One of the best things of course about an effective LMS, is that it saves everyone a lot of time. Instead of hunting around for physical documents, a quick search and you have all the information you need. Imagine trying to access individual test scores, process data, filtering students from the best to the worst. The LMS gives you all of those tools so you can save so much time to do other things. On top of that - it gives you the safety of knowing that all of the records are safely stored and cannot get lost.
One thing I would certainly be worried about is cybercrime - how to prevent things like data leaks, hacking, loss of information and so on. That's a threat that you don't face if you have good old pen and paper. What safeguards exist on your LMS to prevent such threats?
Our LMS complies with all the regulations relating to GDPR including ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and ISO 9001:2015. That means that data isn't compromised and the LMS is free from systemic vulnerabilities. Of course, in everyone's life, our security largely depends on our actions, for example, there's a far lower risk of having money disappearing from our bank accounts if we give ourselves a really secure password. The same principles apply to our LMS - if it's used properly, it is incredibly safe and robust as it is basically the global standard for an LMS.
You showed us earlier that it is possible for users to contact their instructors. What about peer-to-peer communication? Do you have such tools so learners can contact each other and learn together, even while learning remotely?
Yes, we do. We have a function in our LMS called "discussions". It acts like a forum where learners can start a thread, let's say raising a question about a specific topic. Learners can decide who they want to see the message, and the people selected can read and respond to these messages.
We've covered almost everything I think, but from your perspective, what do you like the most about the LMS that Evionica provides?
Well, the first thing would be the fact that we have a dedicated mobile app, Evionica LMS, available for free on both App Store and Google Play that can operate in offline mode. Therefore, students don't need an internet connection to access their CBT courses when they're on the move. The second would be the ease-of-use for introducing new students and saving time in the onboarding process - I know that a lot of people worry that they won't understand how to use an LMS, but thanks to the onboarding, it is ridiculously easy. The third, I think has to be how it saves so much time in managing things, such as data, and course records. That's what makes it such an efficient and cost-effective resource.
As a person who pines for the good old days of chalk scraping across a blackboard and the rifling through paper in filing cabinets, the brave new world of the LMS seems a lot less frightening. Thank you Ignacy Sosnowski for sharing your thoughts with us.