Your time is precious; you need to make the most of your eLearning development efforts and your budget! If you want your lessons to stand out, you need to capture an audience and make learning magical. So, you have lessons, and you have learners. What aspects of content delivery should you think about to get your message from one to another? We call this the “content delivery quandary”.

In this three-part series, we’ll cover the three main questions our clients ask when starting an online learning program:

1. Getting your online training in the hands of your learners
2. Engaging learners with their online training
3. Helping learners retain the information

Before jumping in and selecting a learning management system (LMS) for your content delivery, consider the following:

Determine your content delivery approach.

How many learners do you have and how will they access the training?

If you have a small team and they all have access to desktop computers, your delivery decision will be very different from one where there are thousands of employees that have varying access to technology.

What information does your organization need to track?

If you have a simple structure that needs only to track annual completion of compliance training, you probably have an easier task than most. As a result, organizations that need to track learning paths, record assignments, progress, and completions through eLearning will consequently need more variability and ways to handle redundant tasks with automation.

Who needs to access your system to keep your program current?

Do you have one administrator and a limited number of people that need to manage the training? If so, you probably have vastly different needs than those that have multiple people requiring varying degrees of access to keep a program running and people learning.

In our content delivery conundrum, you could deliver training in a classroom or use central source shared documentation and log it on a spreadsheet. However, it's most likely that you’ve concluded you need a bit more finesse than these old school methods. Truthfully, technology and learning are almost inseparable by today’s standards, and an LMS is a great place to start!

Pick your content delivery platform.

As your company changes, picking the right platform that will meet your organizational needs now and into the future is no small task. There are some things you'll want to consider:

The Learner Experience

As with many aspects of life, one of the most important things for the LMS you select is to have a good first impression. The selected LMS needs to be accessible and user-friendly. Learners don’t want to fight to get to their lessons. Features like dashboard customization and single sign-on (SSO) allow learners to easily access their material. A guided user interface will let them know what they need to do—no guessing or confusion.

The Administrative Experience

From an administration perspective, consider the key feature you'll need: blended learning, tracking instructor-led training, resource storage, printing out file access, etc. can all be handled differently between LMS platforms.

Furthermore, a good LMS will have everything efficiently organized and all in one place so users can navigate it easily. A great LMS well have easy-to-use reporting analytics for administrators and allow learners’ to track their progress. It will have user and administrative support that can help all administrators to organize their content, enroll their users, and provide general assistance. An administrator should feel confident with and in control of their system.

Finally, the best solution will allow your program and your courses to evolve; adapting to your needs along with you. Choosing an LMS with a supportive team that can help to improve the function of your courses by improving themselves alongside you.

Looking for a great LMS with a world-class team standing behind it? Check out SmarterU.

With your content delivery done, what’s next?

Deciding how to deliver your online training is just one of the steps in creating the best eLearning experience possible. In the next segment, we’ll discuss some of the best ways to inform your learners through engagement. We’ll introduce methods which will have them not only learning, but fully engaged with your online training courses.

But make sure not to skip over this vital step! Not sure where to start with content delivery? If you’d like help making your eLearning lessons interactive and effective, we’d love to help you. As experts of online learning, we’ll ensure your lessons light the way for your learners to follow. Get in touch with us today!