5 Reasons Why You Need to Switch Your LMS

In today’s digital learning space, your learning management system (LMS) needs to do more than simply manage content. Your LMS needs to be a central part of your learner-centered ecosystem and best-in-class integrated technology, allowing you to transform the experience to meet educators’ and learners’ needs. Your LMS should constantly be improved to meet your changing needs. Unfortunately, if you have an outdated system, it just can’t do that job.

Here are the five reasons why it’s time to switch your LMS.

1. You Cannot Track Student Progress with Your Current LMS

Solution: An LMS With Robust Reporting Tools

When measuring the effectiveness of an LMS, it’s not enough to know if students are passing or failing classes. You need a system that can provide you with detailed analytics based on the specifics of your learning programs. Your LMS should be providing you with timely reports to measure the effectiveness of your teaching such as:

• Learner performance: Educators should be able to view learner’s performance by looking at grades, discussions, activities, and progress towards objectives.
• Course effectiveness: Instructors need data reporting tools to see what content is being accessed and how learners are progressing. This data enables instructors to tailor course delivery to the needs of the learners.
• Learner outcomes: Administrators also need data reporting tools to measure overall LMS adoption across courses with course-level views into system activity and usage. It helps them determine what additional tools are required to continue improving learner outcomes.

Tracking progress is essential when it comes to delivering learning. Your LMS must have robust data collection, analysis, and reporting abilities.

2. You Constantly Run Into Technical Difficulties

Solution: An LMS with Continual Updates

Let’s face it, technology can be tricky, and sometimes small issues can result in downtime. However, an LMS with constant technical difficulties directly results in learning downtime for students. If these issues are common with your current LMS, it’s time to make the switch.

Having a reliable LMS should be a priority for your academic institution. Ideally, you want your LMS provider to use a continuous delivery model that pushes releases, fixes, and new features on a monthly recurring schedule and without downtime or impacts to learning. This service model not only ensures that you have no disruption to your use of the system, but also frees up your internal staff from constantly maintaining and troubleshooting your LMS.

3. Your LMS Is Only Available Online

Solution: An LMS That Students Use Offline

Today’s learners now expect to access information at a time that’s convenient to them. That’s why it’s important to have an LMS with offline capabilities.

An LMS with this feature lets users download material such as homework and assignments. It also allows learners to complete tests and quizzes without a connection. Once the student has access to the internet again, the activities they’ve completed offline are synced to the LMS.

An LMS that supports this functionality allows students to access content from anywhere. It also creates an inclusive learning environment as it engages those with slower connections and older devices.

4. Your LMS Can Only Be Accessed Using a Desktop

Solution: An LMS with Responsive Design

We live in a multi-screen society, which means that students are no longer restricted to only using their desktops—they have access to tablets, phones, and laptops. It’s time to switch your LMS if it doesn’t have a responsive design to integrate across platforms and devices.

An LMS with responsive design refers to the way a website is laid out so that it automatically scales to match the screen size on the device that it’s viewed on. This limits the unnecessary resizing, scrolling, and zooming in or out on websites that haven’t been effectively optimized.

A responsive LMS keeps the integrity of your content but adapts it in a way that fits the specifics of different devices. This allows learners to access material from any device without losing the user learning experience.

5. Your LMS Works in Isolation

Solution: An LMS That Supports Integrations

With the rise of online and hybrid learning, it’s essential that your LMS integrates easily with other tools, data, and file types to make your academic institution adaptive to all learning environments. If your current LMS acts as an independent structure from your other tool, it’s time to consider switching to an LMS that supports integrations such as:

Application Programming Interface (API): A set of protocols that allow communication between various software components. This includes the integration of third-party programs, for example, plagiarism checkers, document readers, and course catalogs.

In today’s digital world of learning it’s essential that your LMS includes APIs to make learning simpler and straightforward for all users.

Single Sign-On (SSO): A user authentication tool that enables users to securely access multiple applications and services using just one set of credentials. SSO authenticates users on one designated platform, enabling them to use services without having to log in and out each time.

Learn About the Nine Things to Consider Before Making an LMS Switch

Your LMS functions as the heart of your academic institution—it not only hosts and manages learning material, but also helps students to successfully hit learning outcomes. However, if your LMS no longer serves your institution’s needs, it’s time to consider switching to a system that works for you. This switch may seem as daunting as selecting your initial LMS was, but with careful planning and the right approach, you can have an efficient and smooth switch.

This eBook covers nine key considerations you need to be thinking about before making an LMS switch.

Download 9 Things to Consider Before Making an LMS Switch eBook now

Written by

Zeina Abouchacra

Zeina Abouchacra is the EDU Content Marketing Specialist at D2L. She has worked in the higher education sector in various communications positions as well as a researcher and a teaching assistant. Specifically, teaching undergraduate-level communication university courses. Zeina is currently working towards completing her Master of Arts Communication degree at the University of Ottawa.