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Q: Is it possible to view a learner’s assessment answers?
A: Yes. A breakdown of a learner’s assessment answers can be viewed by going to the Reports tab and then under Quick Reports > Assessments > {Assessment Name} > {Learners Name}.
Q: One of the delegates did not receive the invitation to the platform. Does the “Send login email” link at the right panel do this? Otherwise, how else can we re-send an invitation?
A. To re-send just one user’s login information email out to them again, click on the People tab, then click in to the person’s profile, and then click the red ‘Send login email’ link on the right side of the page. This will re-send only their login details out to them again.
If you ever want to re-send all of the login emails out to every person that has never logged in to their account, then you can do this by using the ‘never logged in’ link on the main Admin Dashboard or the ‘Send login emails’ link on the People tab.
Q: Can you make the Course Reference Code available as a column in the Courses Report?
A: Although the course reference code is not included in our standard reports, you can include any field you like by creating a report export with custom data fields.
To do this go to the Reports area, click ‘Create a report’, then choose User or Team Report, select your report criteria and click the blue ‘Schedule Email for this Report’ link on the right. On the ‘Export a report’ screen, next to ‘Report Format’ you will select ‘Custom’ from the drop-down menu. You then need to enter the string of data fields you would like on your report.
To include the course reference code you would need to include [CourseCode] in your custom format string. Once you are ready and click ‘Save’ the report will be emailed to you in a .txt format to then be opened in the program of your choice.
To open a .txt file in Excel, you will need launch Excel, under the File menu click ‘Open’ and select the .txt file. During that import process make sure to stipulate the delimiter that you used in the report export to separate the fields – in the help guide example this is the $ symbol.
Q: How do I remove people from receiving a notification every time a student completes a quiz / assessment?
A: If it is just an email notification about an assessment module being completed (rather than an entire course) then you need to go in and update your assessment notification settings by going to the course as an admin (via Courses tab), then click in to the assessment module, and then click ‘Edit Settings’ at the top and make sure the name on the ‘Notification Email’ field at the bottom is correct or you can un-check the box completely. You will also need to check the ‘Edit Alerts’ tab in there too to make sure anyone on that alerts list is meant to be there.
6. Make sure the LMS has the flexibility to import all types of content that you have now and will have in the future This includes selecting a SCORM-certified system if you need it, or if you think you will be using an authoring tool that publishes to SCORM in the future.
7. On-going upgrades to the product Look for a vendor that offers on-going development to the LMS, because this means it will always be cutting edge. This is great because you won’t be left behind and find yourself looking for another LMS a few years down the track!
8. Choose an online, hosted system If you do not want to deal with things like file storage, servers, and technically supporting the LMS using your own IT team, choose a hosted LMS.
9. The ability to fully customize and brand up your account It’s your account and you need to be able to own it as much as possible – colors, logos, custom text, language support if you need it, single sign-on and the need for API access are just a few things to consider.
10. Preferably the LMS has a cute green monster as it’s mascot Well, although this isn’t really a must-have, I would definitely put it on your ‘like-to-have’ list ;-) Who can resist Lenny?
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We talk to a lot of people every day about their learning needs and what they are looking for in a Learning Management System (LMS). Back in the day we very quickly realized that as much as we would love to sell our LMS to everyone that was interested, coaching them instead around the best practices in the LMS selection process ensures they get the right system for the job, and this equals less headaches all around.
Below is the top 10 ‘must-haves’ that we have come to know from our audience, and I consider these to be totally relevant to anyone out there shopping for a sparkly new LMS:
User-friendly & intuitive interface This may seem like a simple request but it’s actually very hard to find. If I had a dollar for every time I have heard the words ‘clunky’ and ‘impossible to navigate’ in reference to potential clients’ current or old learning management systems, I’d be rolling in it! Anyway, my point is, it does not have to be that way. I’m telling you that you can get a product that looks and acts like what you’re used to using in 2012.
Understand the difference between what you need to have and what you want to have. It’s very difficult to find an LMS with everything on your check-list, and often if you do, it’s even harder to use it. One thing that really sets my alarm bells ringing is when someone tells me that because they haven’t found the perfect, 100% suitable LMS for their organization, with everything that they want, they are instead going to build their own. Pretty pretty please with sugar on top – don’t do it! It’s taken us more than 5 years to get our product to where it is, and we’re a very young company for our industry and still building on our product every day! Plus, we didn’t get here without our share of mistakes and frustrations. Instead, why not see if you can tweak your list of ‘must-haves’ just a little – is there something you could drop from your list? Is there another way that you could achieve a similar result so that one of the many LMS options out there will fit the bill? I’ve seen it time and time again where the companies that go out insisting on building their own LMS take some years getting there and so many of the features on that list are dropped anyway, in favor of just getting something up and running.
Simple, exportable reporting This is generally why people buy in to an LMS as opposed to putting content up on a shared drive or emailing around a document, they need to be able to hold individuals accountable by having a system that tracks when a piece of content was viewed, if a quiz was completed etc. Test out the reporting features and make sure it’s easy to generate, filter, and export the exact information that you need. Don’t worry if the LMS doesn’t offer the exact stock report that you need, everyone’s reporting needs are very specific. But so long as you can create a custom report based on your criteria, or export all of the information and manipulate it in another program like Excel, then you’re set to go.
An integrated authoring tool like an html page, a quiz or questionnaire builder is a bonus Some kind of integrated authoring tool within the LMS, no matter how simple, can come in very handy. For example, if you want to quickly create a piece of content to fire out to your learners or you need to gather feedback on a topic or course via a survey/questionnaire. I need to clarify though that I’d advise steering clear of an Learning Management System where you build all of your content within the actual system. Because, down the track, should you decide to change vendor you may well be faced with the problem of having a bunch of courses in a proprietary format that you cannot export. It’s something to remember anyway.
Open and friendly lines of communication with your vendor’s support team This is an absolute must-have. Software is just one of those things where things can and often will go wrong, no matter how big or well-known the company. Even a tiny bug can throw a spanner in your plans for the day so make sure you have a friendly support team or account manager to report issues to and get prompt feedback on whether the issue is specific to you, if there is a temporary workaround and when the problem will be fixed. While this may have been a one-off occurrence (although I’ve heard to the contrary), I personally know a client who spent 6 hours on hold to Adobe’s support line with a Captivate issue, only to eventually have his call answered by a member of their call centre who promptly told him that yes, he was correct it was a bug for which a patch would be issued soon. But there was nothing else that could be done, end of conversation. Another horror story I heard recently that totally blew my mind, involved an LMS vendor (I don’t know who) and a server that went down for 30 days. Meaning, their clients had no access to their LMS and courses for that time! During the 30 days not a single status update or straight answer was given by the vendor as to what was going on and when it would be back up, and (the clincher) when it was finally restored it was a back up from 2 years earlier! Look out for this kind of treatment – it is totally unacceptable!
The final 5 must-haves in this series will be posted on Friday. Stay tuned!
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Next month from May 6 – 8, Litmos’ parent company Callidus Cloud will host their annual user conference at the Aria Resort in Las Vegas. The conference, named C3 – Join the Sales Revolution, features over 70 sales effectiveness sessions by top industry analysts and practitioners.
We’re very excited to have Litmos client Chip Reaves, Co-Founder of Computer Troubleshooters, making a speaking appearance with this exciting topic: Boost Sales and Cut Expenses with Online Training. For more information on other topics, speakers and the conference agenda, you can check out the full schedule here.
From the website:
C3 - Callidus Customer Connections – is the number one Sales Performance Management user conference of 2012, bringing together the top technical and industry leaders to help you transform your sales organization with the latest cloud, mobile, and social technologies behind the most successful sales effectiveness missions across the globe.
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If you are wondering how to get a ticket or you want to make a group booking, make sure to send us an email first so that we can sort you out with the best deal possible. It’s the least we can do to say ‘thank you’!
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Last year two major US carriers United & Alaska Airlines took the plunge and made the switch to delivering employee training via the iPad. Now, Litmos has become the preferred LMS solution for Norwegian.com, who have made the leap too. With its fresh, clean look, and mobile interface Litmos is fast becoming the #1 choice for online and mobile course delivery around the globe:
‘Litmos has really saved us a lot of time and hassle in finding an LMS that doesn’t need a lot of experts to work. Easy to set up, easy to publish courses and track the results. Excellent reports that document training to whatever level of detail we need.’ – Helge Hatleskog, Technical Instructor at Norwegian.com.
From their website:
Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, commercially branded “Norwegian”, is a publicly traded low-cost airline listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
The company is the second largest airline in Scandinavia and has a route portfolio that stretches across Europe into North Africa and the Middle East. The airline currently operates 296 routes to 114 destinations.
With competitive prices and customer friendly solutions and service, the company has experienced significant growth over the previous years. In 2011, close to16 million passengers travelled with the airline.
If you’re in the airline industry and looking to make the move to online and mobile learning, drop us an email at: sales@litmos.com to set up a live demo of the Litmos LMS and answer any questions you have for us. We look forward to talking to you soon!
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Here at Litmos HQ we’re gearing up for our next expo at the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions conference in Orlando, FL! This one runs from March 21 – 23, 2012 and there’s still time to get your ticket and accommodation sorted out.
If you are attending you will find me (Nicole Fougère) and Ayoob Syed – our awesome Sales Manager – at Booth 314 in the Expo Hall ready to answer your questions or give you a demo of the world’s easiest to use LMS.
We’ll also have a limited number of our hugely popular business card holders available (containing Litmos monster-printed mints), so swing by for some conference schwag and a chin-wag. We may even have one of our new and highly anticipated Litmos monster plush toys available to one special visitor. See you there!
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I wrote this article about iTunes U back in February 2010 when it was really more of a place that educational institutes were using to store and distribute course material securely – like PDFs – by leveraging the iTunes infrastructure.
Then, a few weeks back Apple announced that iTunes U was going a step further in to the authoring game by releasing iBooks Author Tool and iBooks2. The discussion immediately kicked off on Twitter as to whether iTunes U had just become an LMS. I couldn’t resist checking it out so I downloaded it and wrote a book called ‘How to get started with online learning‘. You can download it from the itunes Store to your ipad for free – go on, you know you want to!
Anyway, long story short, it was a lot of fun creating the book, mucking around with their template, and making it look professional. Well, as much as my limited design skills allowed! But that’s the point I guess, anyone can now write a book and put it in the iTunes store, for a price if they like. Then the question inevitably arises, is that a good thing? Or is it something we should be concerned about? Will it get harder to sort through the quantity to find the quality? Will the written word have no value if anyone write and we don’t know the potential bias in the author’s perspective? I saw Koreen Olbrish discussing this topic the day after the Apple announcement with fellow twitter friends which prompted this thought-provoking blog post from her: New tools, same old problems: curation and media literacy.
At this stage, I don’t think what Apple have created is an LMS. Despite being able to add assessment questions in to your book, anyone who uses an LMS knows it’s all about the reporting and that part is not as granular as I know our clients like it.
As for the argument about everyone becoming an author, I can only think that this exact cry went up at the dawn of the Internet, websites and blogging. People freely spouting opinion as fact, but with the added confirmation of being officially ‘published’ might be a scary thought. But then, going way back, isn’t that what history books are in a sense? Isn’t that why you can read one account of an event and it just doesn’t match up to another person’s,even though they might have been right next to each other? Our observations are clouded by the multitude of very unique experiences that we have collected throughout our lives and that alone makes it difficult, if not impossible, to be objective. At the end of the day it’s still up to us to moderate what we think is a quality read and it’s up to us to use the complex networks of online communities that we belong to, to support those who we respect, admire, trust and believe. Not to mention enjoy reading :)
Interested to hear your thoughts on the iBooks Author tool and what it means to writing as a an artform to you…
Posted by Jacqueline Barnes on . There have been 3 comments.
Do you feel like you are being more efficient and productive when learning online? Are you maximizing your capacity to retain information? Or are you feeling the extreme opposite? Are your brain and eyes on overload from viewing everything via online?
According to recent studies, our brains love learning online. Columbia neuroscientist, Betsy Sparrow, states, “We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools”. There is no fact in denying that people today are constantly glued to their computer, Smartphone, tablet, or other electronic gadget. Although some may argue that it is a bit excessive, being one with our computer tools allows our brains to become like online memory banks. Within seconds, we can work through a problem with the help of the Internet; which in turn allows our brains to offload some information, and create more room in our brain to focus on areas of other interest. Studies have shown that the action of “googling”, “may actually engage a greater extent of neural circuitry” than paper-based complex reasoning, states neuroscientist Gary Small. In addition, the use of emoticons can increase learning. As humans, we pick up on each and every emotional cue, even the slightest smile. Thus, the use of emoticons and avatars in programs can affect our emotional sensitivity and improve our learning capability.
Lastly, we thrive on recognition and rewards, causing the “badge” phenomenon to become a real concern for some people. You only have to hang out with someone who uses FourSquare or take a look a Badgeville’s success to know this is true. The phenomenon replaces real rewards with virtual rewards that provide a status and reputation. Although this does not motivate everyone, virtual rewards can be seen of more worth than physical rewards to some individuals. Therefore, causing more people to be involved and participate in online learning to acquire badges.
My advice? I suggest you to continue googling and using the web for assistance to your questions and problems, you never know what new knowledge you may stumble upon! Oh and keep a look out for some cool new features coming soon to Litmos as we acknowledge the importance of rewards and incentives in online learning..
What is something new you learned this week online?
mLearnCon 2012 in San Jose, California from June 19 – 21
DevLearn 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada from October 31 – November 2
Our sponsorship of the eLearning Guild is a gesture that shows just how serious we are about supporting the growth of our eLearning industry and our ongoing commitment to pushing the boundaries of the technology being produced within it.
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The Litmos team is growing again and our newest recruit is Jacqueline Barnes! She’s coming on board to be our Community Relations Gal writing blog posts, tweeting, supporting our customers, and brainstorming some cool marketing initiatives with me.
Jacqueline is a recent college graduate from Saint Mary’s College with a fresh, firsthand perspective on the value and effectiveness of eLearning. With a BS in Business Administration and a member of the Sigma Beta Delta Business Honors Society, Jacqueline joins Litmos providing passion, commitment, and support to the team. She enjoys helping others, eating cupcakes, and traveling the world.
We’re excited to have more hands on deck, but also about the new energy coming in to the team because that means fresh ideas and new perspective, and that equals endless possibilities!
the iPad. Now, Litmos has become the preferred LMS solution for 
