Love your LMS
Litmos has experienced a period of rapid growth over the past few months so it is necessary for us to significantly scale up our infrastructure.
On Saturday 15th October at 2pm PST we will be doing a hardware upgrade that will require us to go offline for 2 hour. Click here for your local times.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact: support@litmos.com
Thanks!
Greetings, Litmos community! Thanks to Nicole and Rich, I’ll be helping out with the blog. Our goal is to speak to (and with) Litmos trial users, Litmos clients, eLearning peers, and anyone getting into online learning.
The Litmos team gave me one strict editorial requirement—Write about whatever you want. While the business thrives by helping you to “love your LMS,” we’ll be using this space to explore eLearning ideas and strategies that complement your use of an LMS.
eLearning, online learning, distance education, web-based training… whatever you call it, it’s a broad and perpetually changing topic. The community of practice is talented, passionate, and (often) wildly opinionated. This blog is a response to questions about strategy and content—questions that range from “I’ve picked an LMS vendor, what do I do now?” to “We’ve droned our learners into unconsciousness. How can I create a conversational tone in eLearning?”
We’ll talk about development tools, content development, and trends in online learning. We’ll speak with industry luminaries about topics that strike a chord, and we’ll take a look at training needs in specific industries.
In the coming months, expect posts on any or all of the following:
You’ll see a strong focus on resources. For example—instead of explaining how to use a specific widget in Adobe Captivate or create a specific effect in Articulate, we’ll point you to those who have done remarkable work, and shared their expertise with the community.
This blog is solution-oriented, but there’s no way it’s going to push “one-best-way” thinking. It’s our small part of a global conversation, and the posts are really just starting points. If our efforts make you think, or point you in a new direction, great. You are always welcome to comment as you see fit, and please share alternative processes, resources, or strategies. Thanks!
We are very excited to announce the arrival of another blogger on the Litmos scene! Although I’m not going anywhere, we decided there was a need for a fresh perspective and voice of expertise to mix it up a bit and we’ve found our guy.
For many he will need no introduction, but for those yet to be acquainted with Jason Willensky (@jwillensky) I can personally vouch for his passion for learning, eLearning and instructional design, not to mention his quick-witted and skillful retorts and his love of great food! Last year when I went to DevLearn in San Jose I had a few days to kill in San Fran beforehand and it was Jason’s food and beverage recommendations that kept me busy running all over town making sure not to miss a thing – he’s that good!
Jason brings this same quest for perfection to his work and writing. If he were to fill in a ‘me-in-a-nutshell’ form it might sound a little something like this:
Jason will be posting regularly on the Litmos blog on a range of different topics, but I’ll let him tell you more about that in his first post which is coming right up…
A few months ago we were lucky enough to have Saasu, a leader in online accounting software make the move to online learning via Litmos. We asked their marketing exec a few questions about their search for the ideal learning management system and here’s what they had to say:
Which industry does your organisation operate in?
Saasu makes online accounting easy for business owners and their accountants. Essentially, we’re a SaaS provider (hence the name), and our product is used by businesses across all industries. In light of this, our LMS had to be easy for anyone to use – regardless of their technical expertise.
How did you find out about Litmos?
We researched several learning management systems and stumbled across Litmos as part of that process. Not only that, but half the world seems to be following your ‘happy blogger‘ on Twitter, so you must be doing something well!
What were you using to manage learning prior to Litmos?
To be honest, we hadn’t attempted anything like Litmos before – we didn’t realise it could be so easy! Usually our training system simply consisted of a series of online webinars or on-site meetings. Both were time-consuming, sometimes inefficient and didn’t really let us accurately assess an individual’s learning.
As a result, this is the first time we’ve run a training programme in this way, and it’s definitely making for a richer learning experience.
Why did you choose Litmos as your learning management system?
Litmos is straightforward to use and gives our training team plenty of control. It also eliminates tedious admin work such as marking tests and chasing up clients to re-sit these. Oh, and it’s cost effective (which is always a bonus)!
Another important consideration was that we’ve got a great partnership with the team at Acclipse (in New Zealand) who we run a lot of training for Accounting Partners through, so it was really important the system we chose to work with was simple for anyone to set up, as we knew communicating complicated ideas from our office in Sydney wouldn’t be easy.
How has Litmos improved the way that you manage learning within your organisation? i.e. the benefits now and in the future
We use Litmos alongside our original training webinars to make sure our customers have really taken on the message. It’s great, because if they can’t make the webinar, we have a presentation in Litmos ready and waiting for them. In fact, our very first presentation to clients and staff makes it clear that webinar attendance is completely optional, and that their Litmos results are what we’ll be monitoring.
Although we mainly use Litmos for educating customers, it’s also the perfect tool for training Saasu and Acclipse staff (we have a lot, and they’re all over Australia and New Zealand), as we can track who’s making progress, and keeping up to date.
Now that our system is set up – the hard work is done! Of course we’re always tweaking the content and adding new sections, but doing this is a breeze.
- Thanks Saasu!
@RichChetwynd
Today we’ve released some changes to how the course building area looks and functions in an effort to make the process a lot more efficient and user-friendly – yay! Below is a 3-minute screencast of the changes we’ve rolled out. If you prefer the longer version, read on below the video for a bit more info on the exact changes.
New Course Building Area
When you log in to create or edit a course, you’ll notice that the main course building area has been separated out in to a five distinct tabs now: Content, People, Teams, Noticeboard and Settings (see screenshot below).
Content
Under the content tab you will see a list of all of the modules in your course. Off to the right side the ‘Add a Module’ button allows you to select new content that you would like to add to your course. There is a brief summary of your course settings displayed below that button. Finally, the ‘Additional Documents’ area is below the summary. To add an additional reference document to your course just click the ‘Upload a File’ link and you can upload multiple files at a time.
People
The People tab now shows who is already assigned to your course, how much they have completed of the course and if they have completed the latest version. A useful new enhancement is when you hover over a learner’s name you’ll see a snapshot of their profile information including their profile pic, company name, job title, email address, phone number and last login time.
To add more users to your course you have the choice of two buttons on the right: ‘Assign to Existing People’ or ‘Import new people’. This works much the same as it used to in that you can either choose from a list of existing users, or paste a comma-separated list of email addresses in to a box which will a) create the users and b) assign them to this course all in one go.
Teams
The Teams tab displays teams that you have already assigned to the course, and it also gives you information on which hierarchy that team is a part of so you can be absolutely sure you have the right one. The ‘Assign to Teams’ button on the right allows you to search for and assign more groups of users to your course.
Noticeboard
The noticeboard area is a lot more friendly now and enables you to add notes to the course for learners to read as they are going through the content. Just use the ‘Add a Note’ button on the right to add some formatted text to the notes area your course.
Settings
The Settings area hasn’t changed since our last release so you should be pretty familiar with this by now. Off to the right you can view and add to the list of people who are set up to receive alerts about this course. The course code for the bulk import spreadsheet and the option to delete the course are below the alerts.
If you’re not familiar with the certificates section down the page take a look at our uploading certificates help video.
Enjoy!
@Schnicker
Wow has it been a monster development month – as November should be when you’re a tech company! Our team have dug it in working around the clock to bring you some key new enhancements, and rest assured there are still many more on the way. For now though, here’s a teaser of what’s rolling out to Litmos accounts this weekend:
eCommerce is getting a makeover
To be totally honest, the eCommerce area had been neglected of any real upgrades for a wee while. So earlier this month we thought it was time to get started building the foundations of what’s needed to be able to integrate with more payment providers so that you have more than just PayPal to choose from (who can drive us all up the wall at times!). We also thought it was time to snazz up the course listing pages a little with Facebook Like and Tweet buttons, improve the reliability of PayPal payments, make it possible to offer sign up to a free, zero $ course, and integrate with Google Analytics. For more info check out this blog post.
November’s Featured Partner – OpenSesame, the world’s eLearning marketplace
OpenSesame are a new company on the eLearning scene with a killer strategy – to be the ‘iTunes’ of the eLearning content world. Not only do they do all the legwork sourcing great courses and content to buy and sell on their website, they test it out in various Learning Management Systems to ensure that if a client needs the full package (content, delivery & tracking), they can give you some great reliable options. Knowing the number one barrier to moving ahead with Litmos is actually having content at-the-ready, we knew they were on to something good. I threw a few questions at them to find out what makes them tick:
What and who is OpenSesame? OpenSesame is the world’s marketplace for buying and selling elearning courses. Our mission is to connect course creators and consumers directly in a marketplace where courses are easy for developers to publish and straighforward for companies to use. OpenSesame unlocks elearning for consumers by enabling them to read user reviews, evaluate authors’ qualifications and purchase courses from multiple authors with no long-term commitments.
The OpenSesame team is based in beautiful Portland, Oregon where our team of 10 has worked with the buyers and sellers of elearning content since 2010.
Who are your main clients? OpenSesame has two types of clients: elearning consumers (our buyers) and elearning creators (our sellers). From the seller side, we are eager to work with course creators at all scales, from independent freelance Instructional Designers to large elearning consultancies. On the buyer side, in our initial stages of development we are targeting medium and large organizations with learning management systems in place.
Are you focused on a US or global audience? Short term we are focused on developing a library of English-language content and marketing it to English-language consumers. We plan to develop content libraries in additional languages as we build global connections in the elearning community.
How does your website work? Our goal is to make buying and selling elearning content as simple as using eBay or iTunes. Buyers and sellers can access the OpenSesame marketplace and we encourage content creators to create a profile and begin uploading their courses to reach customers worldwide. We also encourage buyers to browse our library of courses, classified in four categories: technical, business skills, compliance and safety. Our marketplace design ensures that courses remain securely on OpenSesame’s servers while playing directly in any LMS. Learning and Training Directors can browse our marketplace, read course reviews, learn about course authors and purchase as many seats or site licenses as they need. OpenSesame connects buyers and sellers transparently, empowering both groups to find the partners they need.
What kind of feedback have you been getting so far? (I think I know the answer to this – it all seems to be very positive so far as I’ve seen!) The feedback has been great! In the past several weeks, we have worked hard to showcase the OpenSesame marketplace to as many fresh sets of eyes as possible at DevLearn10 and through countless demos. We’ve also received great suggestions to improve the next iterations of the site, and we welcome more! It’s clear that course creators are looking for new ways to connect their products with elearning consumers, and we are eager to fill that niche.
Thanks OpenSesame! You can follow them here on Twitter: OpenSesameNow.
All the best wishes to those celebrating a US Thanksgiving this week – bring on December!
Over and out,
Nicole (@Schnicker)
Online version of this newsletter
Our super hard-working development team rolled out some seriously awesome new features at the beginning of this week which need a huge mention:
eCommerce area
General
Enjoy!
This month we’re pleased to introduce Computer Troubleshooters, a happy Litmos customer since July 2009. Many of you will be familiar with them as the largest ‘international network of franchisees providing onsite computer services to home and business users.’ Launched in 1999, Computer Troubleshooters now has more than 475 franchises in more than 20 countries. They provide a comprehensive range of computer / technology solutions to small business owners (typically with 1 to 25 staff) and private home users. Whether it’s technology issues, problem prevention, virus and spyware remediation or website development, they can help.
Before using Litmos, CT provided regular training for their franchisees via workshops, in-class training, and occasional webinars but attendance was “hit and miss”, according to CEO Chip Reaves. “If you couldn’t afford to travel for a class or if you missed a webinar, you might be missing out on important information. With our industry (small business technology support) changing every day, this was a problem.”
Not only did Litmos provide a training platform for Computer Troubleshooters to consolidate all their franchisee updates, there was also an unexpected benefit: “We’re now able to provide most, if not all, of the in-class training through the Litmos platform. As a result we’ve been able to open franchise locations in places like India, Nigeria, and the Phillipines where previously the cost to travel to the US or UK for our in-class training would have been prohibitive.”
Computer Troubleshooters continues to enjoy a long history of awards from the likes of Entrepreneur Magazine, Franchise Business Review and AllBusiness.com.
Our release today has seen a few very exciting changes roll out, one of which is the addition of certificates to the Litmos LMS.
Certificates
So, first up, you can now add a certificate to any course you build in Litmos. This will then be issued to the learner as a PDF upon successful completion of your course. Here’s a post from our Help Guide to give you a little more info about that:
As you would expect, there are a few changes on the Learner side as well, to accommodate for the addition of Certificates. Previously, the trainee view consisted of a ‘To Do’ tab and a ‘Completed’ tab. Now, when you take a look at the trainee side you will see there are three tabs: ‘To Do’, ‘My Courses’ and ‘Achievements’ – the latter is where completed courses and certificates are stored. More info on these changes available here:
How do the To Do, My Courses & My Achievements tabs work?
Compliance Features
API Update
Last but not least, you can now get course results for your students via the API. This is great if you want to automatically import these results in to another one of your systems. More info on that here:
Look out for more exciting updates to come out over the next few weeks!
Last week the Litmos Learning Managment System received a great review on B.J. Schone‘s eLearning and mLearning blog/magazine eLearning Weekly. Many thanks to Eric Matas, the new Managing Editor, for taking the time to review Litmos and for putting together such positive feedback and comments.
Eric signed on for a trial with us back in August just before we rolled out our iPad, iPhone and Android support. We didn’t know he was considering reviewing us at the time, but when his trial expired we made sure he got a another week to check out the new mobile learning features that we had been working on. It definitely paid off because whether you’re ready or not, this is where the learning market is headed!
Here’s a comment from Eric’s review:
“Litmos is so light and agile that I was able to set up a demo site, add a few learners, add a couple of SCORM courses, and send a few email notifications all in less than 30 minutes. Minutes later, I was accessing the LMS on my smart phone. The Litmos experience is amazing–so different from the LMS nightmares I was used to with the larger LMS beasts out there.”
Please take a minute to check out the full eLearning Weekly review: ‘LMS Spotlight: Litmos‘.
Thanks again Eric!
@Schnicker