The LMS market grows by leaps and bounds. Back in the days, producers competed to come up with progressive software, but today the race is somehow different. The best seller will be the one that meets expectations most accurately, or at least one that provides clean, simple, and affordable functionalities. It is still a SaaS model, one would say, but the demand on the later S (Service) has never been higher.
So how do you make the right choice for an LMS system? There are many factors that need to be considered, but the main one is to remember that you are still looking for a self-explanatory program which performs administration, delivery, reporting, and content-organization all in one. Big deal, ain’t it? Jumping on the process yourself can feel like joining a non-exhaustive chase of time, nerves, and money, which is why you should know few things before investing your money in a platform. Here are some questions you should ask yourself:
Why do you need LMS at the first place? Rather than coming up with a learning strategy from scratch, use the one that you already have and improve it.
No running before walking. Did you explore LMS options properly? Think of a program that can suit your needs, rather than the top-seller that is probably more than you can shake a stick at. Better yet, list the features you’d like to see, even if they sound too ambitious.
No jumping into the unknown. Why would you purchase a product your team knows nothing about? Think about the specific skills and talents of your coworkers and choose the closest option to what they perceive as ideal software.
Clean bill long love. Vendors will promise the world, and that’s good: you shouldn’t settle for anything but the best. To be completely frank, LMSs can cost top dollars, and you should review a vendor carefully before you shake hands.
In order to help you with the painful evaluation procedure, we made an thorough analysis of all popular LMS systems based on costs, features, functionality, customization options, integration options, support, and security. In the end we came up with top three products we believe are suitable for every size/type of knowledge business. We invite you to check them out and to choose one that feels like your ideal solution. Here are the best LMS apps according to our experts:
1. TalentLMS – score of 9.8 [ Free Trial ]
2. Schoology – score of 9.5
3. Edmodo – score of 9.3
Below you can find a detailed description of all three products:
1. TalentLMS: 9.8/10
TalentLMS won our Best Learning Management Software Award for 2015
With a performance rating of over 9.8/10 and 99% satisfied users to confirm that, Talent LMS breaks all records of cloud-based learning. Its main purpose is to help small and medium organizations deliver valuable information to their students, trainees, employees, or even third parties. What is one of its distinguishing features is the opportunity to create your own sources (both text and multimedia), unlike other platforms that distribute only published web content. Materials are stored in comprehensive databases, right at your fingertips whenever you need them. Customization is probably among the best qualities of this platform, as it enables you to leave unnecessary functionality aside, and to focus on what your trainees really need.
Still, there is much more to TalentLMS than distribution. It keeps work organized with admirable statistics, reporting and analyzing capabilities. No wonder it ‘swept’ every award down the way, winning the Award For Best Learning Management Software in 2015 as well as the 2015 Supreme Software Award. We also encourage you to sign up for TalentLMS free trial and to explore its capabilities and meet one of the most responsive customer support ever.
Here are a few more solid reasons why you should opt for TalentLMS:
It is an ocean of possibilities
Delivering information in a timely fashion is only one of the core benefits of this system. Once you’ve configured it according to your business needs (personalization with domains, logos, or themes is included) you can jump to creating original e-courses with your own materials, or uploading online files via Social Integrations. Note that the system is fully configured: no installations, backups or upgrades will be necessary. Fair deal to keep the IT department happy, don’t you think so?
While you’re running it, the system will keep itself organized. The amazing set of analytic tools tracks performance and produces accurate reports without third software or manual work, which doesn’t happen often with such minimalist and user-friendly interfaces. The platform is supported by Windows and Mac, and it is therefore available as an iPhone/iPad and Android App.
The techies among you will also appreciate its full TinCan/SCORM support, meaning you can sell courses, receive notifications, organize video-conferences, or even extend user profiles.
It fulfills three objectives that are critical to every business
To start with, TalentLMS is a well-rounded training platform, which can either be employee-orientated, or serve the purpose of selling E-learning courses and making money. Once you upgrade to the unlimited plan, there will be literally no restriction on the number of courses you can provide, or the number of subscribers that can use them upon a monthly fee. Pay-per-course payments are also enabled, meaning that your commercial goals can also be achieved without empowering subscriptions.
Secondly, TalentLMS is an employee guide. What could be better to welcome a novice team member, than an open source of productivity information? Instead of spending months trying to introduce your procedures and policy, you can invite new hires to have a virtual tour of the company and learn for themselves.
Thirdly, TalentLMS supports hybrid learning, known also as ILT (Instruction-Led Training), which makes it ideal for group sessions, something like traditional classrooms or webinars. You can make a course that consists of several parts, appoint a date/place and invite chosen users to attend it. As simple as that!
It includes all key features an LMS needs
The system encompasses all features necessary for distributing information and welcoming new users on board. Here are some of the features users appreciate the most: course authoring, course catalog, data import/export, defined user roles, testing, exam engines, grading, transcripts, administrative reporting, custom reporting, custom branding, custom fields, goal setting, individual plans, file exchange, career tracking, etc. Not familiar with all of them? Nothing to worry about, customer support is always there to answer your questions.
It has a great free trial and flexible pricing
You can have a proper journey within the system, and explore its full capacity without spending a single penny. Trying it should convince you that owning it in your kit is really affordable, especially if you’re running a small business. You can easily sing up for TalentLMS free trial here.
TalentLMS also has very flexible pricing with more pay-per-use plans than any other software. There are eight packages in total, from the basic Small Standard package ($29/month) to the Premium Unlimited ($379/month). You can learn more about TalentLMS pricing here.
2. Schoology: 9.5/10
Schoology is what many call a smart and innovative combination of learning management and social networking. It has a rating of 97% satisfied users and it got a total score of 9.5/10 in our test which puts on the second place of our list of top LMS solutions. If we had to materialize the difference between the two, we’d probably go for content type, and inspiring academics rather than business owners to use Schoology.
Creation and distribution of content is very easy, as there is a collaborative blending mechanism to make the most of effective participation. As an admin, you’d be allowed to summarize and manage content in a way that will keep students engaged, connected, and best of all… motivated!
The number one reason users named when discussing their Schoology preference is that it cuts on administrative duties. I would definitely agree on this one, having in mind that the system follows creation and management, and allows for attendance and grading records.
Check out the most important benefits and decide whether Schoology is what you are looking for:
It supports the main activities of every educational organization
Schoology comes with flexible and intuitive navigation, signifying that it will be of no trouble even for youngsters and pupil disciples. You can resort to a unique curriculum management to discover the needs of your students, and create, share, and track data you think would be useful to them. As a content provider, you’ll also have access to the Global Learning Community, a marvelous base of resources, experiences, and best practices. In fact, Schoology is so collaborative that it connects you with various instructor groups and communities, which proved to be precious for tailoring effective learning programs.
Administratively speaking, the system performs great hard-data analysis, and it updates the grading/performance evaluation each time you enrich your database with new methods and practices. Rather than sticking to the classroom approach, you’re invited to extend or transform participation, and involve just as many participants as you deem necessary.
Schoology is available as a mobile app, supported both by Apple and Android. It deploys open APIs, but it can be tricky in terms of expanding, because it is only available in USA and Latin America.
It has all the necessary instructor features
It includes every feature an instructor needs to count on: tools for course creation and management, resource sharing center and instructors, curriculum management, seamless integration of third parties, open-access integration platform, content aligning to state standards and common core, calendar, messaging, automatic updates, automatic grading of performance, custom applications, and many others.
Available pricing plans
Basically, there are two versions: a free one and a paid one. There is a single Freemium package that includes the basic options, but it will not grant full access to the previously described set of features.
The pay-per-use packages are offered in two variants:
A One-Time Payment Package (you make your purchase and you use the full set of features)
A Quote-Package (each student pays $10 per month in order to obtain access to the database).
3. Edmodo: 9.3/10
With 96% satisfied users and a total score of 9.3/10 Edmodo is another reliable choice for your prospective virtual classroom. It is a solid learning platform orientated towards teachers, students, schools or entire districts. It is the third best LMS software on our list, which makes it a pretty good deal when on a budget (it has also been on the K-12 list of leading learn-networks for quite a while).
What makes Edmodo so special is safety. I couldn’t think of a more secure way to share content with your students, or to motivate communication and collaboration. Students love it because of its social-network (yet controlled) aesthetics, while teachers enjoy saving time on accessing homework, grading, or spreading school notices.
Let me elaborate on the security part: the teacher is the one in charge of designing and managing groups. He provides access codes for each students and restricts those codes from being used outside the classroom. Communication is only possible in student-teacher and student-class relations, private messaging is not allowed. The teacher can also provide access codes to parents, so that they will monitor their children’s performance. The highest monitoring rights belong to the school, meaning that the work of every teacher will be observed, changed, or updated upon necessity.
A wide range of features
Take a sneak-peak of what you will get with the app: a free admin account, accelerated learning goals, building of/access to networks and communities, building parent networks, student pools, badge-awarding mechanism and progress measurement.
It is a fairly modern solution too, as students get to use it as their mobile app, both on iPhones and Android systems. The app is offered only on the US market however.
It’s offered for free
Neither teachers, nor students are supposed to pay for the app, which shows that developers had good will to help education development, and that’s worth respect. While this could be an important criterion to make a decision, keep in mind that in the world of LMSs you get what you paid for, and usually it’s better to choose a product with some form of inexpensive paid plan which guarantees that you’ll get higher level of customer support, regular updates and fixes as well as generally better features.
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