Are you finding your learners are struggling to complete courses? It could be a sign your learners aren’t engaged with your learning management system (LMS) course content. Is it due to the content lacking relevance? Perhaps the course is out of date. Or, maybe the course is not presented appropriately. Follow our top tips below to successfully manage your LMS content and keep your learners engaged.
5 tips for managing LMS content successfully
1. Know the life cycle of your LMS course content
Outdated content isn’t just a waste of time for learners, it can also be confusing. Additionally, having outdated content can cause a lack of clarity and distrust. It’s essential to have meaningful course content to set your learners up for success.
Furthermore, your course content has likely changed over the years, and learners may be completing different iterations. Maintaining accurate records of course completion isn’t just a regulatory requirement it can also highlight gaps in your learner's training. So how do you accurately track the life cycle of your course content and ensure compliance?
- Maintain course integrity by checking when the course content was last updated.
- Ask yourself what information is missing and what is no longer relevant.
- Next, create a list or report detailing which learners have completed which course version and plan for how you will ensure consistency moving forward.
- Develop a recurring review plan to ensure the content is regularly maintained and meaningful.
- Check if you're making any common LMS mistakes.
2. Improve your LMS course content
Now you have a plan in place to review your course content, you need to decide how you’ll update or create new content moving forward. There are three ways you can approach this:
Option 1: In-house expertise
If you have the in-house expertise, your technical team will be able to create the course content for you and identify any technical or content-based gaps. However, if you don’t have the in-house expertise, don’t let this stop you - team up with an external expert instead.
Option 2: Course content delivered by a LMS partner
What if your in-house experts have the knowledge of the course materials, but don’t know how to create the online content itself? In this case, an experienced LMS partner is the solution. Course content creation developed in conjunction with an LMS partner is called a ‘full instructional design experience’. Basically, this is when an Instructional Designer, works with your subject matter experts (SMEs) to develop the course content.
A full instructional design experience covers:
- An analysis of requirements including assessment and compliance, if relevant.
- The identification of learning objectives and desired outcomes.
- Development of a course or multiple courses.
- Design of training materials suitable for an LMS. For example, teaching manuals and student guides.
- Publication of your courses on your LMS.
Working with a learning management system partner frees up your in-house expertise time. Plus, collaboration strengthens the course content: your SMEs share their knowledge to create meaningful courses, and their time is also freed up.
Option 3: Translating content for online learning
How about if you have paper-based courses that now need to be accessible online? Some real experience is needed to translate this effectively. So if you don’t have the in-house expertise to do it, work with an experienced eLearning consultant. They are highly skilled and can translate your face-to-face or paper-based course content into purposeful digital LMS content. Additionally, they can create bite-sized courses to provide microlearning for your team’s training.
3. Identify and review SCORM rot in your course content
Since 2001, SCORM has been used for presenting content in a wide range of LMSs. However, as we highlighted in our previous blog post, it’s riddled with problems. To name just one, when SCORM is over five years old it has the danger of being uneditable. As a result, 'SCORM rot' is created.
How to identify SCORM content in your LMS
Firstly, identify SCORM content by:
- manually going through source files, or,
- requesting a report to determine how old your SCORM is. Our free SCORM report settings help you identify what content is still editable, and how long for.
Next, once you've identified your SCORM rot, you’ll need to define how much it impacts your learners. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the content important?
- Does the course form part of key learning?
- Is it an induction course where company changes are not reflected?
- Or, is it compulsory compliance training that needs updating due to legislative changes?
- Is the content integrated?
- Is this course part of a wider program of learning?
- Is it part of a certification?
- Lastly, is it a prerequisite to other learning?
After you’ve answered these questions, you’ll need to make a plan of attack for your SCORM rot.
4. Update SCORM course content
If your course content isn’t easy to update it’s more likely to be pushed to the bottom of your priority list. But the longer you leave SCORM sitting in your LMS, the more the rot is going to spread.
To fix SCORM rot in your LMS content you can:
- Republish and modernise old SCORM content with H5P - an open source, easy-to-use HTML5 editing tool.
- Replace original SCORM files with newer content.
- Contact a trusted LMS partner to find, fix, or update if you need support.
5. Enhance engagement with H5P
20 years after SCORM's debut, you’ll be pleased to hear there are more modern authoring tools available. These modern tools are easier to work with and require little technical skills by providing:
- Native mobile application support (mobile-first features).
- Responsive design.
- Built-in editing tools.
H5P is easy to update and flexible, especially compared to SCORM. With H5P you can continue to deliver meaningful content for your learners without compromising quality. Plus, using H5P makes it easy for you to copy content, make changes, and re-publish as needed.
Content development support
By following our five tips to successfully manage your LMS content, your learners will have helpful, up-to-date, and meaningful content to support their study. Consequently, this drives success for both your learners and your organisation.
If you need support updating or creating course content, our experts at Catalyst can help.
Check out more information about our content development services.