Last week I asked Can the ‘big LMS’ break clear of formal training? - I wanted to know whether Saba, one of the most successful of the big LMSs, could reinvent itself to accommodate informal learning. This time I’m exploring whether it is possible for one of the world’s most popular academic virtual learning environments, Moodle, to be adapted to suit the needs of corporates.

In the UK we do use two very different terms to separate between those platforms which are designed to support the learning of students (virtual learning environments – VLEs) and those designed to support the learning of employees (learning management systems – LMSs). I don’t believe the distinction is so clear in the USA, yet it really needs to be.

There is some overlap: both types of platforms can deliver resources and both can support certain types of learning activities. But the nature of those resources and activities is typically very different. A typical VLE is designed to support formal academic courses, whether face-to-face, online or blended. It provides a place for course materials to be shared, for students to collaborate and for assignments to be uploaded and graded. In essence, most VLEs house a collection of course websites.

The LMS is also typically orientated around formal learning, but of a very different nature. The LMS catalogues all the learning opportunities that an organisation provides, mainly classroom courses (including virtual ones) and self-study e-learning, and makes them available for booking by employees or their managers. It tracks progress and completion in order to update personal development plans, competency databases and compliance records. Of course the LMS may extend way beyond these confines, but these are the essentials.

So it has been more than a little surprising to me over the past few years to see Moodle, an open-source VLE, used so enthusiastically by corporates. It is capable of doing many of the LMS basics, but it certainly wasn’t designed for the job. Various companies have offered customisation of Moodle to make it fit better to corporate needs, but TotaraLMS is the first example (as far as I know) of an out-of-the-box Moodle implementation designed wholly for corporate needs.

Steve Rayson of Kineo stopped by a couple of weeks ago to demonstrate TotaraLMS to me before embarking on his trip to China (the results of which I’m sure he will be announcing shortly). Totara is a joint venture of Kineo and New Zealand-based Catalyst. It adds a whole load of LMS functionality to Moodle:

• Learning plans aligned to courses (in the fullest sense, or in some cases just a simple resource or activity), competencies or learning and development objectives, each with their own evidence criteria
• Learner and manager dashboards
• Measurement of competence against primary positions and aspirational positions
• Bookings for classroom courses (including virtual)
• All sorts of standard management reports

TotaraLMS builds in as standard much of the functionality that Kineo have been offering their open source clients in recent years. It can be hosted or installed within the firewall. While all elements of Totara are open source, it is not free, but then I’m not sure many corporates really want free – they want easy.

I know some big brand companies are going to give it a try. It will be interesting to see how they get on.