​Staying on top of the different learning systems online can feel like a full-time job. So what exactly is an LXP is and how can it fit into your business plan?

 

LXP and LMS Definitions

A Learning Management System (LMS), is the software necessary for building and publishing online courses and trainings. They have a wide variety of uses and are naturally administrator driven with a closed platform, great for compliance training, onboarding, corporate training, and certifications.

A Learning Experience Platform (LXP) manages online learning experiences for employees, primarily at large corporations, and can provide learning resources that encourage employees to invest in the learning culture of the business. An LXP is ideal for online learning environments designed to facilitate employee choice, collaboration, and promotions within your organization.

To leverage this, set up your online learning system so employee-level users have the ability to create their own course and manage them afterward. Also ensure learning assessments are designed so employees are able to quickly set up assessment instruments, instead of a system that requires course teachers to do manual grading. An LXP often integrates with multiple types of LMSs. If your business has multiple learning environments, you can use an LXP to pull them all together.

An LXP has been used recently in the eLearning industry as a catchy, exciting phrase to use at conferences. However, it’s important to clarify the difference between an LXP and LMS, as they are often used recklessly and interchangeably.

Administrator vs Employee Driven

While an LMS is controlled by a teacher or administrator, an LXP is a platform that enables more granular user controls for educational systems. This allows employees to design and publish their modules and courses within the learning environment. This gives trainers less control of the content, but opens up possibilities for user-generated lessons. 

Closed vs Open System 

Because of the nature of a platform, an LXP is an open learning environment and a traditional LMS is a more closed system. Businesses able to use an open LXP system provide employees the ability to build out learning systems for team-training or cross-team communication. This open system improves the ability to create growth from the learning systems.  

Certifications vs Employee Growth 

When you need to create a course that demonstrates a specific level of proficiency, an LMS is ideal because you are able to track learning and engagement and control the information within the course. This type of platform is preferred for certifications or courses to prove compliance with governmental or industrial standards. If you want to give your entire business the ability to grow together or in smaller teams, an LXP provides a platform for growth.   

Static vs Dynamic

An LMS is focused on content and is administrator-driven; therefore providing a static and structured framework. An LXP is focused on dynamic courses and employee-driven content, meaning course creators are able to quickly swivel and change.

 

LMS vs LXP: Which One Should We Use?

An LMS is ideal for delivering learning content; an LXP is ideal for creating the platform an LMS works within. It is not really a choice between an LMS and an LXP, but of when to extend one with the other. Since they both offer unique tools and environments, they can work together to provide a more robust online learning system.

While an LXP is exciting and new, it has major drawbacks. Because it’s evolving, it does not have the LMS’s advantage of being a tried and true product, with verified strength in a proven platform. To see which is right for you, talk with an eLearning professional about your organization and its specific needs.

 

About Knowledge Anywhere

Knowledge Anywhere is mostly focused on our LMS platform. However, we do have some elements of an LXP, including intuitive user experience, rich content, data collection and analysis, personalization features, mobile friendly learning, and integrations. We are currently looking to expand our system to include more beneficial elements of an LXP!

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