This same contradiction is now happening in the e-learning world at a frightening pace. The people who suffer the most from this contradiction are the consumers and a vast majority of vendors. While mobile learning is moving at an incredible speed, faster than anticipated by some of my colleagues, it does not come without a cost. A native app that enables you view the courses on your mobile device with online/offline synch. Online/Offline synch. MORE

For the past month, I have been conducting a survey on learning platforms and specifically learning management systems. . The data shows that what many vendors assume end users want is far from accurate. Too many vendors are focusing on talent/performance management as the next feature/component in their systems. Do you have a LMS/LCMS/Learning Platform. Today, however more and more learning management systems are bringing into content management features, inc. MORE

So, you have decided to provide e-learning options to your employees. Let’s assume you have hired an e-learning vendor for creating SCORM compliant e-learning courses. Now, you need a platform to host these courses – a Learning Management System (LMS). When you are looking for a vendor to provide an LMS, make sure they provide the following key features. Seamless Learning Experience. Mobile and Offline Access. MORE

Recently, I conducted an emerging technology survey related to e-learning and the results show that end users are utilizing technology more then ever before and are seeking product features that LMS and content authoring tools, do not offer at this current time. With an increase in e-learning sales a, projections of 7.1 billion dollars (USD) by 2015 and an increase in competition in the space, it is time for vendors to act. E-Learning 24/7. MORE

That is what one senior exec said to me, the other day when it came to social learning. For vendors, they could make it happen and generate revenue. Even with slideshare, you can actually post e-books and other documents, so it follows suit in a system. Expand it, so that e-books, documents, audio files can be viewed on e-book readers, if it is ePub (the most used format, and recognized with every e-reader, sans Kindle) it will work. E-Learning 24/7. MORE

What always stuns me are vendors who state they know what their learners want, but in reality have no clue, because they themselves do not see the technology and its usage among the masses. E-Mail. The growing number of businesses leaving Microsoft Outlook to Internet e-mail is amazing. Works even when offline. I see this as one of the most important features for any learning management system, open source or commercial. Offers offline reading. MORE

How many of you have seen vendors respond to your questions? A: Virtually every LMS vendor out there in the marketplace provides these features. Examples: E-mail notification via SMS. Mobile learning – it might surprise you to know that 75-80% of all systems in the space, currently do not offer any type of mobile learning, the number goes up even higher for online/offline synch. Smart App for TV – One LMS vendor. E-Learning 24/7. MORE

There is a growing list of vendors, including small/mid size that are adding talent management components that match the Big Dog systems. A couple of vendors have added HRIS modules. It is interesting to note, that many of the vendors are targeting the SMB space, especially the small size (less than 500 employees) market. What is nice is there are still a significant number of vendors who have not added it. E-Learning 24/7. MORE

E-Learning and all forms within are normally taken via your desktop computer and either hitting your company’s server with your browser or going to a hosted LMS vendor’s solution. If you wanted to work on creating content, for many people, the route would be and still is creating courses via a desktop based rapid e-learning authoring tool, or via your LMS/LCMS vendor’s tool (hosted or not) or via Dreamweaver or some other type of solution. MORE

10 eLogic Learning - Essential LMS. Features include: Extended enterprise – multiple children/sub-portals, each skinned/branded and each on a separate server – many EEs are on a shared server. Unlimited portals. TinCan with online/offline synch. surveys/assessments, e-commerce, transcripts, ad-hoc reporting and the other standards in the industry (90/10). TinCan support with mobile learning, however no on/off synch. Social learning. MORE

Just because a system lists itself as an extended enterprise does not mean it comes with multiple domains (which with some vendors includes customized) nor with multiple portals or my preferable term – “multi-tenant” You may see an “extended enterprise” which not only refers to the company’s employees, but also their customers and channel partners. Multi-Tenant: Some people refer to it as portals and sub-portals. E-Learning 24/7. MORE

Mobile Learning. LMSs – Finally vendors took notice. Sadly though many still are in the dark on true mobile learning – i.e. not accessing their platform via a mobile web browser. Authoring Tools – With only a small sample of vendors that are SaaS based, pickings are slim. Those who aren’t are either offering native apps with online/offline synch or performing the shell game via the mobile web browser and calling it mobile learning. MORE

Online/Offline synch – not yet live, coming later this Summer – that is with native app for iOS – not everyone system is involved in the early stages of TinCan (the next evolution of SCORM) – Blue Volt is however. Ability to offer ads for products or ads to specific sections for folks to visit – for each child (sub-portal) - yes – every child can be skinned to look a different way then the parent. E-mail notifications and reminders. MORE

LMS Vendors. 30% vendors offer at least one type of social media – from my latest LMS directory. Dozens of LMS vendors, had typos on their web pages, zero screens of the system, links that went nowhere and two kicked up my Firewall warning of possible privacy collection and one had a Trojan Horse (I use a hardcore firewall and A/V). Over 90% of LMS vendors had their sites available only in English; so the potential customer could not view it in any other language. MORE