If you are currently using a training platform that does not include integrated authoring and testing, perhaps now would be a good time to consider upgrading. FlexTraining may be your best option.

Use FlexTraining to quickly create online courses, lessons, tests, certificates, course evaluations and tracking reports. Use templates and a proven framework to easily launch your online catalog.. Streamlined training management tools - with no programming or complex setup.

Your online courses are a valuable asset. There are companies, organizations, and individuals who could benefit from your knowledge, and are willing to pay for it. You can sell courses to anyone with a web browser and an internet connection, and with FlexTraining you can have your custom-developed courses available quickly.

Business partner training can take on many forms. Some companies will primarily communicate their culture, goals, and procedures for doing business. Others may focus on how to use a particular technology, or create courses associated with the launch of a new product or service.

Customers and clients need education in order to make the best use of your products and services. Targeted online courses deliver a solid value and proven benefits, and can be an integral part of your revenue profile. Customers can learn in a private, secure environment with user-defined exercises and tests.

Organizations need to provide their employees with compliance training on a wide range of topics, including discrimination and harassment, dealings with competitors, protecting trade secrets, records management, etc. Sometimes, these compliance topics are addressed in an organization's Code of Conduct, and the organization may offer employees periodic Code of Conduct training.

Creating a pool of documents is not training management

Today's students have come to know that structured learning is not always confined to the classroom and have come to expect that the convenience of online courses is a part of the education landscape. This trend has delivered a broad, well-understood, positive impact.

Schools that deploy online learning have found it to be both effective and efficient. Large numbers of students can share the same learning material. Course content can also be reused and revised economically from a central distribution point without constantly re-creating traditional "hard-copy" visual aids and course material.

A modern Learning Management System (LMS) is a well-established online course authoring and delivery system, with corporate root and broad market acceptance. Canvas and Blackboard have academic origins, and are essentially repositories for students, reference files and grades.

When you utilize an LMS, you create courses, lessons, tests, and optionally assignments, certificates and evaluations. On the other hand, using Canvas or Blackboard means uploading files for students to later download, sending manual e-mails, and looking up grades.

While Canvas and Blackboard support an instructor, the instructor still delivers the bulk of the learning material via in-person lectures. The LMS can either replace the instructor completely or support him by serving as the primary means of delivering structured course content to students. A robust LMS drives self-paced learning, delivering and book-marking content such as HTML, images, audio, video, or PDF and other formats, and automating the testing process as well.

For example, consider the FlexTraining LMS, which has been in the marketplace for several years. FlexTraining-based courses can be led by a mentor or instructor or may be self-paced, with learning material being delivered and student progress tracked automatically. FlexTraining offers a wide array of processing, analysis and notification capabilities that are activated and configured with a simple point-and-click interface.

A role for other training management systems

In the long run, schools, colleges and universities will come to view online learning as another well-accepted knowledge acquisition environment along with classroom, laboratories, internships, work experience and extracurricular activities. Both types of systems – LMS's and the basic document repositories - have their role in higher education.

From a cost savings perspective, Canvas and Blackboard do not remove the need for an instructor to teach the course, while an LMS like FlexTraining does, because it delivers the course in sequence with tests and certificates. Canvas is an aid to the instructor, while the LMS may be used to replace the instructor. It's that simple. In this way an LMS supports the number one trend in higher education today - reducing instructor costs.

FAQ: So I wondered...

What if I want to keep an instructor assigned to certain FlexTraining-based courses. How would they participate in the course?

When an optional instructor is assigned to a FlexTraining course, he/she can issue and grade assignments, and participate in Message Board and Chat discussions. If the instructor is also a Subject Matter Expert (SME), she could also easily author the course itself.

How could I get started with a full-featured LMS without removing my backbone systems, involving the Information Technology department, or impacting the entire institution?

There are many options for a gradual proof-of-concept or pilot project that implements an LMS on a limited scope. Offering one section of a given course online, and one section of the same course in the traditional classroom mode would allow comparisons. An alternative would be to move a set of courses or a selected department to the LMS, evaluate the results, and then add other courses/departments as needed.

Most LMS's are provided as an installed product or as an “in the cloud” secure private system for institutions that do not want to involve their IT resources in supporting the system.