How do you manage and update your LMS courses to ensure they are relevant, current, and accurate?

Another helpful tactic is investigating common search queries (keywords and phrases) that lead people to your educational content. Look for common questions and pain points to determine high-impact pieces of content to develop or revise first. Also, if your LMS has built-in search features, it should be able to report on the most common search queries by your learners.

To ensure relevance, currency, and accuracy in my Learning Management System (LMS) courses, I employ a systematic approach. This involves regular reviews of course content, incorporating feedback from learners, and staying abreast of industry trends and advancements. I leverage collaboration with subject matter experts to update materials promptly, integrating the latest information and best practices. Additionally, I utilize analytics to monitor learner engagement and performance, identifying areas for improvement. Continuous evaluation and iteration are fundamental, ensuring that the courses maintain alignment with evolving standards and learner needs, thereby maximizing their effectiveness and value.

Conducting a comprehensive gaps and needs analysis is a fundamental first step in course design or revision. It allows us to identify not only the existing knowledge and skill levels of learners, but also the desired competencies and outcomes. While surveys, interviews, and focus groups are great data collection methods, consider also performing a task analysis to fully understand the intricacies of the skills or knowledge that the course aims to impart. Furthermore, consider obstacles to learning that might exist for your audience, such as time constraints, prior knowledge, and motivation. These insights can ensure your course is not only relevant and goal-oriented, but also learner-centered.

We created an in-house training prioritization matrix tool that takes into account weighted factors such as compliance matters, strategic goal alignment, financial impact, etc. All training requests will be sifted through this scoring system to help determine whether they are needs that can even be assisted by training, and if so, the priority in which they should be addressed.

The very way needs are identified and collated has changed. Needs should be continuously assessed and critical skills need to be understood in the context of roles. So users alerting L&D to specific needs alongside skills mapping and assessment can ensure both tactical and strategic needs are accounted for.

It's important to remember design models should be adapted to the specific context and learner needs identified in the analysis phase. When applying adult learning principles, the impact of the digital environment should be considered. In an LMS context, principles like autonomy and engagement might involve learner control over pace and sequence, opportunities for interaction and collaboration, or multimedia and interactive content. Accessibility and usability should also be key design considerations to ensure all learners can effectively navigate and use the LMS. Integrating mechanisms for ongoing feedback and evaluation within the course can facilitate continuous improvement based on actual learner experiences and performance.

There are MANY models from which to plan instructional design initiatives. Do some research, test some models, find and tweak them to meet your unique needs. I'm a big fan of the Morrison-Kalman-Kemp model for complex needs, and Gagne's 9 Events of Instruction for less complex needs.

Understanding needs in the context of roles and tasks are essential to effective design. Superfluous or irrelevant content can be perfectly designed and be useless. Whereas specific needs can be addressed in cruder forms. But it all comes down to truly understanding needs.

Absolutely, the Quality Matters rubric serves as an excellent tool for assessing online and blended courses, ensuring consistency, accessibility, and user-friendliness. Remember, this should be used in tandem with feedback from learners, providing unique insights into their learning experience. Quality standards provide a comprehensive framework, but should be adapted to specific learner contexts and needs. If learners primarily access the course via mobile devices, prioritizing mobile responsiveness becomes key. Quality assurance is an ongoing process. Regular course reviews and updates are necessary, considering evolving learner needs, technological advances, and pedagogical research.

Content relevance is essential to performance as well as credibility. Providing outdated content can discourage users to return. But you can overcome this with a collaborative approach to content design and maintenance. Having Subject Matter Experts co-create courses and learners to contribute and alert where contents should be updated are a way to keep key stakeholders engaged and ensure unwieldy work is shared.

The best thing to do is really understand your LMS and what it can do. A lot of institutions underutilize their LMS. For instance, discussion boards are a powerful tool to get communication across the course. Having learners email a course instructor for clarification on a topic might be a great way to get the knowledge they need but there is a good chance another learner could have questions on the same topic!

Keeping content up-to-date and relevant is a key aspect of course management. Feedback from learners and other stakeholders should be solicited to identify areas needing updates or clarification. This feedback can highlight issues such as misconceptions, usability problems, or content gaps. Course content, design, and activities all need review and updates. Pedagogical approaches and technology evolve, providing opportunities to enhance learning and engagement. For instance, new interactive tools can be integrated, or content adapted for mobile learning. Learning analytics, if supported by your LMS, can offer valuable insights for continuous course improvement.

Most LMS systems will have publish and update dates. Use these as a starting point to flag "older" content. Don't just use the dates though. Pair this with an industry or product update tracker to flag the topics that have been updated. Use the LMS system's tagging to then tag courses with out of date content. Once you have both the date and the content tagged you can do monthly reviews to ensure all content is up to date.

You need to ensure you have a red hot team that has a passion for what they create as well as the end user experience and the teams shared purpose. My team are all over updating as and when required, but….many run of the mill teams have an LMS with 5% engagement and content that Jesus did as a boy, claiming they are too busy. Get better. Add value. That’s why you’re there.

Your learners will know your content differently than you. Not necessarily better, but differently. What this means is that you can deliver all the best practices and have it not meet the mark for the learner. Rely heavily on feedback. LMS' have many of these tools ready to use. Do surveys, read reviews, conduct focus groups, analyze NPS. All of it is good and all of it will help tell the full story of how the content is performing.

Some of the best constructive feedback we have received on our master courses has been from recent instructors. Some may even volunteer themselves to perform minor tweaks, especially if it's a course they regularly teach with, and have a vested stake in. We try to view our course updates as a piecemeal, iterative process; we aren't seeking perfection, but rather, a slight (but measurable) improvement with each update.

Feedback forms are helpful, but also consider more informal methods, like discussion forums or open-ended questions. This can lead to more candid insights. Feedback should not only be collected post-course, but also during the course. This allows for real-time adjustments and shows learners that their input is valued. Feedback goes beyond identifying problems. It can also help identify successful aspects of the course, providing a roadmap for future courses. Moreover, remember that while feedback provides valuable insights, it must be balanced with instructional design principles and learning objectives. It informs decisions, but doesn't solely dictate them.

In my experience, having a master course serves as a critical tool for maintaining quality and consistency in implementing course changes. This streamlines the course updating process. Instead of revising multiple sections independently, changes made in the master course shell can be duplicated across all sections, saving valuable time and reducing the risk of inconsistencies. This also allows for collaborative course development. Multiple educators can contribute to a master course shell, bringing together a diverse range of expertise and perspectives to enrich the course content. A master course shell is not just a model for effective course management within an LMS; it's an essential asset for dynamic, high-quality education.

It's really important to ensure your training modules match the specific skills your employees need to excel in their jobs. A great way to measure the effectiveness of any module is to track the performance of the employee's who took the module. For example, if a manager identified an employee needed to improve their problem solving skills, and that employee took the problem solving module, did the performance of the employee improve? And if mutiple employees took the problem solving module did their performance improve? If performance did not improve audit the content of the module and look for gaps in content vs. what is needed for the job.

Make sure the content within the LMS is easily accessible within the flow of work. If you're expecting frontline employees without access to laptops to reference up-to-date resources and documents, the learning platform should provide mobile capabilities. Make it even easier by taping QR codes throughout the work environment so resources may be accessed in the flow of work.