LMS essentials: All you need to know

New to the concept of LMS or just want to fill in blank spaces? No worries!

In this article, we cover everything you need to know about learning management systems.

What is an LMS?

A learning management system (LMS) is a software product that handles all learning materials.

LMS allows educators to create, manage, and deliver online courses to students, track their progress, and assess their performance.?

In turn, students can enroll in educational courses and access their materials: text and video lectures, ebooks, 3D content, learning games, and more.

They can also submit assignments, take tests, and interact with instructors and peers in a virtual learning environment.

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LMS benefits

Scientific research shows that the use of learning management systems (LMS) helps students maintain their independence, excitement, and motivation.

No wonder the choice of LMS for eLearning has plenty of advantages:

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• Approachability

LMS platforms ensure high-quality distance learning, which allows users to study anywhere and anytime, using any device and operating system.

• Usability

Learning management systems are very user-friendly. The interface and navigation are intuitive and clear for students and teachers with different user experiences.

Overall, LMS enhances the learning experience by providing a centralized platform for communication and resource sharing. It offers a variety of features, such as online quizzes, discussion boards, and grade tracking.

• Automation

The automatic control of all the processes reduces the risk of errors and accelerates problem-solving procedures.

What’s more, LMS allows for easy access to course materials and assignments, promoting efficiency for both students and instructors.

• Individualization

LMS can adapt to every customer. It provides training tailored to the individual requirements of each learner, organization, or educational establishment.

• Security

LMS protects the personal data of all users, ensuring no PII leakage and security for financial information and payments, ensuring a safe and reliable learning environment.

• Scalability

LMS is flexible and doesn’t limit users. Therefore, it is possible to enhance eLearning and corporate training by implementing new technologies into the platform.

• Analytics

LMS provides advanced dashboards where you see the progress of learners.

At the same time, LMS can mark out those topics and sections where they need some individual coaching sessions.

LMS users

LMS platforms are popular solutions for education. Currently, the number of LMS users is estimated at 73.8 million.?

There are four main types of them: admins, instructors, tutors, and learners.

1. Admins

Admins are in charge of managing the LMS and training within their organization.

Their tasks include implementing and maintaining an LMS, managing user accounts, and protecting the confidentiality of data.

2. Instructors

Instructors create, develop, and deliver training materials. They design the course content, assist with instruction, evaluate students’ performance, and provide comments.

Being skilled at producing interesting course material, instructors make a substantial contribution to instructional design, which enhances the whole learning process.

3. Tutors

Tutors are knowledgeable in the subject matter and provide guidance to help learners navigate through challenging concepts. They may also lead group discussions and provide feedback on assignments to enhance the overall learning experience.

4. Learners

Learners are LMS end users. For corporate LMSs this would be employees, in LMSs for K-12 and higher education it would be students, and so on.?

They take courses, interact with learning content, complete assignments, and receive grades or certifications.

Depending on the LMS type, purpose, and number of users in the platform, there can be other roles. For instance, an Expert role is assigned to people with a great deal of experience in a particular field.

They ensure relevance and quality in the LMS by peer-reviewing instructional content, creating learning resources, and responding to inquiries.

How LMS works: Essential features

To provide efficient training, LMS should have a variety of features. Let’s explore the most essential ones.

1. Course Catalog

Course Catalog allows students to search for available courses with ease, view detailed course descriptions, and register for classes directly through the LMS.

It also provides instructors with a platform to create and manage course offerings, track enrollment numbers, and communicate important information to students.

2. Course Builder

Course Builder allows instructors to create and organize online courses with ease, and add multimedia content, quizzes, and assignments.?

As a result, it streamlines the process of course creation and management, providing a user-friendly interface for both instructors and learners.

3. User management

User management is an essential feature that ensures the right individuals have access to the appropriate resources and tools within the learning management system (LMS).

4. Reporting and analytics dashboards

Advanced reporting and analytics allow administrators and instructors to track learner progress, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to improve learning outcomes.?

These features provide valuable insights into course effectiveness, student engagement, and overall performance metrics.

5. Subscriptions management

Subscription management allows administrators to easily track and manage user subscriptions, including renewal dates and payment information. It helps ensure that users have uninterrupted access to course materials and resources.

6. Engagement features

Engagement features in LMS platforms can include leaderboards, interactive quizzes, learning badges, virtual environments, and other elements of gamification to promote student interaction and participation.?

Research shows that 90% of employees say gamification makes them more productive at work. And 67% of students agree that gamified learning is more engaging and motivating than traditional classes.

LMS platforms can also enable even more functionality, including:

• Skill-based recommendations
• Certification management
• Webinars module
• Multi-user system administration
• User chat
• RTL support
• White labeling
• Video materials streaming
• AI-powered tools

AI in LMS

AI is the new black in eLearning. AI makes education more personalized as it analyzes learners’ behavior, tailors lessons to every student, provides 24/7 digital tutoring, and frees teachers’ time with automated grading.

Additionally, it can provide real-time feedback to students, help them track their progress, and even make content more accessible for diverse learning needs!

So, if you want to reap all those benefits, consider implementing AI technology into your LMS platform. Here are some examples (real customer success stories) that show how to do it effectively:?

1. AI content adaptation for learners with dyslexia

The International Dyslexia Association reports that 1 in 5 people has some form of dyslexia, and they need accessible, tailored content to study efficiently.

But here’s the challenge: content adaptation, while being absolutely worthwhile, is expensive and time-consuming.

One of our clients faced this exact issue. Their goal was to make learning more inclusive for students with dyslexia without overburdening teachers and content creators.

We created an AI solution that customizes eLearning content automatically to WCAG AA level-compliant and integrated into the client’s LMS.

How it helped:

• Learners get wider access to all materials and engage with the content equally.
• Teachers and content creators focus more on teaching and less on formatting.
• Now the LMS fully complies with legal and institutional requirements, minimizing the risk of potential penalties.
• The accessible and inclusive LMS has increased the client’s market share.

2. AI-driven Q&A system for learners

The eLearning company decided to augment their LMS with an AI question-answering system. Why?

• To decrease teachers’ workload, as it’s difficult to answer all students' questions fully, especially across multiple domains.
• To gain a competitive edge in the fast-growing market.

What can the AI tool do?

• Conduct administrative tasks (e.g., reply to students’ questions in various domains).
• Maintain context in the dialogue process.
• Process a growing variety of LMS educational materials.
• Tailor learning support depending on the pupil’s age.
• Handle multiple student inquiries at the same time.

How it helped:

• Students of all age groups now learn at their own pace and receive help whenever they need it.
• Teachers spend less time on administrative tasks and focus more on higher-level instruction and personalized guidance.
• The customer stays on top of the competition by boosting student engagement.

Key points

LMS is a software product that handles all learning materials, enabling educators to create and deliver online courses and track student progress and performance. Students can enroll in courses, access materials, submit assignments, take tests, and more.

LMS benefits are approachability, usability, advanced analytics, scalability, automation, high security, and individualization.

Main LMS roles are admin, instructor, tutor, and learner.

Essential LMS features are course catalog, course builder, user management, analytics and reporting, subscription management,? certification management, engagement features and more.

AI in LMS helps make education more personalized and accessible by analyzing learners’ behavior, tailoring lessons to every student, providing 24/7 digital tutoring, decreasing teachers’ workloads and much more.

The Aristek team has 22+ years of EdTech experience to create the perfect LMS for your organization’s needs. Don’t hesitate to contact us.