by Mohana Radhakrishnan
For learning organizations to be a highly effective today, they must move beyond just managing training delivery and controlling the cost of learning activities. With technology being such a big part of the learning experience, it's crucial to achieve a high rate of LMS adoption - and that requires a user-centered training website or portal.
When implementing an LMS, most training managers say their principal objective is to deploy and measure training and increase user return visits. However, in realily, most LMSs are too cumbersome for the typical learner. The solution is delivering information in the flavor, format and context that appeal to younger audiences for whom training is often designed. This can be done by developing a portal that acts as a front end to your LMS, offering the relevance, immediacy and usability of a Web 2.0 website.
In addition to increasing user friendliness, portals offer other advantages. Portal technology means reduced support load on your IT staff, and decreased cost of ownership for the business.
A portal also improves the user interface of the system at the front end, while providing administrators maintain a high degree of control at the backend. Although the objective is not to provide everyone with all information, it is to make the right information more accessible, when and where it's needed. Even for a centralized learning system, it's important to take a role-based approach to user access. This allows for capabilities such as informal learning.
In recent discussions with leading CLOs and Training Directors, Expertus asked, 'What are the top learning challenges when you don't have a learning system portal?' The answers ranged from poor usability, inefficient search capability, unfriendly user interface, slow registrations, and sporadic customer training, to expensive and unnecessary customizations.
One important recurring response was the need for learning organizations to cater to new modes of learning delivery and informal learning.
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