With the rise of online courses, the term learning management system (LMS) has been vigorously used across the globe.
LMS is a learning platform that offers learning and training software with integrated content, tools, and learning activities for organizations to facilitate learning among its workers.
It has many features to offer that enable learning workers and keep up with the speed of change in the marketplace while improving their performance.
This article is your one-stop learning guide that explains what a learning management system is and how it works. Check it out!
Learn More About LMS: Introduction to Learning Management System
An LMS or learning management system is a SaaS-based software program designed and developed to enable learners and working professionals to acquire and learn the necessary skills needed for a job and improve their performance.
There are several learning management systems in the market today that you can choose from.
But before choosing one, make sure that it is well equipped with learning tools, software support, and other features that will enhance learning effectiveness.
With an LMS, an instructor can easily create learning content, administer learning activities to the learners, and monitor their learning progress. It also provides a platform for learning evaluation that enhances learning quality.
Another advantage of learning management systems is the ease of creating assessments. With this software program, you can easily make your learning activities more participative. It offers features that will allow you to include different engaging tools and learning resources.
Learning management systems allow you to instantly gather learning data and analyze it for learning effectiveness assessment to give you a better insight into the learning intervention and its results.
It is very efficient in learning resource management, learning records, learning resources, learner registration, and more.
Learning can be customized according to business and learning needs, and learning activities can be scheduled and organized easily.
Users can also manage the learning records of all the learners in a very simplistic manner. It is a popular learning intervention method that helps to develop an easy learning process in a very cost-efficient way.
How Does an LMS Work?
Modern LMS solutions are very easy to use, and most of them have a learner-driven working strategy. LMS assists different departments in running learning programs and courses.
Here is an overview of how an LMS works:
Learning management systems have learning modules with learning objects. Each learning module has a learning object like courses, quizzes, tests, flashcards, etc.
LMS usually has tools that are used to create learning objects like forums and blogs as well. A learning object can be a course, forum, blog, wiki, etc.
Learning Management System helps learners work easily on a single database. Creating a course with an LMS is very easy. Even people with no coding or designing experience can do it.
You are mostly provided by a course setup wizard, which is a user-friendly tool. The learning management system helps learners in learning, socializing, and managing their learning experience.
LMS also has Learning Management Assessment tools that allow the users to take exams and write papers on learning objects or courses. There is a learning tracking feature that keeps track of learning progress by adding grades to the performance of each student enrolled in the course.
Technical support is provided by learning management system providers.
You can also make use of different multimedia tools and learning content developed by LMS providers. There are learning management systems for finance & accounting, marketing, and e-learning.
You can integrate videos, photos, audio learning content, and other learning resources into the learning management system.
Modern LMS is also designed to simplify interactions between students and teachers. Teachers can upload learning content and learning resources, and students can perform assessments on learning content and learning resources. Learning management systems act as centralized system for all kinds of learning activities.
You may be wondering how a learning management system is better than traditional classroom training or web-based learning. LMS is used to train new learners about different learning activities. It can be anything from learning a new language to learning computer programming.
Modern Learning Management systems are designed for an organization rather than an individual or small learning group.
Major Features of Learning Management System
Learning management systems have the following features:
Course Customization: Modern LMS solutions offer high-end customization options for course learning. You can develop content for different learning courses. You can even customize the learning management system as per your organizational learning requirements.
Some learning management systems also provide learning content in a specific format like video, audio, or text depending on the learning style of individual learners. Learners have the option to download learning content from the LMS online library whenever they want to learn something new.
Administration: A learning management system provides an advanced level of course and learner administration. You can easily manage all your learners and their online learning progress.
You can keep track of learners and their performance in a systematic manner. You can also set learning goals for every learner, which helps them to achieve the learning objectives.
E-Learning Content: All learning management systems have a repository of e-learning content that can be used to create and deliver courses for learning. This includes videos, audio, presentations, and other digital learning material. Organizations can create engaging and interactive learning content for learners.
LMS Integration: LMS can be integrated with other learning platforms such as Moodle, Blackboard, and Desire2Learn to deliver courses most effectively.
This helps learners and creators master their learning goals and objectives effectively as compared to other management, which does not have integration features. You can also deliver distance learning solutions in a very cost-effective and convenient manner.
Cross-Device Compatibility: One of the key features of modern LMS solutions is cross-device compatibility which allows learning content to be viewed or accessed on multiple devices such as mobile, tablets, and PCs without compromising on the learning experience.
Users and learners can get courses delivered on their preferred devices of learning which helps them in carrying out tasks anywhere they want to.
Learning Analytics: Learning analytics tools help creators and administrators track learner progress by providing the necessary data on course usage frequency, completion rate, time spent learning, etc.
This information can be used for continuous learning improvement, and it’s also a key consideration for businesses that are using LMS for employee training.
Top Online Learning Software
Let’s have a look at some of the top online learning software from the list in detail below.
Best Online Course Builder Software
01. LearnDash
LearnDash is a WordPress learning management system (LMS) plugin designed to create, manage, and track online courses and training programs. Featuring support for multi-site installations and an array of features and add-ons, LearnDash is one of the most popular LMS plugins available.
If you’re looking for a powerful yet easy to use LMS plugin for WordPress, then LearnDash is a great option.
LearnDash comes with all the features and options that you will need to create a successful online course site.
Along with darg and drop course builder, this plugin makes it super simple to create quizzes, it offers you Drip content option and other important features that you will need for your course site.
Key Features:
Price: LearnDash gives you two options to choose from. Either you can use the product along with WordPress as a plugin or you can go for the full suite that is a cloud based solution to create your online course site.
The price for WordPress plugin starts at $199 per year for a single site and for 10 sites the price is $399. The price for cloud based solution starts at $29 per month for one site.
01. LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is another platform that allows you to create and sell online courses. Well, the platform enables you to deliver an interactive learning experience for your members. Overall, LearnWorlds is an online hub for creating, selling, and promoting online courses.
LearnWorlds helps you create an engaging online learning experience with video interactions, note-takins, interactive ebooks, self-assessments, certificates, and so on. The best part, LearnWorlds also comes with stunning themes for your course player.
It also gives you the flexibility to create — free, private, drip-feed, or curated course pathways.
The website builder of LearnWorlds is also intuitive that allows you to create pages quickly. It’s a drag and drops block-based builder with lots of customization options.
You have the option to choose from hundreds of templates and helps you create high-converting landing pages without any hassle.
What’s more, LearnWorlds also comes with robust marketing features and modules. It comes with a powerful sales engine with advanced pricing options for all kinds of digital products. You can also create profitable marketing funnels to increase your ROI easily.
Moreover, you can also upsell and cross-sell with many offers. It also has some robust marketing features such as — high converting sales pages, 1-click funnels, and customizable checkout experiences.
Key Features:
Price: The yearly plan of LearnWorlds costs $29/month which includes $5 free per course sale. The Pro trainer plan costs $99/month and the Learning Center costs $299/month with no transaction fee for the courses.
02. Thinkific
Thinkific is a reliable platform that helps you — create, market, and sell online courses and memberships. The Thinkific platform is powerful and has a one-stop solution for you to create online courses and memberships easily.
The platform is flexible making it super easy to create online courses for any niche. In addition to being a course builder, it also helps you market and sell online courses. Creating courses with Thinkific is easy, you can select from ready-to-use themes and templates to get started.
It comes with a drag-and-drop courses builder module, you can add — audio, videos, text, and pdf to your courses.
In addition to course creation, you will also get marketing modules to market your courses easily. Using the email marketing modules you can send automated emails. What’s more, the seamless automation of Thinkific comes with — automatic onboarding, student messaging, completion certificates, and so on.
What’s more, it integrates with other third-party tools and software such as — email marketing, payment processors, and so on.
There is also a Thinkific app available which allows you to find various third-party apps to integrate with Thinkific. It helps you to extend the functionality of Thinkific.
Key Features:
Price: Thinkific has a fully-fledged free plan available with a limited set of features. The base plan of Thikific starts at $49/monthly and the Pro plan costs $99/month. The Premier Plan of Thinkific costs $499 monthly. All the plans come with a 30 day money-back guarantee.
03. Podia
Well, Podia is more than just an online course builder platform. In addition to helping you build fully-fledged online courses, Podia also helps create and sell — memberships, digital downloads, webinars, online coaching, and so on. The best part, Podia even allows you to build an online community for your online courses and memberships.
The course creation module of Podia is easy and hassle-free. You can make use of a drag-and-drop website building interface. You can add features-rich media to your course lessons such as — videos, text, audio, PDFs, certificates, and so on.
What’s more, it comes with robust features such as — graded quizzes, and content locking. Podia even also allows you to create sales pages,
In addition to online courses, Podia also allows you to create membership and coaching products. This way you can add an additional source of revenue for yourself.
The best part, Podia also comes with robust marketing features such as — payment processors, bundles, coupons, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and so on.
Like Kajabi and Kartra, Podia doesn’t allow you to create sales funnels and landing pages — that’s the down part of Podia.
Key Features:
Price: Podia doesn’t charge any transaction fee. The base plan of Podia costs $39/month. The base plan has all the features, however, it doesn’t come with — memberships and a coaching module. There is a Shaker Plan costing — $79/month which comes with all the essential and advanced features of Podia. You can also sign-up for 14 day free trial here.
04. MemberPress
With MemberPress LMS, you can easily create and sell courses that are accessible to your members only. You can also drip content so that your members have access to new content as it becomes available.
MemberPress LMS is the perfect way to sell courses online and give your members the access they need to succeed.
MemberPress Course Builder
The MemberPress Course Builder offers you a drag-and-drop interface to create courses and makes it easy to create and sell courses online. With the Course Builder, you can easily add content, drip content, and manage your members.
You can manage the quizzes and all other important requirements for the online course site from the plugin interface.
MemberPress is the best way to create and sell courses online. With MemberPress, you can easily create and sell courses that are accessible to your members only. You can lock content based on packages you create a tag with a number of different combinations to secure your courses.
MemberPress LMS is the perfect way to sell courses online and give your members the access they need to succeed.
Price: MemberPress offers you three plans to choose from, the Basic, Plus, and Pro plan. The Basic plan comes for $15 per month which is billed yearly. The Plus plan for $25 per month and the Pro plan for $35 per month.
05. Teachable
Teachable is the most popular online course builder available. The functionality of Teachable is kind of similar to Thinkific. The Teachable platform enables you to create and sell — online courses and coaching without any hassles.
Similar to Thinkific, it comes with all essential features to create and sell online courses. The course creation interface of Teachable is easy to use, and it’s quite built for beginners to create and manage courses easily. On the dashboard, you will find all the features, where you can start creating courses and coaching modules.
When it comes to adding content to your courses, it supports various rich media types. With Teachable you can add various content types such as — videos, and quizzes.
What’s more, you can also drip course content, create course completion certificates, and so on. The course player of Teachable is well-designed, which helps you create a great learning experience.
Coming to marketing features, Teachable has robust marketing features. It comes with robust sales and marketing features such as — 1-click upsells, email marketing automation, 1-step checkout process, coupon codes, sales tax handling, and so on.
The only downside of Teachable is, that the design options are limited and it doesn’t come with too many customization options.
Key Features:
Price: The basic plan of Teachable costs $29/month which includes all the essential features. However, this plan also charges 5% of transaction fees.
06. Kajabi
Kajabi is a pioneer online course builder platform. It doesn’t only allow you to create online courses and memberships, Kajabi also allows you to market and sell them with ease. With this platform, you can easily create courses and memberships, where you can host all kinds of content including texts, videos, and other stuff.
Creating a course with Kajabi is easy and straightforward, and the interface is intuitive. Kajabi also comes with stunning more than six themes and templates to help craft a catchy online learning hub.
Also, the page builder comes with a lot of customization options. What’s more, the course player of Kajabi comes with the most attractive design options compared to other online course builders.
In addition to the basic features, it also comes with robust features such as iOS and Android App, community features, email automation, sales funnel builder, learning paths, and so on. All these robust features help you create a great learning experience.
Coming to the marketing features of Kajabi, it comes with powerful email marketing and sales funnel builder module. By making use of email automation, you can easily follow up with your leads and even send them automated emails.
Also, the sales funnels builder allows you to easily create an entire workflow for growing your email list, getting sales, upsells, etc. What’s more, using the affiliate management module you can easily create an affiliate program for your courses and memberships.
Key Features:
Price: The base plan of Kajabi costs $149/month which includes all the essential and advanced features you need. Moreover, Kajabi also offers a 14-day free trial to help you try their services for free.
07. iSpring
iSpring is reliable online course builder software that helps you to create slide-based courses, video lectures, quizzes, screencasts, and so on. It’s an end-to-end solution to help you launch your online course in merely one day.
To be precise iSpring is for companies who are looking to create an online learning interface for their employees. Well making use of this platform companies can provide — learning paths, advanced gamification, detailed tracking, screencasts, and so on.
What’s more, companies can also check the employee’s progress and even set goals. The best part, iSpring also has a mobile application that makes this platform more flexible. Using the mobile application, users can download and watch the courses on the go.
iSpring has been trusted by over 59,000 clients and companies all over the world. What’s more, iSpring has also won many prestigious awards from top industry analysts such as Capterra, Brandon Hall Group, eLearning industry, etc.
Key Features:
Price: The base plan of iSpring LMS costs around $3.66 a month which is billed annually. There is an iSpring suite that costs around $970 yearly which includes various robust modules of the iSpring Suite. It also offers a free trial, you can signup for that on the official site.
08. Teachery
Teachery is a simple and affordable course platform for beginners, it’s a one-stop solution for creating and selling online courses. The Teachery platform isn’t that fancy a course builder like Kajabi and Thinkific, but it makes course creation snappy.
Creating courses with Teachery is easy and snap, and you can make use of the available ready-to-use templates. It comes with a robust course editor which has real-time, this way you can see your changes live. You can choose from two available course templates — minimal and sidebar.
In addition to creating an online course, it also supports various eCommerce features. These features are — course landing pages, payment processors, promo codes, checkout pages, affiliate marketing modules, etc.
Seeing all these features at an affordable cost, we would say, Teachery is the go-to platform for beginners with a budget. Well, the Teachery platform comes with all essential and advanced features that you will need to create and sell online courses with ease.
Key Features:
Price: The monthly plan costs $49/month with no additional fees or charges. The yearly plan of Teachery costs $470/year where you gonna save upto 20%.
Wrapping It Up
LMS is becoming popular each new day. It has proven to be very useful in learning and corporate training. With the easy learning materials, learning is made fun.
On the whole, it’s a great learning method that will undoubtedly make teaching easier for all learners and teachers around the world.
LearnDash is one of the most popular learning management plugins for WordPress that comes with all the features and options to help you create your online learning website on the most popular CMS WordPress. As the WordPress platform is the most popular platform to start a website, you will have a number of advantages while using LearnDash as your preferred software for your online course business. Read LearnDash Review..
