Top 7 Features of an LMS for eLearning you Should Know About

In the modern eLearning world, having a full arsenal of LMS systems, many LMS features aim to create a convenient educational process and subsequent improvement. For example, gamification features improve overall engagement learning by 92%, while 82% of entrepreneurs consider broad analytics tools one of the essential features of any LMS for eLearning.

Feature #1. User-Friendliness

User-Friendliness is the most fundamental feature since you will not discover other features of any LMS system without it. The LMS system should have an intuitive interface, ease of navigation, and flexibility to meet users’ requirements.

In addition, ease of data transfer can be attributed to the user-friendliness category. It’s not uncommon when you need to bring ready-made course materials stored in a specific format directly to the LMS system. And the more manageable the transfer process, the better. The LMS system should have good file transfer tools, and if they are not available, there should be alternatives to create a similar content format within the LMS.

How to Check This LMS Feature?

To properly evaluate this feature in any LMS for eLearning, you should disassemble this feature from two points of view:

• Learner. Students should immediately understand how to register, where to look for courses, how the catalog works, filters, and much more. In addition, it’s worth exploring the intuitiveness of the educational process and its operations, be it enrollment, material study, assessments, and so on.

• Admin or educator. As a manager or your proxy, you should have no difficulty enrolling students, editing and creating learning content, forming student groups, assigning courses, exams, grading, tracking student progress, and more.

If you encounter difficulties when testing an LMS’s key features for eLearning, the LMS developers haven’t thought enough about its intuitive user interface.

Feature #2. Reliability

The following key LMS feature for eLearning is system stability and reliability. The LMS should work like clockwork under any load, be it a small group of students or a massive course for all university students. Errors, freezes, and crashes are unacceptable, and you should test the system before deciding on a choice.

How to Check This Feature?

Checking the system’s reliability is quite tricky since you can adequately check it only after the complete setup that the vendor will provide you with. However, you have two options for how you can verify that the LMS of your choice meets your reliability requirements:

• Request a demo or trial version. If the vendor provides such opportunities, be sure to use them. Play around with the demo and load it the way you intend to use it in the future. Test all available functionality and be extremely careful about stutters, errors, and more.

• Read reviews from other users. If the demo version is minimal and you can’t properly test it, you can always study the reviews of users who are already using your desired LMS for eLearning. If possible, study the reviews in detail, then contact those who left reviews to conduct a conversation about the LMS system and find out details that could remain behind the scenes.

Feature #3. Diversity of Content Formats

Content is one of the key features of an LMS for eLearning, and its formats have a significant impact on the level of engagement you can achieve. When developing a course, you must choose in advance all the content formats that you intend to use and structure them throughout the course. The variety of formats is enormous, and you can use both standard text and interactive presentations, video and audio materials, quizzes, live discussions, and much more.

Besides that, when choosing an LMS, you should pay attention to the supported file formats. Let’s assume you have specific content, and if LMS does not support the structure of your content, you will have to spend time converting it into a supported one.

How to Check This Feature?

When choosing LMS for eLearning, carefully study what content formats the LMS platform supports and what file extensions it can recognize. For example, your course consists of a series of instructional videos in AVI format, so you should ensure that LMS can play videos in this format to avoid converting all video tutorials to another format.

Beyond that, don’t forget about the available storage. Choose an LMS platform with a repository that will allow you to realize all your ideas and download as much educational material as you need to implement your course fully. Storage sizes often vary depending on the service plans. The more expensive the plan is, the more storage you will have.

Feature #4. Personalized Learning Paths

It’s no secret that personalization is everything for successful online learning. That is why LMS for eLearning must have various tools for organizing personalized learning paths. They allow students to fill personal gaps in different areas and avoid one-size-fits-all situations that aren’t always applicable in online learning.

Besides that, the role system is an excellent addition to personalized learning paths. This will differentiate some functionality and allow administrators and teachers to create groups and distribute educational material individually, based on students’ progress and personal skills. Personalized Learning Paths will also ensure data security when each member of the LMS platform has strict access rights.

How to Check This Feature?

To test this feature, you should closely examine whether LMS for eLearning has a user role system. If it has, do not rush to rejoice. You also need to check what features and capabilities, and permissions are available to each user, be it administrator, publisher, or a simple user. Study all platform users and find out the possibilities of modifying the educational process individually for each student.

Feature #5. Detailed Analytics

Without analytics, it’s pretty difficult to track the effectiveness of your created training. Even though many LMS for eLearning support various analytics features, many may lack certain functionality that would be extremely useful. For example, analytics may contain information about the time taken to complete the test and the final grade but may not provide detailed information about incorrect answers.

How to Check This Feature?

Before choosing an LMS, you should carefully check the availability of this one of the key features of an LMS for eLearning. Ask the vendor how detailed analytics the LMS system can provide. Request a list of all possible reports obtained through in-system analytics and determine if it’s possible to create your report options.

If some analytics tools are missing, talk to the vendor about the possibility of adding custom analytic features. In addition (if LMS supports such operations), you can contact a third-party vendor to develop your analytical functionality to implement in LMS.

For example, at Raccoon Gang, we built RG Analytics for the Open edX Platform, which significantly expands the standard Open edX analytics capabilities and adds such features as enrollment metrics, ‘problems’ reports, ‘clusters’ reports, and much more.

Feature #6. Mobile Learning

Our list of key features of an LMS for eLearning continues with the mLearning feature. Today, the whole world is going mobile, and online learning does not lag behind modern trends. Research has shown that over 50% of online learners study material on the road, away from their computers. So if you want to reach a larger audience, your LMS must be mobile-friendly.

How to Check This Feature?

First, when choosing an LMS for eLearning, you should pay attention to the supported platforms. The ideal option would be to choose a cross-platform LMS that supports the iOS and Android platforms.

When communicating with vendors, you can request a demo and test how LMS looks on mobile platforms, what key features of an LMS for eLearning are supported on mobile devices, and roughly understand how your training material will look on the screens of smartphones and tablets. Also, don’t forget to check for offline mode, as not all students may have constant access to the Internet from a mobile device.

Feature #7. Motivational and Gamification Tools

As hard as it’s to admit, students are often not very eager to learn. Your task is to induce their desire to learn, and you can do this in two ways. The first way is to create a unique course that will solve the students’ problems.

The second way is to include various motivational tools and gamification elements that are key features of an LMS for eLearning. These features can increase engagement and a desire among students to move on through the educational material. A platform with built-in gamification elements will help you create a genuinely immersive course with a high level of engagement.

How to Check This Feature?

It’s pretty easy to check for the availability of these features since vendors often expose these features as an advantage of the platform. However, you should still be careful about testing this functionality. Ask the vendor to describe what functionality the motivational and gamification options are included in LMS for eLearning.

For example, in your vision for your course, you wanted to add a leaderboard and various achievements, but it may be included on your chosen platform. It’s also worth requesting a demo to check what gamification features are present in the LMS platform.

Wrapping Up

We’ve described all key features of an LMS for eLearning that you should be aware of when choosing LMS for your needs. It may be pretty challenging to find all of them on one platform, and as a result, the search may take some time.

Still, If you don’t find an option that suits you 100%, you should think about creating a custom solution based on open-source LMS. You may check the overview of open-source LMS systems and take a little quiz to understand better whether open-source LMS is a good choice for you.

Raccoon Gang is a professional team with years of experience providing custom eLearning solutions for businesses in different domains. Tell us about your online learning needs, list key features of an LMS for eLearning you require, and our team of professionals will bring them to life in the best possible way.