And the LMS selection winner is…
October 14, 2008After over a year of looking and talking with several LMS vendors, I finally chose an LMS – ClickCourse from Rapid Intake.
My requirements were pretty simple with cost at the top of the list. I wanted something that could track courses reliably, integrate with our existing customer extranet, generate basic reports, and be relatively easy to use. ClickCourse met those criteria at the best price. With ClickCourse I’m not paying for a bunch features I don’t need. Inquisiq was my first runner up. It’s also very affordable and was recommended by a few people.
There are well over 100 LMS products on the market and they all do mostly the same thing – track training. True, many do a lot more and offer some impressive features for managing learning and learners, but in the end I just wanted SCORM tracking at a fair price. If money were no concern, I probably would have chosen a different product and expanded the scope of the LMS. In that case I probably would have went with Thinking Cap or SyberWorks.
Price wasn’t my only consideration. Another primary factor was the company and their customer service. If you’ve been following this blog, you may recall my past posts about Rapid Intake’s Unison and Flashform. (By the way, Unison just won the Brandon Hall Gold Award for Best Innovation in Learning Technology.) Through this blog and subsequent in-person meetings I’ve gotten to know Garin Hess on a professional level and have been impressed with his (and others at Rapid Intake) willingness to help me and answer my questions. Even though I have yet to purchase any Rapid Intake products, I’ve gotten better customer service from them than from many companies I’ve purchased products from. I’m confident Garin and his team can help us get our LMS up and running smoothly.
Now that the decision is behind me, I’m looking forward to the implementation. I know that will be… interesting. On a related note, Tracy Hamilton has been blogging about her experiences with her LMS over at Discovery Through eLearning. I’m sure I’ll be in touch.
Finally, to all those that have helped with this process through comments and emails, thank you.
Hi, I am freelancing for a friend who is need of some advice and after extensive research neither of us has come up with quite the right solution for her problem. I am hoping that either you or one of your readers could help point me in the right direction.
My friend usually provides an e-learning course which is a hosted solution but with a large corporation now interested in purchasing her course for loading on their own LMS. She has been approached by a divisional manager who wants to roll-out the training across their division and if it’s successful they will recommend it to their head office people for broader use.
The problem is the staged roll-out – having a few hundred users and then potentially expanding access company wide. My friend has some concern because there are no barriers to the files being ‘shared’ between the division and their corporate section if someone had the motivation to do so even though she is sure they won’t.
Can you suggest any ways to limit the number of users given it will be on their LMS? Is a contract her only protection or is there a technology solution she can use for her files? I am hoping that there might be a technology solution in the same way as there are limits to volume software licences.
If you are able to make any suggestions I would be most grateful.
Cheers, Dennis.
Dennis,
I’m assuming the course is a SCORM or AICC package if it’s going to hosted on an LMS. Given that, I don’t know of any way to limit the number of learners accessing the course. The only way I could think of would be to build something into the course that would write back to your server whenever someone logged into the course. That would be tricky and hard to manage, especially with firewall issues.
I think the contract is your best way of enforcement. Most large companies try to be honest with licensing and will honor the contract because they know they have to. Companies don’t generally want to operate illegally, and really don’t want to open themselves up to a lawsuit.
I would suggest something in the contract that gives you the right to quarterly reports on course usage. Sure, they could doctor the reports or host it on multiple LMSs, but I think you have to assume they are being honest. If you make it hard for them to buy the course, they may choose not to. You want to develop a relationship that will bring you long term benefit (future sales), so don’t make it hard for them, and show them you have some level of trust.
Maybe others in the blogoshpere have suggestions?
Gary Hegenbart
Thanks Gary. You have been a great help.
Cheers, Dennis.
Gary,
Thanks so much for positive comments on our product, it was great to be in the running. We really appreciate it! I certainly understand that you do not want to pay for functionality you do not need and the product does not fit the needs of your organization at this time.
You are correct in that the SyberWorks Web-based Learning Management System is enterprise software which is robust and feature rich. Our system compares to tier (1) LMS providers. In cases where a company or organization needs these types of capabilities, you would find that we are 60% less than other tier (1) LMS providers.
Best Regards,
Mary Kay Lofurno
Director of Marketing & GSA Contracts
SyberWorks, Inc.
Keep blogging, Gary. I just stumbled upon your blog (probably from another one that linked to it?) and it’s a great resource.
mark
http://www.elearninglive.com
Gary,
It’s been a while now since you selected Inquisic. I work for a company that will soon be in the vendor selection process phase for an LMS and was wondering what your experiences with Inquisic have been so far?
mark
Mark,
We didn’t actually pick Inquisic as our first choice. I have worked with it in the past and liked it. I’ve also gotten feedback from peers who have used it and had lots of positive things to say about it.
Gary
Ahh – my mistake – I meant to say ClickCourse (I have Inquisic on the brain today). How do you like ClickCourse so far?
Mark,
Wow, I sure dropped the ball. Your reply was so fast I missed it.
We have not implemented ClickCourse yet. A series of things conspired against me so the LMS was put on hold. And now, we may go an entirely different direction. The folks and Rapid Intake are great and very willing to help.
Gary