Your association has learning materials to deliver, but you need a solution that can manage everything in one place. A learning management system (LMS) can help—whether you're looking for an LMS for Associations & Nonprofits or a Healthcare LMS.
What is an LMS? How does it work? We’ll answer everything you need to know here, including the benefits, key features to look for, and how our LMSs at Cadmium can help you deliver impactful learning materials. Keep reading for all the details.
What Is an LMS, and How Is It Used?
An LMS is software that helps organizations create and deliver learning materials. Most LMSs will provide a base server and a user interface (UI) where members can access and interact with the content.
Education technology like an LMS makes everything easy to access and allows organizations to develop a step-by-step learning program that walks users through the necessary information and assignments.
Some LMS options, like Cadmium’s EthosCE and Elevate LMSs,, also provide analytics that help organizations understand how users interact with content and progress through programs. Using that data, you can continuously optimize for a better learning experience.
Common Use Cases
Many online continuing education programs are delivered through an LMS that guides learners through course modules to prepare them to pass exams for professional certifications. For example, many continuing medical education providers in healthcare offer certifications for nurses to further their careers, such as emergency response or pediatric care certificates.
You’ll also see LMS usage from associations that host live events. For instance, our LMSs at Cadmium allow you to upload content from the event so those who couldn’t attend can access it afterward, or you could even use it as part of a larger course offering.
Additionally, it’s an excellent solution for member engagement in associations. You can use LMSs for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, social learning, and integrate it with other communication in your association management system (AMS).
No matter the use case, a well-designed LMS will help you organize content and create an environment that keeps users active and engaged with what your organization is doing. It can act as an essential extension of your brand that users can rely on.
What Is the Main Objective of LMS?
The main objective of the LMS is to help organizations deliver learning materials that provide positive educational outcomes.
The LMS creates an organized system that helps users achieve their learning goals. Plus, it helps organizations feel confident in their system and the content they’re providing. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
Some other key objectives of LMSs are:
- Centralize and automate administration: It can feel challenging to manage an extensive user base with many new learners signing up for your program. The LMS will make it easy to add new users, track progress, and manage memberships.
- Improve communication with learners: You don’t want learners to feel like they’re going through the program alone or like no one is there to answer their questions. Your LMS can help facilitate communication so learners know how to reach out, you get notified, and you can check in with them as needed.
- Make learning engaging: An LMS allows you to customize and break up learning materials into different activities. It can make learning feel more interactive and engaging, which in turn helps with information retention.
- Improve accessibility: Using an LMS makes learning more accessible for everyone. You can add new users from around the world who can all take and benefit from your program. It’s a great way to expand your organization’s reach and impact.
How Is LMS Useful?
Organizations and professionals can benefit from an LMS in many ways. Here are the key benefits of LMSs and their impact:
It Provides a Scalable Learning Solution
When you continue using your LMS over years and keep creating new content, it continues to build upon itself. After a while, you’ll have a full-scale library of content that users can access. New learners can continuously sign up and benefit with minimum effort on your part to deliver materials again and again.
Plus, rather than completing in-person events or hosting livestreams that only reach a small group of people once, you can record those events and integrate them into your LMS. It again extends your impact and what’s possible with these events.
The main worry many organizations will have is that a lot of content could become hard to organize. Fortunately, our EthosCE and Elevate LMSs at Cadmium offer search features and navigation options that make it easy for users to find what they need, so everything stays organized.
Organizations Can Monetize Learning Materials
Providing impactful learning materials is great, but being able to monetize them is even better. It makes it sustainable for organizations to continue creating and educating.
The LMS makes monetizing easy since you can keep materials private and automatically unlock your portal once someone makes a payment. You can deliver it at a flat rate per course or offer a membership to access everything. It’s customizable to your needs and delivers a great user experience in the process.
It Facilitates Professional Growth
Nowadays, pretty much every industry is dynamic and changes frequently, so continuing education is essential to keep up. The LMS is an essential tool that helps professionals access information and efficiently manage their learning.
It’ll continuously track what users have completed and allow them to jump right back in when they have free time so they can pick up where they left off. It’s an approach to learning that can fit into anyone’s life.
It Enhances Education Management
The centralized system also helps organizations manage their deliverables and track user progress. It can help identify aspects like when you need to check in with learners who haven’t completed any course materials in two weeks. Or, if your old course materials need to be updated based on new industry standards, it provides an easy interface to make the necessary adjustments.
What Is the Most Commonly Used LMS?
Market trends show that SaaS (software-as-a-service) LMSs are the most popular option. A SaaS LMS is cloud-based for easy accessibility, allows for automatic updates, and works well for small and large organizations.
It’s a popular LMS option for associations or continuing education providers who want to simplify the distribution and management of learning materials all in one easy-to-use system. That way, employees across your organization can upload and edit content, track analytics, and allow new users to quickly log in and begin learning.
LMS Examples
Some LMS examples that healthcare professionals and associations trust are EthosCE and Elevate at Cadmium. Both of our LMSs are cloud-based SaaS options that are easy to access, use, and implement in your organization.
Elevate
Elevate is our LMS designed for associations. It provides options to engage association members, develop a curriculum for continuing education, and monetize learning materials while integrating elements like footage from previous events you hosted.
Whether professionals want to study to pass a certification or share knowledge with peers, this solution has the resources necessary to tailor it to your needs.
EthosCE
EthosCE is our LMS built for healthcare organizations and professionals. It can be used for continuing education in an industry that requires compliance and the ability to remain up-to-date with the latest research and treatment technology.
A solution like this can help organizations that want to enhance their operations or professionals who want to continue developing their career and capabilities.
Case Study
Our case study with the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery (AACS) is a great example of EthosCE in use. AACS is a leading educational provider for cosmetic surgery practitioners. However, they were looking for an alternative LMS to the one they were using because it lacked engaging features and was hard for users to navigate.
After switching to EthosCE, they found that its design, search features, and ability to integrate live and on-demand content significantly boosted user engagement, course completions, and membership renewals. Course completions increased by 45%, and membership renewals went up 20%.
AACS mentioned that some key features that helped were the ability to create a searchable and organized course catalog and provide course recommendations based on user needs. These features kept users on the platform and engaged with the learning path.
What Is LMS in Education?
An LMS offers educational technology that can provide learning materials all in one place. It’s a great asset in the professional world, where there’s a growing need for continuing education options and for associations that want to provide educational materials to their members.
The LMS can provide all the interactive elements that come with traditional education in an online platform that makes delivery much easier. It can help create quizzes, projects, interactive assignments, and even facilitate discussion between learners or association members.
For example, you may have professionals completing a certification course complete a module with reading materials and assignments and then facilitate a discussion where learners can share their thoughts, takeaways, and ask questions.
Another great feature is the ability for event and classroom integration. The LMS can support and integrate with webinars, virtual events, and other forms of live training. It’s a great way to immerse users in everything they’re learning and provide a community feel.
Case Study of Successful Continuing Education Using an LMS
We have an extensive case study with NASBLA, the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators that focuses its efforts around public policy for recreational boating safety. They were on the search for an LMS that would support their range of requirements and decided to go with Elevate.
Ron Sarver, Chief, Knowledge & Learning Management Systems at NASBLA, was on the lookout for an LMS that would address a number of core challenges such as:
- Leverage and expand the impact of in-person conferences.
- Support their community with greater access to compelling content.
- Structure learning as a continuous or fluid process.
When he found Elevate, he knew it was the right solution since it could support the range of requirements such as custom design, webinars, and micro learning programs. A core need was the seamless integration between Elevate and NASBLA’s ABM, MemberSuite. Through this integration, NASBLA members were able to utilize single sign-on, shopping, and reporting.
NASBLA is currently in the process of providing a series of micro-learning classes in Elevate to supplement their live training, and have found that their eLearning center has the potential to extend beyond membership.
Interested in learning about "What Is the Best eLearning Platform for Nonprofits and Associations"? Read our blog!
What Is an LMS Portal?
The LMS portal is the web-based interface where users go to access learning materials.
When users go to the portal, the first thing they’ll encounter is a login screen where they need to sign in with a username and password. Login systems help protect materials from unauthorized access so only paid users can get them.
After logging in, they’ll be taken to a dashboard where they can see courses they’re enrolled in, view where they’ve left off in their training, and access all the materials they need to complete each module.
Most users will find this system very easy to navigate, so there’s usually very little confusion about the process, and it helps manage learning each step of the way.
Mobile Accessibility is a Great Feature to Look for in a Portal
When professionals are taking a continuing education course, they often want to be able to access the learning materials on their phone. That way, when they’re on the go throughout the day, they can log in and learn when they have free time.
Therefore, looking for LMS solutions with a mobile accessible portal and responsive designs is an asset to provide a great user experience.
Integration and Analytics in LMS
Integration with other tools can ensure an LMS provides a smooth experience across several business needs. Each of our tools at Cadmium integrates to provide even more features.
For instance, you can use our Eventscribe event management system with our LMSs so you can use learning-based events to complement or even become part of your course.
Our LMSs also integrate with our Warpwire media management and livestreaming solution. That way, you can do things like host a live webinar and then upload it to your LMS so it can become part of your courses that new or existing users can access later on.
To read more about "What Features Should an LMS Have?" read our blog!
The Role of Analytics
Analytics play a key role so you can perform data-based decision-making while optimizing courses and learning materials.
For example, your LMS can help you track course activity. So, if you notice a lot of users start to become inactive at a certain point in your course, you’ll know that you need to find ways to make that section more engaging or make the materials easier to understand.
You might also notice that some of your long-term members have become inactive, and you could make efforts to re-engage them, such as reaching out with information about an exciting new course you just added that might interest them.
Other analytics can include:
- Your most popular courses: A great way to understand what’s worked in the past and what your audience really enjoys. It provides informed decision-making when you’re creating new materials.
- Purchases over the last month: This will show you if your current marketing strategy is working. If you’re monthly purchases are dropping, it may be a sign that you need to create different promotional strategies or research current industry needs to understand what professionals are currently looking for to create materials that align.
- Unique users active on the platform: It’s a great insight to know how many users are active and learning right now. Are you planning an exciting event? It might be a great time to announce it when your users are active, and you’ll likely get their attention. Or, if not many users are active, it might be time to start a discussion to get them engaged again.
Conclusion
In summary, there are many LMS benefits and it’s a terrific way to deliver effective learning materials. It can:
- Make learning materials more accessible
- Integrate with events
- Provide efficient user management
- Lead to more engaging learning experiences
- Facilitate communication
The future of LMSs is bright as they’re being used more often, and continuing education needs are growing with new technology and industry disruptions becoming much more frequent.
Remember, it’s an extension of your brand, so make sure you choose a high-quality LMS with the features and customizability you need to deliver an excellent user experience.
Deliver Impactful Learning Materials with Cadmium’s LMS Solutions
At Cadmium, we offer LMSs that help associations and healthcare organizations deliver impactful learning materials. Our LMSs also integrate with our other tools for well-rounded features that satisfy several business needs.
Our EthosCE LMS is tailored to the complex needs of healthcare continuing education. That includes efficient management and a well-rounded profile of features that facilitate organizational and professional growth as the industry evolves. Click here to learn more.
Our Elevate LMS is built for associations and nonprofits. Whether your learners are just starting or furthering their career path, it provides everything you need for curriculum development, certifications, integration with AMS, knowledge sharing, social learning, and event integration. Click here to learn more.
