Tips on Selecting an LMSD

Tips on Selecting an LMS (based on work by Tom Barron)

Following is a collection of advice on how to make the right choice in selecting an LMS. Some key steps you must take include:

• Detail your scenario. A good strategy to force vendors off their stump pitch is to present them with your business scenario and ask them to detail how their system will meet your needs. The more details you provide, the more details you should get back, consultants agree. And if you provide the same information to each of them, you'll generate comparable results.

• Query vendors on interoperability. Software vendors will say they can make anything work with anything else. While true, it won't help you if a lot of custom programming must be done to tie an LMS in with your existing systems. Get the specifics.

• Consult with IT. Your information technology department should be a key resource, if not an active partner, in your research on LMS systems. If not, consider ASP options.

• Coordinate with other departments. Some large corporations count multiple LMS systems among various training divisions. While that may have made sense before truly enterprise-wide systems came on the scene, the power of new systems is their ability to function as a central repository that can be tailored for separate training functions. Buying one system to serve multiple departments also helps distribute costs among them.

RFP questions for LMS Purchase

If you are looking for an LMS, here are key questions that are worth posing to vendors in an RFP or information request, part of a larger list of 200 selection criteria compiled by Gartner Group analyst Clark Aldrich. The qestions are grouped by category.

Category	Key Questions
IT setup	Server requirements. Does it support UNIX, Windows NT, Linux, SQL Server, Domino, and Oracle? Can an administrator manage multiple sites with one database? Scalability. Number of users that can use the application concurrently?
HR setup	Can it import HR data from ERPs and other databases? Synchronize with either the HR database or an intermediary? Can it accommodate contractors with the ability to add, change, and suspend them, or convert them to employees and identify relative department associations?
Skills management setup	Does it provide multiple options and templates for generating and changing user skill profiles, including 360 reviews, off-the-shelf assessments, and self-definition? Does it provide tools for creating and managing job profiles, including multiple career-path options? Learning event and resource management Does it offer record creation and tracking of learning events, including classroom, e-learning, books, seminars, learning lunches, book clubs, conferences, apprenticeships, videos, and other events? Does it allow courses to be assigned different instructors when a learning event is created or scheduled? Provide a drop-down list of instructors approved to teach a certain course? Offer flexible instructor assignment to classes, regardless of whether an instructor is qualified (skill-matched)? Have ability to assign guest speakers to classes?
Authoring tools	Does it provide tools to create industry-standard content? Does it offer ability to apply metatags?
Automated support of learning activities	Can it create and maintain customized course catalogs that are accessible to learners? Does it offer room-tracking capabilities (utilization, conflicts and constraints, classes, equipment, materials, instructors) with an at-a-glance calendar that shows resource assignments?
Registration capabilities	Does it allow two-way communication between learners and the system? Can users obtain information and dynamically query the system to obtain answers to scheduling questions? Can it track learner course requests? Does it allow restrictions on the types of courses that an employee may take based on organization, job code, grade level, location, and tenure? Does it support restrictions on how many courses a user may register for within a given time frame?
Access to content libraries	Does it offer access to all courses already licensed by the enterprise, either hosted by the enterprise or vendor? Are there pre-negotiated, competitive prices on hosted or linked courses? Are there volume levels for discounts?
ASP support	Are hosting alternatives available? Is there a path to take the application in-house, if desired?
Assessment and testing features	Can learners "test out" of courses they have already mastered? Test out of parts of courses they've already mastered? Can it include embedded graphics with questions?
Reporting	Can it generate to-do checklists to assist in pre- and post activities of a class? Can it generate classroom, instructor, equipment, and materials utilization graphics?
Vendor support	Is integration and customization support included or available? What maintenance or version-update provisions are included in the contract? Connectivity and standards Does it have an import/export capability (for example, integration with Excel, Word, Outlook, and Office 2000)? Does it have ERP compatibility (such as BAPI support for SAP)?

More details are available here SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI)