Online Learning Services: LMS and eLearning marketplaces. What’s the Difference?  

Since the year 2021 continues to roll with the risk of illness caused by COVID-19, the increasing pandemic creates more lockdowns and layoffs. This makes remote jobs (like online teaching) seem rather attractive to those who couldn’t even imagine working remotely before. Yes, the fact is that selling online courses or teaching online via 1-1 consultations are realistic ways of earning money today. Plus, online teaching is a good chance for those who want to help others worldwide improve their lives for the better. 

The best part of e-learning is that it can be easily adjusted to learners’ time, place, and pace. It provides incredible availability and copes well with the current realities and accepted “new normals” caused by the global pandemic. But probably one of the first and reasonable questions that can pop up in the head of those users who are new to e-learning: “Which educational service should I work with?” 

Today, there are two undeniably popular educational services utilized for hosting and distributing e-learning content: Learning Management systems (LMS) and eLearning platforms. Both services deliver “all-in-one-place” learning content to online users and show incredible flexibility, which is very much appreciated by users. 

In this blog post, we’ll make a comparison between LMS and eLearning platforms in terms of their efficiency for online teaching and learning. Also, we’ll summarize which learning service works best for which category of learners and why.

What LMS Services are Capable of?

The popularity of LMS and all other educational approaches that utilize e-learning technology keeps growing. LMS implies that the system can report, document, and track while delivering educational content online. So, one of the main reasons why it became so popular is because of its capabilities to substantially reduce the costs of printing study materials in bulk. But that’s just in addition to a whole bunch of other workplace training responsibilities. 

Today, LMS becomes particularly important in the current economic climate. When it comes down to the corporate culture, LMS became one of the most helpful tools to train personnel fast and efficiently. It helps to avoid too much headache caused by coronavirus restrictions that otherwise trainers and learners would deal with in brick-and-mortar classes right now. The fact that online training modules are stored in one space, makes them much more accessible to employees who can learn at their own pace and at safer locations that they can pick on their own.

All-in-all, the LMS used for e-learning can help bring a lot of rigor and productivity in routine operations for companies and businesses. Examples of LMS obvious benefits include:

• Self-paced training;
• All trainees get treated fairly;
• Higher efficiency with routine processes, such as attendance, communication, and grading;
• Ease of tracking and collecting statistical data;
• Immediate access to additional learning materials;
• Saves business hours (compared to the traditional methods of teaching). 

The cost of eLearning is significantly lower as compared to in-person education because businesses can save money through online learning management. And similarly, it is beneficial for saving valuable time. Yes, LMS has an important role in the company’s training, especially in educational institutes which makes you free from classroom restricted learning. Also, LMS can provide accurate reports on learners’ progress. 

There are 3 most popular LMS systems: DomainRacer LMS, Moodle LMS, and TalentLMS. All of them were designed to resolve the purpose of online education by providing streamlined corporate training, sharing documents, video sessions, video training, online sessions, blended learning, etc. 

However, LMS by itself is just another website that is well organized and contains the required curriculum or academic features to support students. No matter how slick the system is, that mainstream “resource library” approach may seem sometimes even rather boring. Also, LMS services can appear rigid which can constrain the teaching process. The other negative aspect is – the more frequently an LMS is updated the more often users and instructors need to get retrained. So, LMS services are not as flawless as they seem.

Who Can Benefit From Utilizing LMS?

Okay, we’ve concluded so far that LMS services are incredibly useful for the professional training of employees in corporate establishments and organizations. Moreover, organizations can even use LMS services for transferring web-based assets to outer deals channels, franchisees, and other clients. 

What groups are out there that LMS serves the best: 

• Public/private education establishments
• Coaching services
• Enrichment course centers
• Corporate trainers
• Online course based educators/trainers

Here are two lists of useful functions provided by LMS:

For the employees:

• An employee portal with quick access to online learning modules.
• Employee transcripts online for both – the employee and management.
• Enrolling online in optional courses.
• Registering for instructor-led courses.

For training departments:

• A convenient remote setup for delivering online courses.
• Lots of useful digital tools that make courses trackable.
• Various management reports.
• A convenient space for storing courses and managing online teaching.

In addition, the LMS training industry is leaning towards the intersection of informal and social on-the-job learning. This approach helps to determine how networks within an organization could be used and allows employees to develop a “personal learning network”. As a result, there is an obvious improvement in terms of performance and communication across the organization, thanks to LMS capabilities.

In conclusion, LMS is the heart and pulse of corporate training. A great deal of evidence shows the powerful impact of LMS on the corporate business environment. Since LMS can provide effective formal training that helps to evaluate the optimal balance and use of corporate resources, entrepreneurs are looking more closely now at the effectiveness of various LMS services. 

What are the Distinct Capabilities of eLearning platforms?

A typical eLearning platform is a type of repository used to store online courses, as well as any other learning content for further delivery or distribution to online users. So, if you carry out an online course business, you can try a mix of both – LMS services and collaboration with e-learning marketplaces to expand and grow your business more effectively. Plus, this is a good way to build an online presence too. 

Now about the whole deal of uploading your courses on the eLearning platforms. It can work really well in terms of diversifying your income streams. And it’s a very good chance to become less dependent upon market changes. A good example of such income diversification is provided by eLearning platforms – 1-1 consultations that do bring extra profit to course authors/instructors. 

If you want to try consulting, you can go to the Grinfer platform, register as a consultant, and you’ll be provided with all the necessary tools/information for making it work. Since face-to-face consultations add a great individualized, unique, and personalized touch to the learning experience, Grinfer developed the system on the platform for carrying out 1-1 consultations. So, in addition to promoting and selling online courses, Grinfer provides its students with the consulting service to learn from the top professionals and highly experienced instructors.  

The other awesome feature of e-learning platforms is the free gear of promo tools that these platforms offer to authors for both – public and private promotions. Whenever it comes down to online course promotions, all e-learning marketplaces store at least a few promotional strategies in their marketing toolbox. As an example, Grinfer runs free email marketing campaigns for its authors/instructors.  

Here is a list of promotions that Grinfer does for any course builder/author for free:

• promotions via Grinfer’s social media accounts (such promotions are carried on by the Grinfer marketing team separately from all the other promotions that are run by Grinfer’s authors on their own)
• paid ads rotated in social media
• email newsletters focused on learners’ most popular interests/demands

Those course(s) that make it to the top of the list of most trending topics get free promotions on Grinfer on a regular basis.  

Moreover, all authors can promote courses through their own social media and network channels via referral links that they can create fast and easily in their personal accounts on Grinfer. Please visit Grinfer’s blog if you want to get more information on how to create referral links and how to launch free course promotions through Grinfer’s marketplace.   

Who Benefits From Utilizing e-Learning Platforms?

Again, with the ongoing spread of the Covid-19 epidemic, many learners have quickly turned to e-Learning technology and online learning platforms. One of the main reasons is to ensure an uninterrupted and smooth learning process. Hence, e-learning marketplaces are becoming even more essential to learners today. And, at the same time, teaching on e-learning platforms is a profitable way of making money for instructors/course builders. 

 Benefits from learners’ point of view:

• Anybody can register and enroll in any course of his/her own choice.
• Easy access to courses (no matter self-paced or live courses).
• Users can learn from any location.
• In live online sessions, learners can easily interact with the trainer and ask any questions.
• Students can download the course material easily.
• Easy to submit the assignment.
• Easy to take the online tests from any location.
• As compared to offline learning, e-learning is much more cost-efficient.

Some obvious benefits for instructors:

• Makes the whole teaching experience more interactive.
• Just a few simple steps to build the whole online course.
• Easy to upload all course material.
• Saves time. Instructors can organize virtual classrooms easily for conducting live e-learning sessions and train an unlimited number of learners.
• Easy to evaluate the performance of learners with online tests and assignments.
• Easy to collaborate with many advanced features that it supports. The integrated technologies make online teaching more diverse and engaging. For example, live chat helps to reach out to students promptly and easily.  
• Screen sharing. An instructor can easily share his/her screen with students and turn it into a whiteboard to demonstrate illustrations, diagrams, charts, etc. It also supports and provides remote assistance to the attendee’s screen which makes everything a lot easier.  
• Live Polling.  Live polling makes any online learning much more interactive. An instructor can organize the poll relating to the given questions right during the learning which can make lessons more engaging to students.
• Cloud-Based Library. A digital library allows uploading any type of course content in any digital format. This type of virtual storage speeds up the process of uploading content.  
• e-Learning analytics. Provides deep insight into a course relating to data allowing the instructor to check the overall effectiveness of the course. That way,  all the necessary changes can be implemented more effectively (based on the collected and evaluated data), which can make a course much more engaging.
• Easy-to-integrate. Easy to integrate with other e-learning solutions, such as Moodle, WordPress, Joomla, etc., using API.
• Mobile device ready. The mobile availability makes it even easier for learners to take online courses from any location and even “on the go”. For example, the Grinfer e-learning platform is compatible with Android, Windows, as well as iOS. So, learners can easily access it on any mobile device at any time. 
• Much more!

Bottom line

In conclusion, the main reason why LMS is an effective tool for fast and efficient employee training is that there are always people who need to upgrade skills or learn something new about the job requirements/updates. When the economy is good, industries are going back to their normal workflow and start hiring more employees. LMS helps new trainees to move up quickly in the training process. Also, LMS training can give a sort of motivational pinch to see lots of opportunities ahead like getting higher pay, a better job within the company, or getting job security with a solid base of skills that are necessary for excellent job performance. Sounds like a win-win situation for both employees and the company.  

As for the eLearning marketplaces, they just keep growing and aren’t showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, the increasing popularity of eLearning platforms clearly shows that corporations, businesses, and individuals are recognizing the great potential of eLearning. eLearning platforms are a great place to share knowledge with others worldwide and gain more knowledge from a wide pool of professionals (and just talented folks) from all over the world. It is a universal repository of information that provides access fast and easy to those who want to learn. So, if you’ve got something valuable to share in terms of knowledge (no matter of the domain), start building online courses and find lots of people who will become your followers! 

In any case, if you want to create and sell courses online, go to the Grinfer platform and we’ll help you with that step-by-step. Just give us a holler at support@grinfer.com we will be happy to hear from ya!