Is Your Learning Management system Leaving Your Users Dazed and Confused?

O N 2 4 W H I T E P A P E R

Is Your Learning Management System Leaving Your Users Dazed and Confused?


2Is Your Learning Management System Leaving Your Users Dazed and Confused?

HOW A VIRTUAL CORPORATE UNIVERSITY CAN MAKE YOUR EXISTING LMS MORE ENGAGING, ACCESSIBLE, AND USER-FRIENDLY

LMS CHALLENGES FOR TRAINING MANAGERS

Learning management systems

have been around for many years,

developed to help companies train

their employees more efficiently and

at lower cost. The term “learning

management system” is actually a

misnomer; most existing LMS systems

are actually training management

systems.

“Training” is something that is pushed

to users in a uniform fashion, with

the content determined by managers

and delivered to all users in the same

formal way. “Learning,” on the other

hand, is user-specific, personal,

and informal, consisting of finding

and using content that meets the

unique needs of individuals. Learning,

therefore, is much more difficult to

manage and measure.

Recent studies show that many

training professionals are not

satisfied with their existing learning

management systems. Nearly half

rate their systems as “average,” “poor,”

or “very poor” for the following four

reasons1:

1] Difficult to use

Learning management systems have

typically failed to adapt to users’

learning needs, with 25 percent of

training professionals reporting that

learners have challenges with LMS

usability. Learning management

systems began as relatively

complex tools to be used by trained

administrators, and so it is not

surprising that learners find them

difficult to use. LMS providers have

only recently begun to make their

systems more user-friendly.

ABSTRACT

Today’s learning management

systems (LMS) lack the flexibility

necessary to meet the growing

knowledge demands of users.

They are also difficult to use and

expensive to implement.

Improving learners’ performance

requires that they have the

ability to easily locate the

training materials they need and

complete the coursework in a

timely manner. For these reasons,

training executives are looking for

ways to link their existing learning

management systems with new,

complementary technologies that

can deliver easier, more engaging

learning experiences.

This white paper describes the

current state of LMS and the

challenges facing corporate

training managers. It also

discusses how companies are

using virtual corporate universities

in conjunction with their existing

LMS implementations to improve

learning outcomes. Finally, it

describes the ON24 Virtual

Corporate University and how

companies are using the ON24

platform to make their training

more engaging, accessible, and

user-friendly.

ON24 Virtual Corporate University for New Hire Onboarding



Beyond poor usability of learning management systems,

training professionals have also reported challenges

searching for specific training programs and information

within the systems, as well as IT issues such as bandwidth

concerns and password management problems.

2] Lack of “holistic” training programs

One of the greatest shortcomings of existing learning

management systems is their inability to easily incorporate

and measure coursework that resides in external content

repositories. Today’s LMS platforms need to link to other

enterprise content management systems to deliver more

robust learning experiences, including federated searches

(comprehensive information searches both inside and

outside of the LMS), dashboards, and personalized training

paths.

3] Need for personalized learning

Forty-four percent of companies have identified

personalized learning plans as one of the top-three most

essential functions of future LMS designs1. Personalized

learning is extremely important; content must be provided

in ways that accommodate various learners across a broad

spectrum of demographic, generational, and geographic

categories. And with so many workers using a rapidly

increasing variety of mobile devices, personalized training

must also be integrated with—and easily delivered via—

mobile and handheld devices of all types.

4] Limited measurement and reporting

Many training managers believe that their LMS reporting

tools are insufficient. Limited reporting poses major

challenges. Learning professionals need the ability to

quickly add training content to meet evolving learner

needs and then track the new coursework’s use and

effectiveness.

KEY CORPORATE LEARNING TRENDS

Changes continue in the corporate learning industry.

In recent years, industry interest has moved from basic

technologies such as systems that provide tracking and

management of learning activities to advanced learning

systems that integrate with social media and can be

accessed anytime, anywhere, from a variety of devices.

• Social learning / social media

Users expect learning management systems to

integrate with social media and social learning tools.

Combining social and informal learning with formal,

LMS-based learning creates comprehensive, blended

learning solutions that accelerate employee and

business performance. Social learning uses social

media to leverage shifts in corporate culture that

encourage ongoing knowledge transfer. More than 12

percent of companies plan to launch social learning /

social media technologies within the next year2.

• Mobile learning

Mobile learning is making significant advances, with

companies across industries planning to implement

systems that support learning on a variety of mobile

platforms. Companies have recognized the need to

provide learning resources to their users at any point

in their daily activities, and that means comprehensive

mobile access. Other critical success factors

for mobile learning include providing engaging,

interactive content and ensuring that learning can be

tracked and managed by the company’s LMS.

SOLUTION / OPPORTUNITY – VIRTUAL CORPORATE UNIVERSITY

The rise of the “virtual corporate university” reflects the

need for companies to deliver training materials that

are easier-to-use, more interactive and engaging, and

accessible anytime, anywhere, on any device. Companies

must also provide varied levels and types of learning

programs and content (e.g., centralized, functional, and

geography-specific). And given shrinking budgets, the

new training programs must be more cost-effective than

traditional learning methods.

The virtual corporate university satisfies these

requirements. By combining virtual online classrooms, live

webcasts, social networking tools, and other Web-based

collaboration tools, the virtual corporate university creates

a highly adaptable and engaging learning experience

for wide-ranging employee needs. Moreover, it does

so while allowing employees, partners, and clients to

access training courses anytime and from any location.

This is an enormous advantage, given the need to train

busy employees who are often spread out across global

locations.

Businesses are using virtual universities for a variety of

training and communication needs:

• New hire on-boarding – Companies are using virtual

corporate universities to conduct new-employee

orientation and training, providing an engaging,

effective, and consistent on-boarding experience for

new hires no matter where they are.

• Leadership / management development – Virtual

corporate universities have become increasingly

popular for leadership training and management

development courses. Flexible online training is easier

for busy managers to fit into their schedules, resulting

in higher participation rates compared to traditional

classroom training.

• Continuing professional education – Professional

training on new techniques and procedures is much

more effective when employees can access it on

their own schedules and without the need to travel to

distant training seminars.

• Client training – Virtual corporate universities are ideal

for training clients on new products and applications.

The convenience and flexibility offered by virtual

universities increases participation dramatically.

Other benefits to clients are communication tools for

discussing common issues and sharing best practices.

• Sales training – Increasingly, companies are using

virtual corporate universities to train their sales teams

on new products, services, and promotions, in

addition to basic and advanced selling skills. Virtual

universities also enable direct access to subject matter

experts for technical Q&A and discussion of specific

topics.

• Partner training – Firms use virtual corporate

universities to educate their partners on new

technologies and partner programs. The virtual

university’s social networking tools allow partners and

companies to discuss challenges and obtain timely

feedback.





BENEFITS OF A VIRTUAL CORPORATE UNIVERSITY

Virtual corporate universities allow companies to create

“virtual dashboards” that can make tremendous amounts

of information easy to find and access. These virtual

environments can also make the LMS more flexible and

agile by allowing the capture of news feeds, blogs, social

media content, and Web-based information, as well as

training materials that reside in content management

systems outside the LMS.

Other benefits include:

• Ease of use – Typically an immersive 3-D experience,

the virtual corporate university can be designed to

mimic any desired learning workflow, leading users

on a simple intuitive path through the required

coursework. More importantly, a virtual university can

be a single point of access for all training materials.

Users are no longer required to locate and log into

multiple systems to complete their training.

• Knowledge transfer – Using virtual corporate

universities, companies can leverage their managers’

valuable knowledge and experience by making

it easy for them to interact with and mentor new

hires and other employees. Subject matter experts

from anywhere in the world can participate as

online facilitators, further enhancing the real-world

applicability of lessons and quality of learning

experiences. Virtual corporate universities also provide

a quick and easy way to communicate with direct

supervisors and other company departments.

• Personalized experience – Virtual corporate

universities allow training professionals to personalize

access to content according to learner groups,

departments, locations, or other criteria. Job

competencies and career paths can be personalized

for learners so they can be more effective in their

current jobs and progress more quickly to higher

levels within the organization.

• Mobile learning – Virtual corporate universities

allow training managers to deliver content wherever

learners are in their daily activities. Virtual universities

not only provide engaging, interactive mobile content,

they also enable tracking of content use in companies’

learning management systems.

• Learning measurement – Virtual corporate universities

track all training metrics, including attendee activities,

enabling assessment of learner participation,

feedback, and completion rates. These metrics allow

training managers to identify training issues and

develop more effective content.

• Social learning / social media – Virtual corporate

universities help facilitate the development of

engaging, interactive social learning programs. They

also enable collaborative learning by combining online

instructor-led training with social networking, expert-

led discussions, scheduled chats, blogs, and more.

ON24: A GLOBAL LEADER IN ONLINE LEARNING

ON24 is a leader in virtual learning technologies. The

ON24 Virtual Corporate University is being used by leading

global companies to provide engaging training programs

using virtual classrooms, live webcasts, collaboration tools,

and social networking tools. Key features of the ON24

Virtual Corporate University include:

• Industry-leading webcasting and virtual environment

platform that fosters attendee participation,

collaboration, and social networking. Combining

social and informal learning with virtual instructor-led

training creates a blended learning solution that can

help accelerate employee performance.

• Flexible social media features, including social

networking, group discussions, scheduled chats,

peer-to-peer collaboration, blogs and RSS feeds. The

ON24 Virtual Corporate University helps facilitate the

development of engaging, interactive social learning

programs.

• Ability to integrate training content from existing LMS

platforms and other enterprise content management

systems. If desired, ON24’s virtual university can act as

a single point of access for all training materials.



• Extremely secure, reliable, and scalable enterprise-

class platform, including role-based access, single

sign on, SAML authentication, and content restrictions

using IP filters and passwords.

• Training-specific functionality including support for

continuing education, automated registration, testing,

and certificate issuance. It also supports a compliance

workflow, with the ability to remove content before

the recorded version is posted.

• Geographic flexibility, including support for 15

languages. ON24 global support enables broadcasting

of live and pre-recorded content to specific time

zones, which is important for firms with worldwide

operations.

• Mobile-deployment ready, including optimized tablet

and mobile phone views. Tablets provide an HTML5-

based immersive 3-D virtual environment, and mobile

phones deliver a content-focused compact view.

• Real-time measurement of training participation,

performance, and feedback. The ON24 Virtual

Corporate University allows training professionals to

quickly add training content to meet evolving learner

needs and then track the new coursework’s use and

effectiveness.

REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE, REAL BENEFITS

The ON24 Virtual Corporate University has enabled leading

firms to provide engaging and interactive online training

to their global audiences of employees, customers, and

partners. The following case studies highlight some of

the ways companies are leveraging the ON24 Virtual

Corporate University to create tangible benefits by:

• Providing a global learning experience while reducing

overall training costs

• Increasing employee training participation and

completion rates

• Boosting social learning via expert-led discussions and

Q&A sessions

• Accelerating the transfer of institutional knowledge

among employees

GLOBAL LEARNING PRODUCTS

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) is a global learning

company. As the world’s largest provider of pre-K-12

solutions, HMH collaborates with school districts,

administrators, teachers, parents, and students to provide

interactive, results-driven learning.

HMH organizes a sales kickoff meeting each year to

introduce new products to its selling force of educational

consultants worldwide. For its most recent sales training,

HMH created a customized, two-day virtual sales kickoff

meeting for its 900 consultants. Powered by ON24, the

virtual sales meeting included live sessions, exhibits, chat

discussions, and downloadable documents.

The virtual sales meeting resulted in better learning

outcomes than their prior physical meetings. Eighty-seven

percent of attendees said the virtual training was “very

good” or “outstanding.” The event was a big success from

a financial point of view, too—it was approximately 90

percent less expensive to execute than a physical event,

saving HMH more than $500,000.



PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

A major professional services firm has used the ON24

virtual environment platform to create a private virtual

university for the education and discussion of mobility and

incentive taxes. The community helps members stay up-

to-date and communicate in real time with other tax and

HR professionals on the latest trends and issues. Members

have spent more than 3 ½ hours, on average, listening

to educational forums and engaging in discussions with

their peers. The ON24 virtual environment allows the

professional services company to demonstrate its wide-

ranging expertise, leading to new business opportunities

for its global employer services division.

TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING

A leading global technology manufacturer uses the ON24

virtual environment platform to train its employees on

a variety of collaboration and productivity tools. The

company offers weekly live “virtual-brown-bag” webcasts

within the virtual university. The ON24 solution allows the

company to deliver professional development training

cost-effectively to its employees worldwide. The company

also uses the virtual environment to share institutional

knowledge via expert-led discussions, moderated forums,

and Q&A sessions.



HOTEL MANAGEMENT

A major hotel chain is using the ON24 virtual environment

platform to launch a global training initiative designed to

improve key employees’ understanding of management

fundamentals and leadership principles. Using the virtual

university, instructor-led training—via live webcasts and

moderated discussions—was delivered to the company’s

geographically-distributed leadership team. More than

3,000 managers and company leaders were trained, at a

cost that was 69 percent lower than the industry average.

SURPASSING CONVENTIONAL LEARNING RESULTS

Conventional learning management systems lack the

flexibility necessary to meet users’ growing knowledge

demands. Moreover, these systems are difficult to use and

expensive to implement and fine-tune.

Learning managers are looking for ways to deliver more

engaging learning experiences by enhancing their

existing systems with new complementary technologies.

Increasingly, employees require adaptable informal and

social learning tools that provide just-in-time knowledge to

fit individual users’ needs.

A growing number of companies are using the ON24

Virtual Corporate University in conjunction with their

existing LMS implementations to enhance their training

results at low cost. The ON24 platform allows training

managers to provide highly relevant learning content

to employees anytime, anywhere, and on any device,

achieving training outcomes that far surpass conventional

learning management systems’ results.

1 Training Industry Quarterly, Spring 2011.

2 Industry Buying Plans & Trends for 2012, January 2012.

© 2012 ON24, Inc. For more information on the benefits of the ON24 virtual environment, contact us at 877-202-9599 or visit www.on24.com.

ON24, INC.

201 THIRD STREET

SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103

877.202.9599

WWW.ON24.COM

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE

In the global marketplace, well-educated employees, partners, suppliers, and

customers are a critical success factor. Companies across industries are using

virtual corporate university solutions such as the ON24 virtual environment to

achieve this goal. These organizations are providing highly effective learning

experiences to their global workforces at much lower cost compared to tradi-

tional learning methods.

For more information on the benefits of the ON24 virtual environment, contact us

at 877.202.9599 or visit www.on24.com.