eLearning has become a quintessential training need of the modern-day worker. Technology is going through a rapid transformation; hence continuous skills’ enhancement has become necessary.

The HR (Human Resources) in a company organizes skills training program to ensure that the employees become acquainted with the crucial processes.

A skills training program is created and delivered to the new employees and the old ones to ensure that they have maximum productivity. It’s because sometimes software used in a company is upgraded, which makes it essential to retrain employees.

Why is skills training important?

The workforce also takes a keen interest in learning now because nowadays, they are proactive. They desire to get salary hikes based on their skills. And they use MOOC-based certifications for skill increments.

Hence, every company must either reimburse them for the costs of such certifications to earn their loyalty or organize an LMS for in-house skills training program.

Therefore, companies need to be aware of the LMS required. They need to take the following considerations into account while getting an LMS.

Ease of content modification:

It needs to be compatible with the current software used by the company. This kind of software includes the Authoring software used by the company. If the content created by this software can’t be hosted on an LMS, then it’s no use getting the latter.

On the other hand, LMS have authoring tools integrated with them, too, to solve both content creation and hosting purposes. For example, with a course editor in the LMS, you can create new content and even edit the existing one, including posts and quizzes, etc. getting an LMS with an Authoring Tool and without one varies with the need of the company.

With an inbuilt authoring tool, the content editing work is expedited because if the learning analytics are not as per expectations, the LMS admin can change the content after consulting the SME. But if the authoring tool is standalone, the editing job is done by the multimedia developer and then hand it over to the LMS admin for uploading.

Portability:

The businesses should know that an inbuilt authoring tool can be used to create content hosted on only the concerned LMS. But this is not the case with the standalone authoring tool, which produces SCORM-compliant content that can be used on any LMS. This is a serious advantage when you want to upgrade to a different LMS in the future, but your course can’t be ported because it’s not SCORM compliant.

Generally speaking, an inbuilt authoring tool can’t create SCORM content, and the user has to convert the content created into such a format. Hence, an organization using such software needs a developer to create JavaScript, HTML, and flash files for the SCORM format, which can be uploaded to another LMS.

The eLearning community is divided on the issue of whether the third-party authoring tool is better because it can help create usable courses compared to a built-in authoring tool. The standalone authoring tools also have advanced features that allow content creators to curate more focused courses. The standalone authoring tools also allow other users to resolve their confusions through online discussion forums created by the developers of such tools.

Affordability:

The standalone authoring tool requires a license for individual users, after which the company can access it on every laptop. However, there are also costs associated with an inbuilt authoring tool associated with an LMS.

Schools can’t afford a standalone authoring tool because everyone can’t be given a third-party authoring tool. After all, it requires a license for each user. But inbuilt authoring tools don’t have such restraining costs, so they can be used in schools where teachers can use them to create content for students. In schools, teachers might require teaching some software to students, and hence they need screencasts that can’t be taken with an inbuilt authoring tool.

But the need for using a standalone authoring tool is even more pronounced in a corporate setting, where employees must be taught software regularly. A standalone(third-party) authoring tool allows you to create advanced character-based simulations and games due to features such as motion paths and triggers, which isn’t possible with inbuilt authoring tools. They also allow the users to create more advanced triggers due to the HTML5 programming enabled. The built-in authoring tools enabled in an LMS allow one to upload such content, it’s not possible to create it in these tools.

When a company provides a skills training program, it can’t ignore the need for simulations and branching scenario-based quizzes because the employees need retention of such skills, which is only possible through gamification. Hence, using standalone authoring tools is a must in such training.

Moreover, it depends on the learning experience provided to the learner. For example, in case simulations have to be created in the course to facilitate complex learning, it’s better to use a third-party authoring tool with HTML5 programming. But if the online course just needs to include PDF documents, then the content creators can rely on built-in authoring tools.

Hence, the training needs of an organization help it in choosing an authoring tool.

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