Learning Management & the Cloud

I am seeing more and more debate about learning in the cloud. I am not sure everyone really understands the cloud concept, and it's often used interchangably with Software as a Service (SaaS) or managed services. Which is fine really in this context. In essence, people really mean the same thing - learning content managed remotely and easily delivered anywhere. In many organisations, outsourced learning management is gaining traction, as L&D departments struggle to implement LMS solutions that really work for them. I've seen this time and again, as the people working in organsations grow frustrated with IT managers who seem hell-bent on blocking any form of innovation and change.

But the IT bods have got the best interests of the organisations at heart and they take security seriously. Very seriously. And so we can get stalemate, or at least frustrating delays while new software is evaluated and implemented. Cloud-based learning therefore seems attractive. But like so many SaaS, the benefits of these services can be oversold.

Why?

There are several factors at play. In order to keep these systems up-to-date, exporting and then importing staff lists to cloud-based services can be a full-time job. And no, before we talk about single sign and related integration services making all that obsolete, I know the theory and I know it's happening in some places, but I just don't see it on anything like the scale it should be. IT teams will not happily enable services that expose login information, so more often than not in reality, these services run in parallel with existing Intranets & Extranets. Which also means... another set of login details for people to remember (or more likely forget) and another barrier to uptake. Finally, what about reporting? Great reports of course in terms of learning.

But as we all know, that isn't the end point of training - we're all about improving performance, right? Thus we now have another challenge of trying to integrate data sets from external systems to run alongside internal MIS, so organisations can get sensible reports that help them understand the learning bit in the context of everything else the organisation does. Currently, I still believe most organisations should be running their own LMS, until SaaS integration is flawless. So sure, I am going to suggest Moodle.

But equally, we're seeing a trend whereby learning delivery (and to some extent management) is coming of age in the context of social learning tools. Since the early promise of Elgg (which now has a managed delivery service), we're seeing Facebook-related offerings like Hoot and of course all the buzz about e-learning possibilties of Google+ that's getting everyone in the e-learning community very excited. To be clear - social learning - especially the use of existing technologies such as Twitter and Facebook as explained by Jane Hart and others should be transforming the way people are learning at work.

But managing and measuring that learning - which continues to be a pressing driver in the context of competency and compliance - still requires a sensible LMS. Moodle 2.0 offers a practical solution to real world problems through proper integration with your existing systems - think mainstream applications like Drupal, Joomla, Sharepoint, or your specialists services. Advanced reusable course sharing through the new hub architecture and web services means putting learning at the heart of how your organisation really works.