Learning is the key to success. Learning does not end once you leave your college or university. In fact, the professional world of learning begins then. Continuous learning is critical for both the employees and the organization.

LXPs For L&D Pros

Employees need to learn to keep themselves upskilled and updated with the latest knowledge in their respective fields. Organizations need to train their employees in the most relevant skills to make them efficient and get them to be ahead of the competition. The L&D department in any organization performs the vital function of employee training to address any skill gaps. It also aims to engage the employees in learning.

Biggest Challenges

Well, there are quite a few challenges, but we will discuss only one problem here, perhaps the most complex and most critical one. As a part of the L&D department, you deal with adult learners in a technologically hyperactive generation. Every learner has their preference of learning styles and needs. A one-size-fits-all policy never works for adults. Thus, making employees go through the fixed learning material, or making them attend training sessions, does little to help in the real sense.

You may have great courses in your Learning Management System (LMS). You may have great trainers who take enlightening sessions. However, over a period of time, the learning never goes deep into the mind of the new-age learners. Learning becomes a mere mandate and compulsion rather than a way of making progress in life, and that’s the most unwanted situation for an L&D professional.

There must be awareness that LMSs, although a great source of “learning material,” are no longer a great place for a “learning experience.” The transition from material-based learning to experience-based learning is what the world needs and should focus on. But does it mean the end of the world for the LMS?

Not really. Here comes the concept of a Learning Experience Platform or LXP. Let’s first understand this concept. An LXP is essentially an AI-driven peer Learning Experience Platform. It is usually delivered in the software as a service (SaaS) model.

It is an intuitive L&D platform to help employees answer crucial business problems by providing them with an option for personalized professional development. LXPs overcome the challenges with the top-down, management-administered style of LMSs and facilitate independent, autonomous, and self-directed styles of learning.

Being technologically superior, LXPs support a wide range of content that can be sourced from inside as well as outside a company’s designated content portal. LXPs can include courses, blog posts, videos, articles, and podcasts. The key feature that stands out in LXPs is that they enable end users to create and publish content. They also integrate social profiles of users, including bios, achievements, and so on.

LXPs were conceptualized from a new school of thought in the corporate learning world to address the challenges with traditional LMSs. Here are a few significant features of an LXP:

• Content creation
  An LXP enables users to generate content, using the built-in editors to create posts and lessons. It can include documents, images, videos, and hyperlinks. It also lets users give ratings and comments, just like social media. This increases the engagement factor.
• Content curation
  LXPs utilize machine learning technology to understand users’ interest areas and curate third-party content from the web, giving a personalized endorsement to users. It also gives users the ability to manually curate content and share it with peers.
• AI-based recommendations and training
  Some LXPs can actually understand training content using AI and machine learning. They can then generate microlearning, training, and recommendations. Some LXPs can even analyze the instructional needs of a user and push content accordingly.
• Analytics
  LXPs are masters of data collection and analysis. They can create and publish dashboards and reports that can give useful insight to the L&D professionals. In addition, the dashboards also help employees track and analyze their progress.
• Chatbots
  Some LXPs support AI-based chatbots. These chatbots can interact with learners and can solve their queries instantly.
• Gamification
  LXPs integrate gamification to increase the level of engagement among the learners.
• Seamless Integration
  LXPs integrate seamlessly with other content providers and technology platforms.

While a Learning Management System focuses on the content or material needs of learning, LXPs cater to the softer aspects of learning as well. This goes a long way in ensuring the best learning experience among users, which in turn results in greater benefits for the organization.

In today’s fast-paced world, technology is getting updated at an incredible speed. Educational technology is not lagging in this respect. Learning management systems (LMS) are getting updated, with better configuration and compatibility.

SaaS LMS

With the emergence of software as a service (SaaS), the usage style and pattern of software have witnessed a paradigm shift. LMS is also being offered in the SaaS model. Let’s first understand what the SaaS model is with the help of software. Before SaaS, if you wanted to use software, you should get a copy of the installation file, then install it on your system.

You can use the software only from the system. If you opt for SaaS-based software, you don’t get any installation files. All you need to do is log on to the portal and start using the software. You are no longer confined to any particular system. You can log on from any system and use the hosted software.

SaaS-based LMS is no different in working principle. You don’t need to install the LMS anymore. Your users can simply log on from any system to access the LMS and start learning. From a purely learning point of view, there is no negative impact a user can experience. It gives a seamless connectivity experience to the user.

Let’s Understand The Benefits That We Get From A SaaS-Based LMS

1. Quick deployment
   Saas-Based LMS can be deployed and made to use in a very quick time. You don’t need to buy and set up infrastructure, do installation and testing. All you do is just buy a subscription and you are ready to start.
2. No expertise needed
   You don’t need any special expertise or need to hire experts to deploy your LMS. Subscription is the only thing you need. Small enterprises get the biggest benefit from it as they don’t have to pay for hiring experts.
3. Expert help
   SaaS-based software is centrally maintained by experts. Hence, there is very little scope for downtime. Even if there is any accidental glitch, there is an expert panel available to solve the issue. This is a great advantage in today’s world, where every minute matters. Enterprises that are present globally can benefit immensely from this.
4. Low cost of ownership
   Since you don’t need dedicated infrastructure for SaaS-based LMS, over the years, the cost of ownership is much lesser compared to traditional LMS. You don’t have to pay anything for server maintenance, upgrading, bandwidth maintenance, etc.
5. Scalability
   A key parameter for LMS is the number of users. With SaaS-based models, the number of users is never an issue. You can scale up or scale down the number of concurrent users without any delay of a major setting. All you need to do is change your subscription as per your need. This is a very useful advantage to reduce the cost of LMS to a great extent. It helps you conduct large-scale training without having to invest in LMS infrastructure. It also helps reduce the wastage of resources.
6. Any device accessibility
   SaaS-based LMS gives you accessibility from any device, from any location. This is a great advantage in today’s world, where remote working is becoming a new normal. Anytime, anywhere access is the need of the hour and SaaS-based LMS gives us the best benefits in this regard.
7. Integration
   One of the biggest advantages of SaaS-based LMS is that it can be integrated very quickly and easily with other applications of the enterprise. It can be used to conduct partner, user, or customer training also. It can be used for gamification. It allows you to conduct a webinar with customers and users. It can be seamlessly integrated with CRM data and HR data.
8. Security
   SaaS-based LMS, being managed by industry leaders, scores very high on security, which comes as a default. The users don’t have to pay anything extra or implement any extra layer of security.

With most of the major software players moving toward a cloud and SaaS-based model, the future of LMS is also a SaaS-based model. With SaaS-based LMS, learning will truly become free from boundaries. Anytime, anywhere access will become a true reality. Device independence will no longer be technological jargon, but a simple way of accessing learning content. The advantages of SaaS-based LMS are too good to be ignored. It has something for every type of user and enterprise, be it small or big. Bigger organizations have already started implementing the SaaS-based LMS and are reaping its benefits.