What is an elearning platform? 

The LMS is dead. This is the post that you will read across LinkedIn most days, but the reality is different. The LMS is not dead, nor is the LXP dead.

The LMS market is thriving. If anything the market is changing, evolving and looking to reach ever more markets. It is no longer a market for the enterprise business. The small business, the SMB market is now being targeted by companies like Thrive who have seen the value in the LMS for the SMB.

But what is an elearning platform?

Over 20 years I can remember working with CD-Rom and coming back from a meeting with RM where there was an incredible idea to bring together all of the RM publisher content and deliver this via one platform.

The idea was to consolidate the publisher content and make it easier for customers to get the content. Publishers had to make sure that the content worked on the platform. This was before publishers were widely using SCORM.

Today we are seeing the use of an elearning platform, a software platform that allows organisations to deliver, manage, and track digital learning. These platforms power everything from employee training and onboarding to compliance and leadership programmes.

But how do L&D teams choose the right option, whether that’s a Learning Management System (LMS), a Learning Experience Platform (LXP), or a mix of tools?

There has been an exponential rise in the use of elearning technologies in recent years. There are a host of reasons to explain this shift in learning preferences, and in turn, a great many reasons why this trend will continue in future years too.

Have a walk around Learning Technologies or Training Magazine, World of Learning or similar and you’ll see vendors offering LMS platforms. If the market was dead then you would not see LMS providers. The market figures also show growth and not decline.

AI might allow you to build an LMS using Claude Code or similar but there is, and will be, a market for ready built software platforms like the LMS.

It’s also fair to say that technology has had a transformative impact on the quality of education, and the method in which learning is directed, be it class based or remote. Within the educational market it would be fair to suggest that combined with the internet it saw the end of the educational CD-Rom market.

Technology has played a rapidly increasing role in education for more than two decades now, and in this time the elearning phenomenon has increased by more than 900%.

The reasons for online demand are plentiful: rapid market growth, a wider variety of platform options, accessibility, flexibility, cost, an increase in user confidence and an awareness of elearning education all contributing to its growth.

COVID-19 also turned the way we learn on its head. Several years later we don’t really look back on the impact that Covid had on elearning and learning technologies. But the impact on elearning was huge.

We were working on large projects to get elearning out as quickly as possible, and this wasn’t just Covid based content. People were confined to their homes, the need for education did not diminish. Neither did the requirement for workplace learning and career development. Online learning was the viable solution that is now proving its longevity in a post-pandemic world.

Defining Elearning Platforms

So, what are elearning platforms and how do they fit into the elearning world?

Elearning platforms contain features that deliver content, enable interaction with participants, facilitate workload, and manage enrolment and payments.

Elearning platforms vary in their capabilities. Some platforms allow you to solely deliver online learning to your audience, acting as an interface between your content and the user. Other, more complete platforms allow you to create or customise courses or websites too.

Think of it like your own digital educational platform. You employ the group of technologies that allow you to distribute the content that meets the needs of your audience. The technologies you require will depend on the number of groups you want to invite, the interaction you want to take place between learners and the level of administration you anticipate.

Elearning platforms are all around us, and we may not even be aware we are accessing them. They’re used for work-based and compliance training, onboarding and customer education.

Believe it or not, YouTube and LinkedIn are both elearning platforms. Why? Because they both offer video, game based, quizzes and text based learning, in whatever mass or niche skill you may be hoping to acquire.

Key Features and Functionality

Elearning platforms are the beating heart of online learning. Originally created to house content relating to the administration of schools and universities, they have grown into vast digital platforms that enable schools, universities and businesses to train and qualify their learners and employees.

Elearning platforms allow you to build your own bespoke material, or act merely as an interface between learners and your content. Although you can use development tools like Articulate Storyline 360, many platforms come with their own development tools. Content creation tools, authoring tools, multimedia integration and course customisation options are available depending on the elearning platform options you require.

Because of the steady rise in online learning, platforms are now available that allow you to build your own content using user-friendly interfaces and navigation systems, meaning you don’t need to be a professional web designer to create your own resources. Often templates are pre-loaded for you to customise, adding personal logos and branding to materials created.

AI is having a huge impact on elearning platforms. For some it’s just about adding features, but AI functionality is now integrating more deeply: recommending learning, mapping skills, creating content, supporting managers and helping L&D teams show business impact.

Whilst I read about AI based LMS and AI interfaces that will surface results and personalisation from existing content, knowledge management will still be critical. Platforms are pushing towards personalisation and this is being driven by AI integration based on role, skills gaps, career goals and behaviours.

AI is also providing enhanced data collection and analysis. The reports that you can now find within your LMS are pushing beyond one or two metrics and allowing for enhanced dashboards that integrate with your company reporting. As companies and directors are looking for impact, behaviour change and ROI, this is increasingly a key driver for AI enhanced platforms.

As with a traditional classroom, elearning platforms allow for engaging online experiences between learners through discussion forums, video conferencing and messaging platforms. And, just like a traditional classroom, you can interact and collaborate with your instructors or teachers through these mechanisms. Elearning platforms enable you to use technologies that facilitate assessment and feedback services, including quizzes, assignments and grading systems.

Because online learning organisations are able to harness data from their learners, they are also in a position to adapt and personalise the content for individuals. When students struggle with course content, an elearning platform is able to adjust content so that the learner receives the support needed, just like a teacher would in the physical world.

This enables you to ensure that learning has been embedded. Assessment of understanding is crucial. Comprehensive elearning platforms deliver assessment and use results to consolidate gaps in learning. Acting just like a teacher, but one that exists in a digital landscape.

Types of Elearning Platforms

So, we know that the elearning platform is an umbrella term for the group of technologies employed to deliver online learning. Any technology that is used to facilitate online learning can be considered an elearning platform, but what types of elearning platforms are out there?

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are elearning platforms that provide learners with the opportunity to access free learning opportunities. These elearning platforms allow audiences of unlimited sizes, flexible, web-based training. Participants can pick up and put down learning at their own pace and in their own time. Courses are run by experts in their own field and offer audiences the chance to develop skills that aren’t often available in other provisions.

Social Learning Platforms are modelled around social media platforms and aim to provide a meaningful human engagement with the learner. Participants interact with the platform in a similar way they would Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Social Learning intends to inspire natural curiosity and inspire deeper insights into learning. Sources show higher completion and learner satisfaction scores when learning has taken place through a social learning platform.

A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software application or web-based technology that can be incorporated into an elearning platform. If you intend to train more than one different business or you expect to run courses for groups of customers, you will need an LMS.

An LMS allows you to admit more than one group or business into a device called a portal. Educational establishments, corporate trainers and those involved in professional development within organisations and businesses will find that an LMS is a crucial aspect of their technological requirements. An intelligent LMS not only facilitates groups of learners but tracks the learning progress of your audience and provides automated reports on their progress.

Future Trends

AI is here. It is already changing the way in which elearning platforms are being developed and delivered. It isn’t just about personalisation and learning paths. It is also about the speed at which developments are being delivered to customers.

The customer roadmap was previously months, even years, but we are now seeing developments coming each week, with companies racing to deliver the latest functions to their LMS and LXP. This isn’t just about added AI functionality, it’s about how they can improve the user experience for their LMS.

What is being missed by LMS and LXP companies is that much of the AI functionality is an add-on to existing functionality. There is little in terms of integration and much of what was learnt from years of software development appears to be lost.

We can develop at a much faster speed but where is the governance in all of this? For years we have been talking about sustainability, the responsibility of tech and how we need to think about accessibility. But for many development companies this seems to be forgotten and it’s been about how quickly we can get new functionality out.

Don’t think that AI personalisation is the same as branding. Branding is a far more reaching concept that goes beyond simply putting a badge on something. It’s about the feel, the understanding and the why.

We are also seeing AI companies suggest that AI will be so powerful that it will make up for poor content and knowledge management. This isn’t the way forward. Yes, AI can compensate to a degree, but this isn’t a strategy and the IT and L&D sector should not be advancing without more governance and policy. Good AI use should not be used to mask poor management and process.

For learners and students there is a great opportunity for them to be delivered a deeper level of attainment and user experience than they have ever had before. Ignore the multiple posts about the Netflix model, that is a distraction.

AI will be able to assess the baseline understanding of learners and offer appropriate challenges. It should help with delivering the right content to the right people at the right time. And beyond that, it should be providing new levels of management data so we can get the right content to the right people. This isn’t about having no content,  it’s about getting the right content to the right people.

As the technology grows its understanding of language it will be able to direct and tutor learners 24 hours a day. Not only that, it will be providing real-time data to dashboards — the type of data that will finally move us away from the completion metrics that have dominated L&D for years.

Just as AI promises to yield a brighter elearning future, so does Virtual Reality (VR). The immersive effect of VR will permit users to engage in an environment that simulates real life. Users will be able to fully experience scenarios in a way that could transform learner motivation.

Together with the existing elearning technologies, VR and AI have the potential to open up online learning to an even broader audience. The future of online learning and the development of the elearning platform is not just bright, it’s blazing.