Hi guys.

I haven't really been bitten by the LMS-virus, but Captivate has always been
perfect for a direct eLearning approach. Gradually, my requirements have grown,
and since I'm working with software developers, we have made some proprietary
solutions fitting our purpose.

I see that alot of you guys use the LMS with the reporting features etc. in
Captivate, but I haven't yet figured out if this will be useful for me.

So now, I want to hear your experiences. The word is free. I am very
interested in hearing how fellow Captivaters use LMS to optimize workflow or
value.

To start off;

1) Which features do you value the most in the LMS?
2) How do you use it in combination with Captivate?

Thanks in advance! I'm eagerly awaiting your feedback. :grin;

Id' be interested in seeing some response to this.

I am a new user of Captivate and new vary little of LMS before I started.
However, I'm seeing that it could be an advantage to me, particularly as the
email reporting seems to be .... not working, shall we say?

I'm not convinced I would get budget signed off for an LMS license, so is
there any free/open source solutions out there that can simply capture the
results of the test slides in my demonstrations.

Hi.

http://moodle.org/ is an opensource LMS (Picked up this suggestion on the
forum somewhere). Haven't tested it, but it may suit you?

Personally, I'm interested in the more expensive solutions. If the features
are good enough, I'm sure I can convince my superiors of the investment. But
first I need to know if it will be worth it. :smile;

Cheers for the link.

Looking at this, and some other's I've come across, I think that a full LMS
package might be a bit overkill for what I am currently trying to achieve. All
i really want is a way to track the results from the tests in my projects, so I
can follow up with individuals and arrange further training. The email report
feature looks like it would be exactly what it's after, but it simply does not
work.

What's the best alternative for simple tracking of test results?

I encourage you to express your concern to Adobe about the email reporting
feature not working. It did not work for us, either, and we were forced to pay
for a premium SurveyMonkey account to accomplish what we wanted to do. I
figure it will take several of us making noise for them to address the problem.

Moodle definitely enjoys the 'most known' status for free LMS products.
Other reputable ones include:
Sakai: http://www.sakaiproject.org/cms
Claroline: http://www.claroline.net/
Docebo: http://www.docebolms.org

There's a decent list of others here:
http://www.trainingplace.com/source/vendors.html#mgtsys

LMS features vary widely - very widely. Some are huge, expensive systems
including content development tools (generally putting them in the
"LCMS" category), HR, career paths/competency management, web meeting
functionality, discussion groups, etc.

Others are more streamlined and, thus, a bit more affordable. These tend
to focus more on the basics - managing content, users, and reporting. My
two preferred examples of those are:
WBT Manager: http://www.ielearning.com/
Inquisiq:
http://www.icslearninggroup.com/prod...ent-system.htm

I work with ICS Learning Group, the Inquisiq developers, frequently and
am partial to their LMS. If you have any questions about that one
specifically, feel free to drop me an email directly (erik at capemedia
dot net).

More to the original topic, we don't use LMS products directly as we're
courseware developers, but we've developed a lot of training for a
variety of LMS products (Inquisiq, KnowledgePlanet [now "Mzinga"],
learn.com, etc.). I've not gotten into the features of any LMS beyond
the basic content, user, and reporting components so not really sure of
the value of other 'bells and whistles'.

To our clients, the most critical component of an LMS seems to be
reporting. Many of our clients require compliance training and need to
prove users have gone through it for whatever regulatory requirement.

As to Captivate, we rarely deliver a piece of courseware developed
solely in Captivate. Generally we use CP as one component - most
frequently to create any specific software simulations. For most other
content (instructional slides, animation, testing) we tend to use Flash.
We then combine everything together into one overall 'shell' (developed
in Flash) that contains all the SCORM communication and navigation controls.

I hope that was useful!
Erik

erlendbv wrote:

> So now, I want to hear your experiences. The word is free. I am very
> interested in hearing how fellow Captivaters use LMS to optimize workflow or
> value.
>
> To start off;
>
> 1) Which features do you value the most in the LMS?
> 2) How do you use it in combination with Captivate?

--
Erik Lord
http://www.capemedia.net
Adobe Community Expert - eLearning
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
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