The Key to Faster Content Management Within Your LMS

Any L&D professional who uses an LMS will know how tedious and time-consuming it can be to manage eLearning content across the organization. eLearning content is rarely a “set it and forget it” resource, and will often need to be audited, reviewed and updated – and that’s before you even consider fixing the little typos that ended up in the live version.

If you’re tired of waiting days or weeks for course edits to make it into your learning platform – potentially multiple times for the same course – we have just the solution to help speed up your LMS content delivery for good.

‍

Why is SCORM file management so time-consuming?

Virtually every LMS on the market requires learning admins to replace entire SCORM files every time an edit needs to be made to an eLearning course.

Of course, things change over time, and you’ll almost certainly need to edit outdated content, add new information, or make tweaks based on an enhanced understanding of the subject matter. If this is a lengthy or complex process, you’ll likely look for any excuse to avoid actually doing it, meaning the wrong information lives on in your eLearning content for much longer than it should.

There are many reasons you might need to update your eLearning content, such as:

• Replacing outdated information (such as changing industry regulations)
• Adding new information (such as a new product features)
• Updating branding (following a company rebrand)
• Fixing typos or other errors
• Swapping out broken links or images
• Clarifying instructions based on learner feedback

This process takes even longer if everything has to be funneled through your LMS admin. In this case, you can’t make these amends yourself – you’re reliant on a single individual to make the edits in order to reupload the new version of the SCORM file to the LMS. They may then need to replace the file in several locations, and what happens if they haven’t kept an accurate record of exactly where the eLearning content is available to learners?

This leaves your learning team frustrated and your learners potentially accessing inaccurate, outdated information, which is a real problem for your learning outcomes.

‍

Why dynamic content delivery is the answer

Put simply, dynamic content delivery is a way to update source content once, and replace all existing copies at the touch of a button.

Instead of deleting outdated files and replacing them with new ones, you can simply push a new version to the same link, using a “SCORM stub”. The same content can be used in multiple places, in multiple formats, allowing you to update the content once and replace it everywhere it’s published, simultaneously.

There are several benefits to choosing dynamic content delivery instead of traditional learning content management, including:

• Up to 90% time savings in your content launch workflow
• Giving learners access to updated content much faster
• Automating tedious manual tasks
• Eliminating duplication of effort by not requiring multiple uploads
• Reducing barriers to updating content
• Reducing the likelihood of human error
• Boosting the ROI of the L&D team, as they have time to focus on more useful tasks

‍

Accelerating LMS learning management with dynamic content delivery

The majority of large organizations, and many smaller ones, use an LMS to manage their online learning content. Everything from structured eLearning courses to standalone job aids and performance support, would make it significantly quicker and easier for your L&D team to get in, make the necessary edits and updates and publish it immediately.

The traditional process for uploading and updating eLearning on an LMS is:

1. The SME identifies the content to be updated
2. They request updates to the authoring team or learning vendor
3. Authors make the necessary updates to the content
4. Content is reviewed & approved by the necessary group(s)
5. They submit a ticket to the LMS admin, who makes the update(s)
6. The updated file is updated in the LMS
7. The updated content is available to learners

Dynamic content delivery allows you to skip the middle steps, which significantly speeds up the entire content delivery process – especially if you can skip doing five steps several times for content published in multiple places.

‍

‍

With dynamic content delivery, your content authors are empowered to collaborate directly with subject matter experts and obtain compliance approvals asynchronously. As soon as everything is in place, they can hit publish, and the new content is instantly live everywhere, instead of waiting days (or even weeks) for your LMS admin to get around to addressing your ticket and making the updates across your LMS.

‍

Beyond the big updates (such as amending business-critical compliance training or adding new modules for new product lines), this is invaluable for making those tiny content edits and amends that could otherwise take several days to fix. We’re talking typos, tweaking a brand color or replacing a single image – instead of this being a painful manual process that must be repeated across every instance of a resource, it can all be done by the content author within minutes, which could quickly add up to days of saved time.

‍

Measuring LMS engagement with dynamic content delivery

For any L&D team who uses an LMS, you may be wondering how tracking and measuring learning engagement compares when you switch from traditional SCORM files to dynamic content delivery. After all, if learners are effectively accessing content via a link, how can you be sure who’s accessing it?

The great news is that it’s just as easy to access all the learning data you’d get from traditional content management when you make the switch from SCORM files to dynamic SCORM stubs. You can get hold of all the information you’d normally get directly from your LMS as always.

However, dynamic content delivery also enables you to use xAPI content to capture additional information through your Learning Record Store (LRS). In the LRS, you can create data visualizations or export data into a Business Intelligence (BI) tool, such as Looker or Tableau, to dive even deeper into your data. Choosing an LCMS like dominKnow | ONE means you can capture data simultaneously in the LMS and LRS in real-time, cutting out any extra export steps while still allowing you to keep on top of all your learning data.

‍

OK, so… what’s this magic dynamic content delivery tool?

Convey is dominKnow’s dynamic content delivery tool. It streamlines the learning content distribution process by allowing your authoring team to quickly get content updates into your LMS (or other platforms, such as your intranet, LXP or website) without the tedious administrative process of waiting for specialist admins to handle your content updates.

‍

“Using dominKnow | ONE and Convey reduced content development time from 3-6 months to weeks. We used to spend 90% of our time maintaining content and searching for content requiring updates somewhere across our LMS or SharePoint workspace. Now we can update content instantly without having to track it down. Simple and efficient.”

• Ed Hjorth, Digital Content Lead, MicroFocus (an OpenText company)

Convey is the ultimate tool for fast-tracking content distribution for any organization using an LMS, no matter how large or complex your content catalog may be. With dominKnow | ONE’s learning content templates, you can create eLearning content from scratch, publish it to your LMS (in one or many locations), make edits and updates and push them directly from the authoring interface directly to the LMS in minutes.

If you create a lot of your own learning content, or would like to start, the good news is that Convey synchronizes seamlessly with the dominKnow | ONE Learning Content Management System (LCMS). Our single-sourcing approach to content creation enables you to create content once, then reuse this “master content” to produce a host of supplementary learning materials at the touch of a button. With Convey, you don’t need to worry about updating every piece of content individually – the combination of single-sourcing and dynamic content delivery means it can be done in moments, with no manual effort.

‍

An LMS + Convey dynamic content delivery case study

A market-leading software security client needed a way to educate external customers, including:

• Structured self-study learning programs with completion tracking
• Informal access to the same programs
• Just-in-time access to software-related information

The client needed to reduce its production time while also ensuring that all content remained consistent and up to date, no matter where their customers accessed the learning.

The Convey dynamic content delivery tool allows the customer to deliver all three forms of learning. The client can publish courses within Convey, which then connects to the LMS for launching (and tracking where needed), along with website versions and a Knowledge Base, which acts as a performance support resource for all external customers. Thanks to Convey, they can easily make edits to content, such as when new software features are launched, and push them out to all relevant platforms for consistent, fully up-to-date learning.

‍

‍

“We’re doing things we didn’t think were possible. With dominKnow | ONE, we’ve increased our NPS score 30 points and significantly reduced our development time from 3-6 months to weeks! Now all of our users are getting consistent information wherever they are and most importantly, when they need it. Overall, dominKnow | ONE and Convey have changed how we create and deliver content.” 

Whether you’re a one-person L&D team or have the support of a multinational learning group, the Convey dynamic content delivery tool will save you time, help protect the accuracy and quality of your content and, above all, make the jobs of learning professionals significantly easier.

Ready to see how Convey can cut your learning content management time by up to 90%? We’d love to show you how quick and easy it can be to distribute your learning content within your LMS. Schedule your demo today to see how Convey works!

‍