How many times has this happened… a content provider and a third party LMS vendor tell you that their products are based on industry standards and are ‘integrated.’ Satisfied, you make the purchase, but when it is time to deploy the total solution, you discover that what you thought was meant by ‘standards-based’ and ‘integrated’ is not quite what was implied by the vendors. Suddenly you discover you have to pay for extra services and resources to get the truly integrated e-learning solution you expected and need.

So what is meant by a standards-based, integrated enterprise learning solution? There are multiple answers because standards-based and integrated are broad terms that have many interpretations. The real question to ask is: What do I need from an integrated e-learning solution? At a minimum, you need to prepare a checklist to walk through with your learning vendor to ensure that your expectations can be met and flush out any hidden costs that may be involved.

Here are a few of the basic integration questions you need to ask:

What kinds of industry standards does the system support? AICC, SCORM, SOA, others?

·        Can I launch the content from a portal or other enterprise application?

Where is the tracking information kept and how do I get access to it? Can I synch the data back to wherever I want, the LMS, the portal, an HRIS database?

How does content get imported and updated in my management system?  Can it be automated?

What kinds of content and related services are available that can be launched? Courseware, online books, or services like off-line play, mentoring, detailed search? Code judge engines? Learning portals?

These are just some of the details that need to be researched before you can determine whether an enterprise learning solution meets your needs. 

The Weakness of Traditional Content Integration Models

It’s no surprise that today’s standards for integrating content into a learning management or HCM system are extremely limited. As a result, a traditional content integration model is burdensome, inflexible and slow. It limits customers from fully benefiting from all of their learning solutions through their LMS. 

Meanwhile, content trends continue to add stress to the existing model. Content inventory is growing at a rapid pace along with the increasing variety of content types. Content is ever-changing and dynamic. Interdependent relationships among content objects and content–related services also add to the complexity of integration.

Enterprise systems like portals and LMSs are built on industry standards that allow delivery of only the basic features of content, and not any of the rich related services. With the traditional model, the richness of e-learning can only be experienced from the content provider’s proprietary system. 

Content needs to be delivered along with content services so that a student can experience the richness of e-learning from any system, not just from a system proprietary to that content.

But today’s content has a list of features that are impossible to fulfill by third party delivery systems that cannot stay on top of the fast moving content development market. You may not know it, but if you are using content on a third party system you are probably paying for content services your third party system can’t access for you.

For example, some e-learning courseware provides a link directly from within a course to connect the student with a live subject matter expert through chat or email. If you run this courseware using the proprietary delivery mechanism, your students could take advantage of this feature. But you wouldn’t be able to offer the mentoring service through a third party LMS without additional costly and time-consuming professional services involved.

Wouldn’t it be simpler if you could feel secure knowing that all of the above integration scenarios and others could be addressed by a learning solution? Today, some learning solutions are packaged with contact related services that allow you to easily manage the content from a third party system. And, your learners can get the full value out of the content by getting access to services like off-line play and mentoring without additional integration costs.

So how are these rich learning environments transferred through delivery systems that don’t understand them? It’s up to the content provider to provide not only the content but also all of its associated services to these systems to allow for learners to do more than just launch and track content. This cannot be achieved through traditional learning standards and integration models. What is needed is an extensible, Web-based architecture.

Lowering Integration Costs while Enriching the Learning Experience

Using a Web-based architecture, organizations can deliver pre-integrated content and learning solutions through third party systems to learning administrators and learners. Using this approach, organizations lower the overall costs of integration and simplify deployment of content and services for a much quicker, richer and more rewarding learning experience.

This type of architecture provides organizations with access to content and associated rich content services using third-party LMS systems, portals and other enterprise systems. 

Thus, content can be automatically loaded into another system and updated when new learning and book titles are released. In addition, learners can access additional complex content-related services like off-line play, performance management, mentoring and other advanced learning programs. 

The benefits of an open learning services architecture for the corporate learner and the learning administrator are clear. It provides easy integration of learning content into third party systems like LMSs, portals and other enterprise software. The effort required by the administrator to import courseware and keep content up to date with changes is greatly reduced. With the ability to import a Catalogue Hierarchy, administrators also can more easily organize content that makes sense for the learner.

Advanced Learning Solutions can be integrated into your LMS and made available to learners, making roll-out of new content much faster.

Learners get up and learning a lot sooner and have access to much richer learning, while administrators have less to worry about with regard to integration and can instead focus on learning initiatives that support their company’s business objectives.

Mark Townsend is responsible for all product development activities at SkillSoft. He has over 20 years of experience leading the development of computer software products. Prior to joining SkillSoft, Townsend was vice president of advanced technology for NETg.