This piece originally appeared on the Learning Pool website. I wrote it when I worked there.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) have been a staple of business training now and at the forefront of eLearning delivery. There’s a new concept though in delivering learning content and training: the Learning Experience Platform (LXP). So, does the rise of the LXP make the LMS redundant? And, do you need to choose between the two?

What is an LMS?

Put simply, an LMS is an online place to manage your learning. Think of a Learning Management System as a vast repository where you can store and track information. The most common use for LMS software is to deploy and track online training initiatives, used as the driving force behind your online learning and development strategy. The role of an LMS varies depending on the organisation’s objectives, online training strategy, and outcomes.

Anyone with a login and password can access these online training resources whenever and wherever. Online learners use the Learning Management System to participate in online training courses; and your learning and development team use the platform to disburse information and update the online training content.

Managers can easily create learning paths based on job role or department, guiding team members through programmes of learning. A host of other benefits can include, ensuring compliance by automating the refresh cycle report progress, managing appraisals and learning in a single place and completing performance reviews based on company goals.

The role of the LMS

Learning Management Systems have been the go-to solution for the delivery of training for increasing numbers of business and professional organisations. They’re the way many corporate learners receive their training, although they may not be aware of the LMS as it tends to sit in the background. It’s a top down' and 'managed' approach to learning.

The strength of the LMS has been its ability to manage both training and learners. It’s seen as an efficient way for L&D to meet the training needs of sizeable cohorts of learners, especially in areas like onboarding, mapping to competencies, planning, and reporting - closely aligned with formal training.

The eLearning courses often reflecting the approach and style of the instructor-led and classroom-based training that they’re replacing or complementing.

Content and the LMS

Content in a ‘Directed’ learning environment is likely to be course-based. There will be objectives, a set sequence of information and activities to run through and outcomes will probably be assessed, either formally (an exam of sorts) or informally (a survey or an unmarked quiz). All of this will have been created by the instructional design team and subject-matter experts. It will have taken time to develop. It is often ‘macro’ in length - hours or days, not minutes, to work through.

The LMS is ideally suited to launching and tracking this style of content; most likely the content will have been authored in a tool like Storyline or Adapt, packaged up as a SCORM file and uploaded to the LMS for playback.

What is an LXP?

With LXPs the key phrase is ‘learning experience’ (and note it is ‘learning experience’ rather than ‘learning management’). The experience part has two key aspects. Firstly, it raises the question of how learners experience the learning they take. Secondly, it emphasises that learning itself needs to be regarded as an experience. And that must include learning that more and more occurs outside of formal training. In the world of an LXP, the learner is central.

At the same time, the management and administration of learning and learners move to the background. The LXP emphasises the motivation of learners to seek out information as and when needed. It’s not prescriptive about the way we learn or how we access our learning. It offers a gateway to learning, promoting a self-directed' or 'entrepreneurial' style of learning. The LXP champions a holistic approach that embraces informal as well as formal learning and regards learning as a continuous process, providing relevance and accessibility by situating learning and training within the workflow.

LXP is Data Driven

Harnessing the power of xAPI, LXPs offer enhanced learning data, providing valuable insights for L&D professionals to support their iterative improvement of learning experiences, as well as allowing for new approaches. This data can be made available through intuitive LXP dashboards and reports, meaning rapid feedback and improvement. It also uses the AI-enhanced recommender system approach that we’re familiar with in our use of apps. It tracks learner choices and preferences to deliver personalised content.

With the benefits of a standardized data set, xAPI allows impact to be tracked and observed through easy access to the data, for example, through combining learning data with sales and performance data from other systems. And with these insights, LXPs will highlight the value of learning. Naturally, this should lead to better engagement with learning experiences, driving a virtuous circle where employees feel valued and supported to grow with your organisation.

By deploying an LRS like Learning Locker as part of the LXP ecosystem, we can capture data from multiple sources and a myriad of different content - at a level that the LMS itself just can't get to. If we then plug the LRS into corporate systems we can achieve the sought-after goal of linking learning outcomes to business performance.

The LXP Experience

A striking feature of an LXP is the way it looks. Its interface mirrors those we find elsewhere in our favourite apps like Netflix or Spotify. The UX design reflects the self-service approach to accessing content. It makes easy to find what you want where and when you need it.

An LXP also allows you to include links to externally produced content, as well as allowing you to add and curate your own content. This means you can make use of both in-house and external expertise. It underlines the importance of collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Content is not only created, but it’s also consistently expanded with new resources added.

The focus of a good LXP is to create engaged learning experiences by facilitating a much broader spectrum of content and media, allowing the user to determine their own learning journey, depending on their goal.

The other benefit this brings to organisations is a much lower burden of administration; LXPs tend to be much easier and more streamlined on the admin side, meaning more emphasis can be placed on the design of the learning experience itself.

Accessibility and the LXP

The LXP expands the potential variety of learning content you can make available. This ranges from courses to online books, blogs and vlogs, to embedded links, to user-generated content to appeal to different learner needs and preferences.

It can be accessed seamlessly on mobile devices allowing you to take learning with you and engage with it on the go. It also offers you the ability to download so you can access content off-line and sync your progress when you go back online.

Finding this content is made easier by the inclusion of a Google-grade search facility. The LXP also makes uses of microlearning strategies allowing for bite-sized chunks of learning to consolidate and refresh learning. Microcontent can be used for spaced practice to deepen and cement knowledge.

Content and LXP

A Learning Experience Platform might better fill these gaps and is more likely to offer shorter, ‘micro’ content to the users. The LXP is much more likely to signpost short resources such as videos, infographics, book summaries, podcasts and short articles. These pieces of content may or may not be hosted on the actual LXP software solution; it could have been curated from a 3rd party source and merely linked for discovery and tracking via the LXP.

LMS vs LXP - it’s not a contest

An LXP doesn’t dispense with formal learning or the LMS-delivered course but instead builds on that base to express graphically the idea that learning is a continuum. LXPs are about engagement. They move learning fully into the workflow and make it immersive, adaptive, and continuous.

Organisations are being asked to 'do more with less', and so top-down management of everyone's skills in an organisation is increasingly tricky. We need to develop our workforce cultures of self-directed learning, equipping learners to be able to help themselves - the LMS wasn't really designed for that, it was designed for a centrally managed approach.

It’s better perhaps to see the LMS as the backend and to see the LXP as the front. An LXP like Learning Pool’s Headstream is about improving the learning experience and representing a better understanding and delivery of what learners need. It’s responding to how today’s learners prefer to learn.

Although it’s tempting, it’d be wrong to see the LMS v LXP debate as a contest between competing systems.

It doesn’t have to be either/or. LXPs can work with existing LMSs. In fact, it’s less about LXPs replacing LMSs than about making the LMS invisible and enhancing access to it.

Sources

https://blog.logicearth.com/the-surprising-leap-from-lms-to-learning-experience-platform joshbersin.com/2017/06/a-new-world-of-corporate-learning-arrives-and-it-looks-like-tv https://www.learningpool.com/blog/by-the-power-of-elearning
https://www.learningpool.com/products/headstream-lxp elearningindustry.com/what-is-an-lms-learning-management-system-basic-functions-features
https://www.learningpool.com/blog/the-invisible-lms-why-ai-will-change-your-relationship-with-learning-management-systems
https://www.learningpool.com/blog/an-answer-google-doesnt-have-bringing-learning-into-the-workflow
https://www.ht2labs.com/7-habits-highly-effective-lxp/